Why You Are Not Quite You (And Who Are You Then?)

Each of us possesses a unique personality. Yet layered on top of it are the traditions and habits of the society we grew up in — and these differences are strikingly pronounced.

Have you ever caught yourself thinking that your "unique personality" looks suspiciously similar to the personalities of all your classmates?
No?
Then perhaps you simply haven't ventured beyond your hometown yet.

The Illusion of Individuality

Let's be honest: each of us likes to think of ourselves as a unique snowflake. A collector's edition. A limited run of one. And technically, that's true — your genetic combination, fingerprints, the way you laugh with your mouth full — all of it is genuinely one of a kind.

But here's the catch. On top of this unique "firmware," a powerful operating system gets installed — the culture we grew up in. And it, to put it mildly, makes quite a few adjustments.

Sociologists call this a "cultural code" — one you can never factory-reset. Your unique personality may crave spontaneity, but if you grew up in Germany, your hand will instinctively reach for a planner to schedule that spontaneity for next Tuesday at 2:30 PM.

Geert Hofstede, the guru of cross-cultural research, proved that the way we fear uncertainty or respect hierarchy is hardwired into us more deeply than our love for pineapple on pizza. We are a cocktail of our DNA and the traditions of the place where we first learned to say "no" (or politely nod, if you grew up in Japan).

The Experiment That Explains Everything

Psychologist Richard Nisbett from the University of Michigan conducted a famous study: he showed the same image of a fish against an underwater background to Americans and Japanese participants.
Americans began their descriptions with: "There was a big fish…"
Japanese participants said: "It looked like some kind of pond…"

One picture — two different worlds. Americans saw the object. Japanese saw the context. It's not about eyesight — it's about a cultural code that literally determines where our eyes look.

The Invisible Puppeteer

Think about this for a second:

In Finland, silence in a conversation is a sign of respect.
In Brazil, it's a reason to call an ambulance because something is clearly wrong with you.
In Japan, you apologize roughly 47 times a day (and that's not an exaggeration — researchers actually counted). In Australia, an unnecessary apology is perceived as weakness.
In Russia, offering a guest tea is not a question — it's a statement. You can refuse, but then they'll just pour it for you without asking.

We like to attribute these things to "our personality." "I'm just that kind of person — I love feeding guests until they can't get up from the table."
No, darling. That's not you. That's three generations of grandmothers standing behind your back, disapprovingly eyeing the guest's empty plate.

The Cultural Iceberg

Anthropologist Edward Hall proposed the cultural iceberg model, and it's brilliant in its simplicity. What we see — cuisine, clothing, holidays — is only 10% above the water. The remaining 90% is hidden: attitudes toward time, personal space in communication, the concept of fairness, ideas about whether it's acceptable to call someone without a heads-up (spoiler: in some cultures — absolutely; in others — it's practically a declaration of war).

Science confirms it: even our perception of time and personal space is not a personal choice but a cultural dictate. Edward Hall, in his theory of proxemics, explained why a conversation with a Latin American feels like an attempt at intimate closeness to a Finn, while to the Latin American, the Finn seems like an emotionally frozen fish. We are unique, yes. But our uniqueness is wrapped in a very specific cultural packaging, and sometimes that packaging rustles louder than we'd like.

So Who Am I Really?

Here's where it gets truly interesting. You are both a unique set of neural connections and a product of your environment at the same time. Like a cocktail: the vodka is the same for everyone, but some add tomato juice, some add orange juice, and some drink it straight (hello, cultural differences in attitudes toward alcohol).

True freedom doesn't begin with denying cultural influence — it begins with becoming aware of it. When you realize that your habit of taking off your shoes at the door is not an innate instinct but a cultural program, you gain a choice: to follow it or not.

Next time you say "I'm just that kind of person," pause for a moment. Behind that "just" there may be a thousand-year-old tradition, three revolutions, one grandmother, and a harsh climate.