ABSTRACT
Depth theorists stress the supreme importance of the early years of childhood for the development of later personality patterns. From a psychological point of view, social-field theories have demonstrated the artificiality attendant upon studying personality in isolation from society. The idea behind culture-pattern theory is that personality differences are due to the customs, standards and ideas of different ethnic and regional groups as well as to the influence of different social and occupational subgroups within the same culture. Field theories affirm that personality is not so much a function of social customs and expectations as of the interaction between the individual and social forces and pressures within the community. There are three main bodies of work dealing with the influence of inherited tendencies on the development of personality. They are: early doctrines of instinct, the findings and concepts of comparative ethology and psychoanalytic accounts.
