CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY CH.5: Personality and Gender

Vocabulary in chapter five of Jack David Eller's Cultural Anthropology textbook.

cultural ontology

a society’s system of notions about what kind of things (including kinds of people) exist in the world and their characteristics and social value. A socially specific way of categorizing and valuing the physical and social world

Personality

the distinctive ways of thinking, feeling, and acting of an individual

psychic unity of mankind

the position, held by virtually all anthropologists, that all humans across culture and history possess the same basic mental capabilities and processes

psychological anthropology

the specialty within anthropology that examines the relationship between culture and the individual, that is, the mutual interactions of cultural processes and mental/psychological processes and the cultural variability of psychological experiences such as dreams, emotions, and mental illness

basic personality

the psychological traits common to most or all of the members of a society

national character

the common or dominant personality traits in a particular society, especially for large-scale modern state societies like China, Russia, and the United States

modal personality

the statistically most common personality traits in a society

ethnopsychology

the psychological theory or understanding used by any particular society, including its ideas about and uses of emotions, dreams, mental illness, and personhood most generally

sexual dimorphism

the occurrence of two physically distinct forms of a species, based on sexual characteristics as well as non-sexual ones such as body size

gender

the occurrence of two physically distinct forms of a species, based on sexual characteristics as well as non-sexual ones such as body size

berdache

a Native American gender category, typically for biological males who adopted some aspects of female display, work, and sometimes sexuality

eunuch

a gender category involving non-sexual individuals (usually men), who may be castrated or merely celibate, sterile, or lacking sexual desire

hijra

a third gender in India, for individuals who are socially neither men nor women; they sometimes form their own social groups and serve important ritual functions

travesti

an alternate gender role in Brazil, in which males take on certain physical traits and sexual behaviors typically associated with females

primitive mentality

a mindset opposing a rational mentality associated with dreams, children, neurosis, and “primitive cultures”