The Comparative Study of Cultures

Abstract

The problems of individual and group adjustment are related to a cultural situation and therefore involve studies of cultures, of social organization and education, of the capacity and opportunity of the individual for adjustment, of the failures in adaptation, and of the changes in cultural situations which require continuous readjustment. As the social sciences become concerned with the problems of human behavior especially in its relation with problems of education, contacts of races and nationalities, crime and insanity, there is a renewed interest in the comparative examination of the specific cultural systems of racial and national groups and the behavior of individuals in special cultural situations. In this paper it is assumed (1) that the diversities in behavior are the result of different interpretations of experience rather than different levels in a uniform course of cultural evolution, (2) that the theories of difference in degrees of mental endowment among races and populations have not been sustained, and (3) that emphasis should be placed on the culture area rather than on the natural environment. The reaction of personalities to the cultural situation can best be approached in terms of the definition of the situation. On the social level these definitions are represented by moral and legal codes, political policies, organizations, and institutions. Culture epochs and mass conversions are inaugurated by the propaganda of definitions of the situations.