Child Training and Personality

This book is a report of the authors' investigations concerned with the interrelationships between the early experiences of an individual as they affect his personality and the personality characteristics of the individual as they determine the beliefs and practices of his society. They approached this complex question by making use of cross-cultural techniques utilizing the correlational method to test general hypotheses about culture and personality. The source material utilized in the study consists of extracts from ethnographic reports about the culture of 75 primitive societies, which were selected because the descriptions contained the material the authors felt was necessary to fulfill their criteria. The document representative of our own society chosen for inclusion is the study by Davis and Havighurst (1946, 1947) made in Chicago in the early 1940's. The methodology employed by the authors and the definition of their terminology is clearly described so that the reader should have little difficulty in placing himself within their frame of reference. This writer feels that inclusion of more descriptive and illustrative material would have made it easier to follow the development of their hypotheses. For their interpretation of the effect of certain child care practices on personality development, the authors have utilized psychoanalytic theory reformulated in terms of learning theory. Thus they follow a method which promises to be increasingly fruitful in the understanding of personality development: that of restating existing psychoanalytic principles and deriving additional hypotheses from the broad outlines of psychoanalysis, posing them in a form in which they can be tested. The authors contribute an approach to future research which deserves the careful consideration of those persons interested in this field of study. The book is not intended to be interpreted as giving advice on child care and training and the reader who is interested in it primarily from this viewpoint is cautioned against trying to take this over into his own child care practices. SALLY PROVENCE