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“The purpose of this book is to describe a technique for studying the reciprocal relations between culture and personality and to furnish a reliable critique of cultural forms.” Kardiner feels that the individual and his culture exert a never ending cyclical effect upon each other. This can be understood by examining the culture in terms of the mental and emotional life of the individuals comprising that society. The technique consists of delineating the characteristics of the “basic personality type” of a given society; studying the effects this type has upon the institutions and the counter-effect of the institutions upon the personality. This study led to conclusions on the factors responsible for social stability, the factors leading to individual instability and to an attempt at an unbiased evaluation of our own civilization.
“Basic personality type” is defined as that group of characteristics shared by the bulk of the members of a society. It does not correspond to the total personality of any individual, but is, rather, the common matrix upon which individual variations are superimposed. This concept is based upon several assumptions: (1) that man is “the least dominated by inborn behavior patterns,” because of delayed myelinization; (2) that the early experiences of an individual leave a permanent effect upon his character; (3) that the techniques of child rearing are culturally patterned, tending to be similar in any given society; and (4) as a result of these early experiences shared by the members of a society, there is a unique basic personality type for each society.
These postulates led to the conclusion that if one knew the effects of particular institutions