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The historically segregated nature of human groups has led to innumerable particularistic and incompatible belief systems. Residuals of these belief systems remain to plague modern society and the individual alike.
These systems of fixed belief offer resistance to change. In this paper, I shall be concerned with these resistances to change and will outline an aspect of the personality which I shall call the principle of irrational loyalty.
A major concern here is how constancy of beiefs is maintained. It is well known both that people have belief systems not fully in conscious awareness and that the belief systems are extremely resistant to change. Much of the work on beliefs has been in specialized topics, such as authoritarianism and prejudice (Adorno,1 Rokeach).9 However, in this essay I would like to apply the construct “belief” to more general aspects of personality. In my analysis of irrational loyalty, I will seek to demonstrate the following principle: Enculturation is restrictive of acculturation. Which is to say, the individual's initial primary group experience, organized within the content of personality, inhibits his learning experiences in subsequent groups. By content of personality I refer to the individual's beliefs, conscious and unconscious, the sum of which constitute the totality of his experience with the world. In my analysis of the principle of irrational loyalty I will seek to demonstrate the following:
That those beliefs, patterned initially in the family subculture, pattern human development in ways consistent with irrational loyalty.
That the major impact of irrational loyalty is in the segregating tendency manifest in the restriction of human intimacy.