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Re: BEHAVIOUR
Read, Dwight ANTHRO (Read@ANTHRO.SSCNET.UCLA.EDU)
Sun, 7 May 1995 08:49:00 PDT
Diez writes:
"How about cultural influence, does it produces abnormal personalities?
Setting aside the biological/genetic factors and focus only on the formation
of the member in a particular culture."
I am a bit uncertain as to what is being asked. I take it the question is:
if we consider only individuals who are "normal" from a biological/genetic
viewpoint, does cultural influence on such persons lead to abnormal
personalities? This seems to presume an absolute measure of "abnormal
personality" which can be used even after all instances of so-called abnormal
personality which arise from biological/genetic factors are removed. If this
is a correct reading of the question, then delineation of these absolute
measures of "abnormal personalities" and what comes under them needs to be
resolved, I think, before one can say anything about "cultural influence."
On the other hand, if the question has to do with cultural categorization of
behaviors as abnormal, then clearly culture does "produce" abnormal
personalities. Henry Selby's book on the Zapotec may be relevant to this
dicussion (the title escapes me at the moment).
D. Read
READ@ANTHRO.SSCNET.UCLA.EDU
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