Personality and the cultural construction of society : papers in honor of Melford E. Spiro / edited by David K. Jordan and Marc J. Swartz.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Jordan, David K., 1931-

Swartz, Marc J.

Spiro, Melford E.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Spiro, Melford E.

Personality and culture.

Ethnopsychology.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (416 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Tuscaloosa : University of Alabama Press, 1990.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Psychological anthropology is a vital area of contemporary social science, and one of the field's most important and innovative thinkers is Melford E. Spiro. This volume brings together sixteen essays that review Spiro's theoretical insights and extend them into new areas. The essays center on several general problems: In what ways is it meaningful to speak of a social act as having ""functions""? What elements and processes of human personality are universal, and why? What is the relationship between religion and personality? Why?

Contents:

Contents; Acknowledgments; Introduction; PART I: NONTELEOLOGICAL FUNCTIONALISM; 1. Melford Spiro and the Scientific Study of Culture / Kevin Avruch; 2. Natural Objects and Substitutive Acts: The Symbolic Process in the Anthropologies of Durkheim and Freud / Michael E. Meeker; 3. Culturally Constituted Defenses and the Theory of Collective Motivation / Cananath Obeyesekere; 4. Eufunctions, Dysfunctions, and Oracles: Literary Miracle Making in Taiwan / David K. Jordan; 5. Aggressive Speech, Status, and Cultural Distribution among the Swahili of Mombasa / Marc J. Swartz

PART II: CULTURE AND PERSONALITY, GENDER ROLES, THE OEDIPUS COMPLEX, AND DREAMS; 6. Culture and Personality: A False Dichotomy / Roy G. D'Andrade; 7. On the ""Petticoat Government"" of the Eighteenth-Century Cherokee / Raymond D. Fogelson; 8. Male and Female in Four Changing Cultures / George and Louise Spindler; 9. Cloths of Heaven: Freud, Language, and the Negation in Pitjantjatjara Dreams / Aram Yengoyan; 10. From Empathy to Alienation: Problems in Human Belonging / George De Vos; PART III: RELIGION AND PERSONALITY; 11. Religion beyond the Functionalist Frontier / Manning Nash

12. Recruitment to Monasticism among the Sherpas / Robert A. Paul; 13. Ritual Trance and Catharsis: A Psychobiological and Evolutionary Perspective / William Wedenoja; 14. Human Nature as ""Deep Structure"": Implications for Comparative Study / Erika Bourguignon; PART IV: AGGRESSION, DEPENDENCY, AND THE SKILLS OF SOCIAL MANIPULATION; 15. Aggression, Social Skill, and Strategy in Daily Life: A Baboon Case History / Shirley C. Strum; 16. Whatever Happened to the Other Eye? / F. G. Bailey; Works Cited; Contributors; Index

Notes:

Includes index.

Bibliography: p. 359-389.

ISBN:

0-8173-8408-1

OCLC:

650060120