Social Character in a Mexican Village

by Maccoby,Michael

• ISBN13: 9781560008767
• ISBN10: 1560008768
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1996-04-01
• Publisher: Transaction Pub

Summary

After the completion of the revolution in 1920, Mexico quickly became an increasingly industrialized country. The vast changes that occurred in the first fifty years after the revolution inspired Erich Fromm and Michael Maccoby to find out how the Mexican people were adapting. The result, Social Character in a Mexican Village, provides a new approach to the analysis of social phenomena. The authors applied Fromm's theories of psychoanalysis to the study of groups. They devised an ingenious method of questionnaires, which, combined with direct observation, clearly revealed the psychic forces that motivated the peasant population. In his new introduction, Michael Maccoby thoroughly explains the basis of the study, how it originated, and how it was carried out. He goes on to delineate the results and determine their impact on the present day. Social Character in a Mexican Village throws new light on one of the world's most pressing problems, the impact of the industrialized world on the traditional character of the peasant. This ground-breaking work will be invaluable to the work of sociologists, anthropologists, and psychoanalysts.

Author Biography

Michael Maccoby has taught at the College of the University of Chicago, The National Autonomous University of Mexico, and the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Table of Contents

Introduction to the Transaction Edition
Foreword
The Social Character of the Peasant and Problems of Methodology	p. 1
A Mexican Peasant Village	p. 31
A Socioeconomic and Cultural Picture of the Village	p. 41
The Theory of Character Orientations	p. 68
The Character of the Villagers	p. 83
Character, Socioeconomic and Cultural Variables	p. 126
Sex and Character	p. 144
Alcoholism	p. 156
The Formation of Character in Childhood	p. 179
Possibilities for Change: Character and Cooperation	p. 203
Conclusions	p. 226
Appendix A: The Interpretative Questionnaire and Examples of Scoring	p. 239
Appendix B: Scoring Agreement and the Use of the Rorschach and Thematic Apperception Tests	p. 271
Bibliography	p. 292
Index	p. 295
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