Several psychoanalytic writers have attributed cultural differences in personality to pregenital fixation. The present study empirically assessed oral fixation in Hindu, Muslim, and Protestant college students. Questionnaire measures of oral optimism and oral pessimism character traits were administered to 206 English college students (47 Hindus, 96 Muslims, and 63 Protestants). Analysis of means showed that Protestants displayed significantly more oral optimism traits than the Hindus. No significant differences were found between Protestant and Muslim means or between Hindu and Muslim means. No mean differences were found for oral pessimism traits. Further research examining cultural differences of infantile experiences is proposed before conclusions are drawn regarding the etiology of the reported differences.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
AbrahamK. (1924) The influence of oral eroticism on character formation. In Selected papers of Karl Abraham. London: Hogarth. Pp. 393–406.
2.
AlexanderF. (1950) Psychosomatic medicine. New York: Norton.
3.
Berkeley-HillO. (1921) The anal-erotic factor in the religion, philosophy and character of the Hindus. International Journal of Psychology, 2, 306–338.
4.
CooperC.LewisC. A.KlineP. (1992) Pregenital fixation and perceptual distortions to conflict-laden material. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 75, 67–77.
DevereuxG. (1951) Cultural and characterological traits of the Mohave related to the anal stage of psychosexual development. Psychoanalysis Quarterly, 20, 398–422.
7.
FenichelO. (1946) The psychoanalytic theory of neurosis. London, UK: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
8.
GloverE. (1925) Notes on oral character formation. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 6, 131–154.
9.
GorerG. (1943) Themes in Japanese culture. Transactions of the New York Academy of Sciences, 2, 106–124.
10.
HowellD. C. (1987) Statistical methods for psychology. (2nd ed.) Boston, MA: Duxbury.
11.
KlineP. (1968) Obsessional traits, obsessional symptoms and anal eroticism. British Journal of Medical Psychology, 41, 299–305.
12.
KlineP. (1969) The anal character: A cross-cultural study in Ghana. British Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 8, 201–210.
13.
KlineP. (1971) Ai3Q: An experimental manual. Windsor, UK: National Foundation for Educational Research.
14.
KlineP. (1978) OOO and OPO personality tests. Windsor, UK: National Foundation for Educational Research.
15.
KlineP. (1981) Fact and fantasy in Freudian theory. (2nd ed.) London, UK: Methuen.
16.
KlineP.MohanJ. (1974) Cultural differences in item endorsements in a personality test—Ai3Q—in India, Ghana and Great Britain. Journal of Social Psychology, 94, 137–138.
17.
KlineP.StoreyR. (1977) A factor analytic study of the oral character. British Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 16, 317–328.
18.
KlineP.StoreyR. (1978) The Dynamic Personality Inventory: What does it measure?British Journal of Psychology, 69, 375–383.
19.
KlineP.StoreyR. (1980) The aetiology of the oral character. Journal of Genetic Psychology, 136, 85–94.
20.
La BarréW. (1945) Some observations on character structure in the orient: The Japanese. Psychiatry, 8, 319–342.
21.
LewisC. A. (1992) The anal-erotic factor in Hindus and Muslims: An empirical examination of Berkeley-Hill's hypothesis. Psychological Reports, 71, 643–648.
22.
LewisC. A. (1993) Oral pessimism and depressive symptoms. Journal of Psychology, in press.
23.
LewisC. A.MaltbyJ. (1992) Religiosity and preoedipal fixation: A refinement. Journal of Psychology, 126, 687–688.
24.
MaslingJ. (1986) Empirical studies of psychoanalytic theories. Vol. 2. Hillsdale, NJ: The Analytic Press.
25.
MaslingJ.SchwartzM. (1979) A critique of research of psychoanalytic theory. Genetic Psychology Monographs, 100, 257–307.
26.
MuensterbergerW. (1969) Orality and dependence: Characteristics of southern Chinese. In MuensterbergerW. (Ed.), Man and his culture. London, UK: Rapp & Whiting. Pp. 295–329.
27.
RoheimG. (1969) The psychoanalytic interpretation of culture. In MuensterbergerW. (Ed.), Man and his culture. London, UK: Rapp & Whiting. Pp. 31–51.
28.
SpitzerH. M. (1947) Psychoanalytic approaches to the Japanese character. Psychoanalysis and the social services. Vol. 1. New York: International Universities Press.
