What is the relationship personality and culture?

Answer 1

It's debatable. Around the 1940s there was a rather prominent school of anthropology, including great anthropologists Ruth Benedict and Margaret Meade, who considered that culture was itself "personality writ large," meaning that culture could itself be used as a predictor of the general character of individuals belonging to a group. This theory was commonly accepted in lay as well as academic circles -- the Japanese, for example, were considered to have a certain "Japanese" character, which was distinct from the American or French ones. Subsequent studies, however, have disproved this notion. It is now understood by both psychologists and anthropologists that in any given human group a range of personality traits are to be expected.

That is not to say, however, that groups themselves don't have certain constrains of what is desirable and what is not, and which through enculturation shape our values and our behavior. Cultures vary in traits such as when it is appropriate to express appreciation or affection, and this may result in impressions like, say, that the British tend to be reserved while Mexicans tend to be outspoken. These rules, however, have a limited impact upon the shaping of personality. Although both personality and culture shape a person's behavior, personality is much more intrinsic to the individual, and determines a person's thought process and internal reactions; whereas culture changes over time and is constructed "in-between" people's minds through communications, ideologies, worldviews, governance, etc.