ABSTRACT
A man's personality consists of the system of meanings that make up his unique orientation toward his world. One of the central problems in the study of socialization consists of ascertaining how personal idiom develops. Personal idiom becomes discernible in one's consistent orientation toward a distinct set of values, and his sentiments represent the manner in which he evaluates human beings. Charles H. Cooley wrote primarily of conjunctive sentiments, and Sigmund Freud concentrated upon disjunctive sentiments, but in their theories of the formation of personal idiom both stressed the importance of adjusting to particular people. Since psychotic syndromes are presumably easier to identify than other personality types, attempts have been made to isolate class and culture differentials in the incidence of various mental disorders. If personality is the product of culture, there should be a differential distribution of personality types. In each culture certain behavior patterns are favored, and others are proscribed.
