National character research descended from ancient ethnographic stereotypes

Evidence

The first efforts to understand the psychology of mass populations go back to the accounts by writers in the ancient world, such as Tacitus, of the character of the inhabitants of remote tribes and nations. Such disquisitions are an antecedent of the vexed post-World War II national character literature in which often ill-documented ethnographic reports and cultural artifacts such as child-rearing manuals, films, and popular fiction were used to draw sweeping conclusions about modal national character traits. That literature came therefore to be known to students of politics mainly for its methodological shortcomings, but it anticipated later, more systematic studies of political culture (Inkeles & Levinson, 1967; Inkeles, 1983). — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 1188

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the ‘small acts of decorum’ theme and to debates about stereotyping and essentialism; also echoes the soundscape book’s treatment of how sweeping cultural claims rest on thin evidence.