{"id":346,"date":"2020-04-05T12:22:44","date_gmt":"2020-04-05T16:22:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/?p=346"},"modified":"2021-05-10T14:32:32","modified_gmt":"2021-05-10T18:32:32","slug":"the-national-personality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/?p=346","title":{"rendered":"The National Personality"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Screen<\/a>Social psychology being what it is, I\u2019m sure there is compelling research around that points to a few, fully factor-analyzed descriptors that claim to describe the defining characteristics of any given group. The Brits are stoical and \u2018stiff-upper lipped\u2019. The Danes are \u2018happy\u2019. The French emotionally effusive. Republicans are right-winged. Socialists aren\u2019t. And, if we skate much to close to the politically incorrect line drawn so vividly in the psychological sand by Arthur Jensen, and his infamous \u2018heritability factor\u2019 for IQ (whatever that means anymore), we start seeing unsupported racial differences. The stereotypes are endless. Also, facile, reductionist, and \u2018convenient\u2019. <\/p>\n

Happily, I\u2019m not a social psychologist. But I do fancy myself a keen observer of humans and human behavior. Working my way through this weekend\u2019s Globe & Mail, two pieces caught my eye \u2014 with illustrative photographs attached. As has been the publication\u2019s wont in the past several weeks, the current pandemic has served as the<\/em> connecting theme. (How could it be otherwise?) The first article was driven by the fast-evolving guidelines (now bylaws) governing urban public behavior. Specifically, Toronto\u2019s attempts to regulate how we use our green spaces in an era that demands physical separation. Mayor John is quoted:<\/p>\n

We are not saying don\u2019t go to the park. We\u2019re just asking people to engage in common sense behaviour and to take account of the fact they need to separate themselves from other people that they don\u2019t live with.
\n<\/em>
\nA bit later in the same piece, \u2018pedestrian advocate\u2019 Michale Black frets about enforcement and encroachment on the \u2018basic freedom\u2019 of moving around on foot. Hold that thought, all you Canadians.<\/p>\n

I continue to thumb (actually, index and middle finger on my laptop) the edition. And before reading the next bit, have a quick peek at the second photo in this post. That\u2019s truly what grabbed my attention. Citizens of Culver City, California, lined up waiting to access another basic freedom<\/em>, the constitutional right to bear arms. Or as it is now interpreted, to own guns. In this case, in record numbers and for the most \u2018defensible\u2019 (no apologies for the double entendre) of reasons: \u201cThe cops won\u2019t go after petty crimes when they\u2019re dealing with the virus. If you don\u2019t protect yourself, who\u2019s going to do it for you?\u201d, queries the thirty something as he bolsters his stash of shotgun shells. I was particularly struck by the representative \u2018line-up\u2019, including the dog in arms \u2014 I\u2019d guess he\u2019s favouring a \u2018comfortable in the paw, light caliber model\u2019.<\/p>\n

And so there we have it. Two solitudes. To be sure, the polarities are simplistic, ignoring of the many individual differences within any population: the \u2018reticent Italian\u2019, the \u2018unapologetic Canadian\u2019. But defining enough to have gun stores declared essential services in the US and park access as a basic human right in its neighbor to the north. I can recall my disbelief on that November night four years ago as the returns shifted and POTUS turned red. The not so silent majority had spoken \u2014 and continues to do so. In a time of crisis, the struggle to defend, entrench, protect (in the most visceral of ways) defining one pole of a national personality; the challenge of pulling together, supporting, affiliating, uniting \u2014 when the \u2018rules\u2019 say otherwise \u2014 describing the other. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Social psychology being what it is, I\u2019m sure there is compelling research around that points to a few, fully factor-analyzed descriptors that claim to describe the defining characteristics of any given group. The Brits are stoical and \u2018stiff-upper lipped\u2019. The Danes are \u2018happy\u2019. The French emotionally effusive. Republicans are right-winged. Socialists aren\u2019t. And, if we […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=346"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":506,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346\/revisions\/506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}