Introduction - talks about african personality PDF

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INTRODUCTION The word “personality” originates from the Latin word persona, which means, “mask”. Personality as a field of study began with Hippocrates, a physician in ancient Greece, who theorized that personality traits and human behaviors are based on four separate temperaments associated with four fluids of the body known as “humors”. This theory, known as humorism proposed that an individual’s personality was the result of the balance of these humors (yellow bile, black bile, phlegm, and blood), which corresponded to four dispositions (grumpy, melancholy, calm, and cheer, respectively). While this theory is no longer held to be true, it paved way for further discoveries and insights into human personality. Cross-cultural factors in personality has always been present in the careers and theories of certain individuals even though it was not a mainstream focus of attention. By emphasizing biological factors (i.e., genetics), Freud’s theory did not allow for cultural differences. Behavioural theorists emphasized environmental factors, a seemingly cultural approach, but they did not allow themselves to address factors beyond immediate scientific control. Thus, they defined with great precision the role of reinforcement, punishment, discriminative stimuli, etc., while not allowing for the richness of cognition and cultural experiences. Likewise, cognitive theorists clung to the scientific approach of the behaviorist, rather than embracing the potential of sociocultural differences. Several attempts made to discuss “personality” whether European, African, or Asian, is usually attended by a great deal of controversy, which depends on whether one seeks to understand it as a political, anthropological, sociological or cultural concept. Many studies sought to identify the nature of personality among Africans in terms of Western ideals, values, and socioeconomic and technological advancement. This biased view created a very negative

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attitude toward the people of Africa, a negative attitude that the people of Africa often adopted themselves. Thus, the study of personality fell into disrepute, and largely came to a halt. However, a number of professionals from other disciplines, such as sociology and anthropology, continued to examine whether or not there were characteristics common to the people of Africa, a unique and valuable personality distinct from other regions of the world. The African traditional approach attempts to show where the African personality derives its “soul”. It makes allowance for the fact of impingement of other cultures and lifestyles upon the practical manifestations of philosophical situations. DEFINITION OF HUMAN PERSONALITY Funder (1997) defined human personality as “an individual’s characteristic pattern of thought, emotion, and behavior, together with the psychological mechanisms (hidden or not) behind those pattern”. Characteristic sampling of the information in the environment, which corresponds to the sampling that occurs in different cultures, can be one of the bases of individual differences in personality. Personality may also be defined as a configuration of cognitions, emotions, and habits activated when situations stimulate their expression. Generally, they determine the individual’s unique adjustment to the world. This definition is supported by research that indicated the importance of the situation, for example, the authoritarian personality is characterized by submission to authorities, aggression toward people who are different, and conventionalism. Personality refers to individual differences in characteristics patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving. The study of personality focuses on two broad areas: one understands individual differences in particular personality characteristics, such as sociability or irritability. The other understands how the various parts of a person come together as a whole. 2

AFRICAN TRADITIONAL APPROACH African traditional approach is an approach with concepts that originates within a culture or society which seeks to understand the world through the intersection with all aspects of the world and people. It is holistic and humanistic, and it focuses on interdependence, collective survival, harmony, an important role for the aged, the oral tradition, continuity of life, and rhythm. In addition, there is a fundamental belief in a metaphysical connection between all that exists within the universe, through an all pervasive energy or “spirit” that is the essence of all things. At the center of the African traditional approach is spirit, or life itself, a vital force that animates the universe and that imparts feeling to all things from God down to the smallest grain of sand. Although this spirit pervades all things, there is a distinct hierarchy among the things that make up the universe. At the top of the hierarchy is God, followed by the ancestors (including the founders of the tribes, aka the “god-like-ones) and the living. Then come the animals, plants, minerals. Being in the center, humans hold a privileged position. As living beings, people are able to increase their being (existentialism). The source of spirit, and the spiritness within each person, is divine, and transcends both the physical universal and time. Thus, it can connect us to any person, place, or thing. This is part of the basis for African traditional approach. AFRICAN CONCEPT OF MAN The African’s conception of man sees biological life and spiritual life meeting in the human being and neither the one nor the other being present alone. The essence of human life is the unity of both principles. Man shares biological life (natural life) with the animal, but spiritual life divides him from the animal and gives him his “personality”. 3

The African view of the universe and of man within that universe is profoundly religious. They see it as religious and treat it as such; and, while there are many different accounts of the creation of the universe among African people, one can generalize that man is the center of the universe. He is the priest of the universe, linking the universe with God, its creator; Man awakens the universe. It is man who turns parts of the universe into sacred objects, and who uses other things for sacrifices and offerings. These are constant reminders to people that they regard it as a religious universe. Man, according to African thought is constructed for reproduction. To leave no heirs behind him is the worst evil that can befall a man and there is no curse more terrible than to wish an African man or woman to die childless. For this reason, child bearing is an obligation, and it is fulfilled through marriage, which is the uniting link in the rhythm of life. All generations are bound together in the act of marriage (past, present and future generations). “The past generations are many but they are represented in one’s parents; the present generation is represented in one’s own life, and future generations begin to come on the stage through childbearing”. AFRICAN TRADITIONAL APPROACH TO THE STUDY OF HUMAN PERSONALITY The human person in the African traditional approach is a member of the universe. The human person is a major existent in the entire cosmos. He/she is the link between the spiritual and the material world. This human person is a complementary composite of diverse parts of which an immaterial substance (soul or spirit/mind) and a material substance (body) are the most outstanding units. The human personality is a very complex structure whose operation can be understood in terms of the power and the interactions of both the spirit and the material substances. The powers 4

of these two components of human person give rise to the basic natural placement of the human person. With these two components, the three aspects of the human person are realized: the transcendental, the communal, and the individual. These contributes to constitute personal identity, which is always in need of perfectibility. The material aspect of the human person is so important that it is valued and respected. Much care is taken to preserve it and promote its health, since death to it means an end to its existence in the present world. The spiritual element of the human person is two namely: the soul and the mind. The soul is interchangeably with the “spirit”. The spirit is another aspect of the human person, which is the spiritual, the invisible and the determinant of ontological-transcendental being and the functioning of the human person. Human personality within the African traditional approach is said to be influenced in its formation and development by a number of cultural/group socialization processes, local African traditions and customs, including “dance, songs, story-telling, heroic recitations, poetry, worksongs, dirges, and other oral art forms” (Mlama, 1995: 25). Other social processes in this regard include “songs of insult, challenge or satirical comment used as ‘politically effective weapons” (Finnegan, 1970: 172) through which the young in Africa are taught, individually and in groups, to reflect on high levels of emotional maturity as valorized in the community in which they are a part. RESOURCES AND PROCESSES IN THE CULTIVATION OF HUMAN PERSONALITY IN AFRICA 1. Instruments of promotion of human personhood. Apart from those resources and processes dedicated to the cultivation of human personhood in Africa, there are others such as direct teaching, peer modelling, and apprenticeship/ responsibility training, or the process of early-childhood "responsibilization". 5

The last entails the child being made to step into adult roles as early in life as possible, for instance by being sent on errands and being involved in home chores. Through this process, the African child is made to get involved early in living a life of responsibility through contributing, no matter how little, to the economy of the household. This is where there is a lack of congruence between the African approach to child upbringing and the Western way, where the child is made to believe that s/he is there to be served rather than to serve; and where before they (Western children) agree to get involved in taking care of home chores that fit their age, they may demand that a deal be struck so that they are paid for the services rendered. In contrast, African children in the rural communities see it, through African cultural induction, as part of their responsibility to participate in keeping clean the village streams as well as the footpath that leads to the village market or the village square. Through peer modelling, in particular, the African individual is able to draw guidance for his/her life and social conduct from the exemplary behaviours of his or her peers. Through the avenue of songs and proverbs, the young are given some thoughtful principles for reflecting upon life and for orienting themselves successfully through life. In this way, the evolution of human persons within the African traditional approach is conceived of, partly, as a kind of moral practice (Taylor, 1989; Cushman, 1993). And where such processes of humanization of the individual's personhood in the African context successfully runs its course and the beneficiary internalizes and adopts and lives by the moral visions they embody, the individual comes to present a well cultivated human personhood. 2. Multiple agents of promotion of human personhood.

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Agents dedicated to the promotion of human personhood in rural Africa are many and varied. They include not only one's direct parents but also all older adults of the community, such as our school teachers, including our "other mothers", and in particular, our older siblings, the latter through the phenomenon of sibling teaching and caretaking (Mweru, 2005). Hence, there is emphasis on multiple attachment and caretaking of the child in the African context (Nsamenang & Lamb, 1995; Mweru, 2005), with the result that, supervision of children's social conduct is a decentralized process, and a community affair. Social modeling is also emphasized in the African context. Fathers like to instil in their sons, and mothers in their daughters, their own behavioural signatures and patterns (Achebe, 1958). This means that in the African context the home and the community participate in the coconstruction of human subjectivities and thus represent the signature of human agency and personhood in the African paradigm, complementarily influencing people's ongoing personal development (Schneider, 2010). It should also be noted that here, in all cultures in Africa, the usual assumption is that excessive compliance to the child's wishes and requests will spoil the child (Achebe, 1958). In addition, according to the Ghanaian philosopher Kwame Gyekye (1988), the wellcultured African individual, although originating from, and inextricably bound to, his family and community, nevertheless possesses a clear concept of himself or herself as a distinct person of volition. Indeed, according to Gyekye, it is from this combined sense of personhood and communal membership that the family and community expect individuals to take personally enhancing and socially responsible decisions and actions. Hence, although Gyekye (1988: 31) accepts that the dominant entity of the African social order is the community, he, at the same time, proposes that "it would be more correct to describe that

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order as amphibious, for it manifests features of both communality and individuality" (see also Nwoye, 2006). This is because the African psychological perspective seeks to avoid the excesses of the two exaggerated systems, while allowing for a meaningful, albeit uneasy, interaction between the individual and the community. In this way, the psychological maturity of the individual in the African context is measured by the extent to which he or she is able to balance successfully this complex equation of being both communal and individual in his or her orientation to the world (Nwoye, 2006). FACT ABOUT AFRICAN TRADITIONAL APPROACH 1. Most of the theories discussed were developed in Europe or America 2. At present, no specific theory was developed to describe personality according to the African perspective. 3. In the past, psychological knowledge was based on the Western view of the individual as independent and autonomous. 4. Recent cross-cultural approaches focused on the way people define themselves in terms of their relationships to others & social groups 5. This implies a fundamental difference in the way people view themselves. 6. African and Asian perspective is based on collectivist view. 7. They regard people as interdependent – means people’s behaviour is guided by consideration for the well-being of others ad the community. 8. The African worldview implies people are not separate from the cosmos. 9. It includes the spiritual world, nature and living things and the communities they live in.

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10. African perspective on personality is based on the community and the collective forces that shape behaviour African perspective attributes behaviour to external agents. FEATURES OF THE INDIVIDUALIST AND COLLECTIVIST COMMUNITY Specific characteristics according to the individualist and collectivist viewpoints can be seen as follows: Collectivism

Individualism

First the community then the individual (I am because we are) 1. Dependence on people 2. Strong group pressure 3. Individual initiative not appreciated –

1. Individual independence 2. Opinion of the group is not that NB 3. Individual initiative high regarded – personal

god relations are priority

achievement more NB than attention to

community 4. Co-operation 4. Competition 5. Duties towards the community are 5. Rights of individual emphasized emphasized 6. Values such as friendliness, helpfulness, 6. Values such as formality, independence and patience and brotherhood

self-sufficiency

CONCLUSION When looking at the African perspective we must not generalize

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