EVERY MAN is in certain respects

a. like all other men,

b. like some other men,
c. like no other man.

A
He is like all other men because some of the determinants of
his personality are universal to the species. That is to say,
there are common features in the biological endowments of
all men, in the physical environment they inhabit, and in the
societies and cultures in which they develop. It is the very
obviousness of this fact which makes restatements of it
expedient, since, like other people, we students of
personality are naturally disposed to be attracted by what is
unusual, by the qualities which distinguish individuals,
environments, and societies, and so to overlook the common
heritage and lot of man. It is possible that the most
important of the undiscovered determinants of personality
and culture are only to be revealed by close attention to the
commonplace. Every man experiences birth and must learn
to move about and explore his environment, to protect
himself against extremes of temperature and to avoid
serious injuries; every man experiences sexual tensions and
other importunate needs and must learn to find ways of
appeasing them; every man grows in stature, matures, and
dies; and he does all this and much more, from first to last,
as a member of a society. These characteristics he shares
with the majority of herd animals, but others are unique to
him. Only with those of his own kind does he enjoy an erect
posture, hands that grasp, three-dimensional and color
vision, and a nervous system that permits elaborate speech
and learning processes of the highest order.
Any one personality is like all others, also, because, as social
animals, men must adjust to a condition of interdependence
with other members of their society and of groups within it,
and, as cultural animals, they must adjust to traditionally
defined expectations. All men are born helpless into an
inanimate and impersonal world which presents countless
threats to survival; the human species would die out if social
 life were abandoned. Human adaptation to the external
environment depends upon that mutual support which is
social life; and, in addition, it depends upon culture. Many
types of insects live socially yet have no culture. Their
capacity to survive resides in action patterns which are
inherited via the germ plasm. Higher organisms have less
rigid habits and can learn more from experience. Human
beings, however, learn not only from experience but also
from each other. All human societies rely greatly for their
survival upon accumulated learning (culture). Culture is a
great storehouse of ready-made solutions to problems which
human animals are wont to encounter. This storehouse is
man's substitute for instinct. It is filled not merely with the
pooled learning of the living members of the society, but
also with the learning of men long dead and of men
belonging to other societies.
Human personalities are similar, furthermore, insofar as
they all experience both gratifications and deprivations. They
are frustrated by the impersonal environment (weather,
physical obstacles, etc.) and by physiological conditions
within their own bodies (physical incapacities, illnesses,
etc.). Likewise, social life means some sacrifice of
autonomy, subordination, and the responsibilities of
superordination. The pleasure and pain men experience
depend also upon what culture has taught them to expect
from one another. Anticipations of pain and pleasure are
internalized through punishment and reward.
These universalities of human life produce comparable
effects upon the developing personalities of men of all times,
places, and races. But they are seldom explicitly observed or
commented upon. They tend to remain background
phenomena -taken for granted like the air we breathe.
Frequently remarked, however, are the similarities in
personality traits among members of groups or in specific
individuals from different groups. In certain features of
personality, most men are "like some other men." The
similarity may be to other members of the same socio-
cultural unit. The statistical prediction can safely be made
that a hundred Americans, for example, will display certain
defined characteristics more frequently than will a hundred
Englishmen comparably distributed as to age, sex, social
class, and vocation.
 B
But being "like some men" is by no means limited to members of
social - like nations, tribes, and classes. Seafaring people,
regardless of the enmities from which they come, tend to
manifest similar qualities. The same may be said for desert folk.
Intellectuals and athletes the world over have something in
common; so have those who were born to wealth or poverty.
Persons who have exercised authority over large groups for many
years develop parallel reaction systems, in spite of culturally
tailored differences in the details of their behaviors. Probably
tyrannical fathers leave a detectably similar imprint upon their
children, though the uniformity may be superficially obscured by
local manners. Certainly the if hyperpituitary type is equally
recognizable among Europeans, African Negroes, and American
Indians. Also, even where organic causes are unknown or
doubtful, certain neurotic and psychotic syndromes in persons of
one society remind us of other individuals belonging to very
different societies.
 C
Finally, there is the inescapable fact that a man is in many respects
like no other man. Each individual's modes of perceiving, feeling,
needing, and behaving have characteristic patterns which are not
precisely duplicated by those of any other individual. This is traceable,
in part, to the unique combination of biological materials which the
person has received from his parents. More exactly, the ultimate
uniqueness of each personality is the product of countless and
successive interactions between the maturing constitution and
different environing situations from birth onward. An identical
sequence of such determining influences is never reproduced. In this
connection it is necessary to emphasize the importance of "accidents,"
that is, of events that are not predictable for any given individual on
the basis of generalized knowledge of his physical, social, and cultural
environments. A child gets lost in the woods and suffers from exposure
and hunger. Another child is nearly drowned by a sudden flood in a
canyon. Another loses his mother and is reared by an aged
grandmother, or his father remarries and his education is entrusted to
a stepmother with a psychopathic personality. Although the
personalities of children who have experienced a trauma of the same
type will often resemble each other in certain respects, the differences
between them may be even more apparent, partly because the
traumatic situation in each case had certain unique features, and
partly because at the time of the trauma the personality of each child,
being already unique, responded in a unique manner. Thus there is
uniqueness in each inheritance and uniqueness in each environment,
but, more particularly, uniqueness in the number, kinds, and temporal
order of critically determining situations encountered in the course of
life. In personal relations, in psychotherapy, and in the arts, this
uniqueness of personality usually is, and should be, accented. But for
general scientific purposes the observation of uniformities, uniformities
of elements and uniformities of patterns, is of first importance. This is
so because without the discovery of uniformities there can be no
concepts, no classifications, no formulations, no principles; no laws;
and without these no science can exist.
The writers suggest that clear and orderly thinking about personality
formation will be facilitated if four classes of determinants (and their
interactions) are distinguished: constitutional, group-membership,
role, and situational. These will help us to understand in what ways
every man is "like all other men," "like some other men," "like no
other man."