mentality

English

Etymology

From mental +‎ -ity. Doublet of mentalité.

Pronunciation

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ælɪti
• IPA^(key): /mɛnˈtæləti/, /mənˈtæləti/, /-ɪti/

Noun

mentality (plural mentalities)

1. A mindset; a way of thinking; a set of beliefs.

   Before he can succeed, he will have to shed the mentality that he can get by without hard work.

   • 1999, Nicholas Walker, “The Reorientation of Critical Theory: Habermas”, in Simon Glemdinning, editor, The Edinburgh Encyclopedia of Continental Philosophy‎^[1], Routledge, →ISBN, page 489:

     […] with a mentality anchored in a profoundly influential and persistent hostility to central features of the Enlightment faith in the theoretical and practical autonomy of the human subject.

2. The characteristics of a mind described as a system of distinctive structures and processes based in biology, language, or culture, etc.; a mental system.
   • 1978, Edward Proffitt, "Romanticism, Bicamerality, and the Evolution of the Brain", The Wordsworth Circle, Vol. 9, No.1, reprinted in Kuijsten, 2016, page 129.

     […] the new mentality [of Romantic poetry]...is a mentality of self-authorization.

   • 2016, Scott Greer, A Knowing Noos and a Slippery Psyche:Jaynes's Recipe for an Unnatural Theory of Consciousness, Kuijsten, page 239:

     Our mentality — whether bicameral or conscious — is thus more a function of social context, language, and forms of communication than a hard-wired neurologically-based system.

Derived terms

• crab mentality
• elbow mentality
• herd mentality
• mob mentality
• pack mentality
• plantation mentality
• siege mentality
• trench mentality
• winning mentality

 

Translations

mindset — see also mindset

• Arabic: عَقْلِيَّة f (ʕaqliyya)
• Armenian: մտածելակերպ (hy) (mtacelakerp), մտայնություն (hy) (mtaynutʻyun)
• Bulgarian: манталитет (bg) m (mantalitet), начин на мислене (bg) (način na mislene)
• Catalan: mentalitat f
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 心態／心态 (zh) (xīntài), 心理 (zh) (xīnlǐ), 心目 (zh) (xīnmù)

• Czech: mentalita f
• Danish: mentalitet c
• Dutch: mentaliteit (nl) f
• Finnish: mentaliteetti (fi), mielenlaatu (fi)
• French: mentalité (fr) f
• Galician: mentalidade (gl) f
• German: Mentalität (de) f
• Greek: νοοτροπία (el) (nootropía)
• Hungarian: mentalitás (hu), gondolkodásmód (hu)
• Ido: mento (io)
• Italian: mentalità (it) f
• Japanese: 心理 (ja) (しんり, shinri), メンタリティー (mentaritī), 考え方 (ja) (かんがえかた, kangaekata)
• Kashubian: mentalnosc f
• Korean: 심리(心理) (ko) (simni)
• Latvian: mentalitāte f
• Macedonian: менталите́т m (mentalitét)
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: mentalitet m

  Nynorsk: mentalitet m

• Persian: ذهنیت (fa) (zehniyyat), طرز فکر (fa) (tarz-e fekr)
• Polish: mentalność (pl) f
• Portuguese: mentalidade f
• Russian: менталите́т (ru) m (mentalitét), склад ума́ m (sklad umá), мента́льность (ru) f (mentálʹnostʹ)
• Scottish Gaelic: dòigh-smaoineachaidh f
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: менталѝте̄т

  Roman: mentalìtēt (sh)

• Slovak: mentalita f
• Spanish: mentalidad f
• Ukrainian: менталіте́т m (mentalitét)

References

• Kuijsten, Marcel (ed.). Gods, Voices and the Bicameral Mind: The Theories of Julian Jaynes, Julian Jaynes Society, 2016 (312 pgs). →ISBN