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In their slim, saturated volume, , Weinstein and Platt state that
personality is articulated to … social modes at all structural … [and] age levels. There are no actions which do not have social or psychological significance, and there are no thoughts which are not to some recognizable degree structured by particular historical and social circumstances. Both conscious and unconscious activities are influenced by the standards which prevail in particular times and places.17a
This reciprocal arrangement between societal and personality structures is facilitated by the psychological process of identification. Therefore, an individual's relationship with his love objects is a major determinant, not only in the development of his psychic organization, that is, in the formation of his character, but also in the development of a culture and in the organization of a society. The esteemed, the loved or the feared one, the source of physical and psychological security, wields the power to delimit expression of impulses, to model competent management of drives, and to impose standards of gratification.16 The essential nature of the limitations, competencies, and ideals are in turn largely determined by the culture which has influenced the model. While this does not negate either the transformations imposed upon the normative culture by the transmitter, nor the idiosyncratic perceptions of the receiver, it does emphasize the interrelationship between societal structures on the one hand, and intrapsychic structure and character on the other.
The process of identification has been studied in various circumstances and from a variety of theoretical points of view. The psychoanalytic literature on identification is extensive: the definitions,