Igbo Traditional Belief System And Psycholgy

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THE INFLUENCE OF AFRICAN TRADITIONAL BELIEF SYSTEM ON PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT USING THE IGBO TRADITIONAL BELIEF SYSTEM AS A CASE STUDY BY MADU SIMON ONYEKACHI SS/PP/1958 JANUARY, 2011 INTRODUCTION Over the years it has been discovered through observation that human behavioral and personality change is a function of time as well as the sociological and physiological factors surrounding the human person. These changes are influenced by, and develop from the early childhood, and social factors such as the home and society, as well as biological factors such as birth order and gender. This paper aims at giving a critical exposé on the influence of the society on personality development using the African traditional belief system as a case study while narrowing it down to my own traditional belief system- the Igbo belief system. I will show in this work how a society can influence personality development by the kinds of behaviour it encourages or discourages, as well as what it upholds as its beliefs. PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT There are different and some times, conflicting definitions of personality. Etymologically, the word personality originates from the Latin persona, which means ‘mask’. Significantly, in the theatre of the ancient Latin-speaking world, the mask was not used as a plot device to disguise the identity of a character, but rather was a convention employed to represent or typify that character. Personality can thus be defined as “a dynamic and organized set of characteristics possessed by a person that uniquely influences his or her cognitions, motivations, and behaviours in various situations”[1]. For Sigmund Freud, this set of characteristics which motivate our thoughts and desires is sex and
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