From Social Psychology to Cultural Psychology: The Redemption of Personality

Abstract

This paper is about the relation between personality and society regarding the contrast between Eastern and Western cultures. I first explain the psychological bases for individual differences in general. I then turn to Western individualism, especially in Germany. The historical roots of individualization are discussed in reference to philosophers of life and psychoanalysts. For these thinkers the focus is on sexual life as the pivot of personal identity. Ancestor worship, on the other hand, is the Chinese way (dao) to humanity (ren). Consequently, European individualism and egalitarianism on the level of globalization are found to be the mirror opposite of the call to hierarchy and harmony (hé) in Chinese communitarian society. In the outlook that follows, I propose a new synthesis of the two different patterns of culture. Cultural psychology, as I understand it, occupies an intermediate position between individual psychology and social psychology, saving personality from being nivellized by global consumerism.