ABSTRACT
This chapter explains some conceptions of culture that take into account its functions ris-a-vis the social collectivity as well as its functions vis-a-ris individual personality. It focuses on two related phenomena: the special role that older individuals play in maintaining the ritual aspects of culture; and the special bonus of mental health that elders may possibly receive in exchange for this service. The chapter discusses the pathogenic consequences for elders when, under conditions of deculturation, they lose their special, privileged relationship to culture. The developing science of comparative geropsychology is in part retarded by the methodological orthodoxies of academic psychology, but also by the conceptual biases of the cultural anthropologists. The latter group presume to own the definitions of culture that are applied to culture-personality studies, but these have the unfortunate result of bending both domains—psychology and culture#8212;out of shape.
