From character to habitus in sociology

Abstract

The idea of social character has a long and important history within sociological thought. The concept addresses the fundamental question of the relationship between society and the individual, structure and agency. Tracing the development of the idea of social character from the classical sociology of Marx and Weber to more contemporary writings within American sociology by figures such as Fromm, Reisman, and Mills reveals ideas and perspectives central to the development of social theory. Although many argue that the idea of social character is no longer important in sociology, it has in fact resurfaced in Pierre Bourdieu's notion of habitus. Habitus specifies the original idea of social character without the biological or essentialist traits found in most of the earlier work. Habitus marks a substantial advance beyond earlier ideas of social character, providing a more purely sociological answer to the structure/agency (society/individual) problematic.

Notes

1 Fromm's most vivid and detailed elaboration of the idea of social character is presented in the oft-forgotten classic, Social Change in a Mexican Village (1996), which he describes as an empirical test of the whole notion of social character.

2 As Camic (1986, p. 1046) has noted, Fromm and Bourdieu develop ideas that lie in what might be called the “upper reaches” of the range of ways that sociologists have considered the common sense notion of “habit.” In addition, both attempt to introduce a sociological realism into the study of habit by attempting to uncover the more or less hidden structures that generate observable patterns in human character, tastes, and actions. And, both draw greatly from Marx's model of the socio-economic structure and the significance of social class locations. For Fromm and Bourdieu, the formation of social character or habitus reflects how social class relations structure and divide society, shaping early socialization experiences within variously situated family groupings.