You may have read Mary Trump's book "Too Much and Never Enough". She is a PhD in psychology and I read that she wrote her dissertation about family structure. I have seen references to family systems theory and family structure theory and the names Bowen and Minuchin.
It seems likely that we tend to get our ideas of what people, other families and other cultures are like, at least in part, from our experiences in our early basic family life. I do think that we tend to have a basic personality but family habits, rules, convictions and such tend to interact with our personality while forming our early experiences. If we keep an open mind and if we read and meet various sorts of people, we may modify the foundations somewhat.
One of the oldest and most widespread principles of life is moderation. The principle is often cited in connection with the ancient Greeks and stated as "Moderation in all things". That is usually taken to mean don't overdo anything. Exercise but not too much. Read but not too much. Sleep but not too much. Modern thinkers, since Gödel's work in 1932, tend to immediately try applying a principle to itself in a recursive way. So, should we apply moderation to moderation? The Green Parrot bar in Key West has the motto "Excess in moderation" on some of its t-shirts.
In matters of family affection, admiration and love, it can be painful if one doesn't receive at least a basic supply of support and positive approval. We are reading "Chance Are" by Richard Russo. Much of the beginning is a review of life by three 65 year old men who have been friends since college days. We have watched two episodes of "The Queen's Gambit" on Netflix and it is another reminder of the effect of family support and affection, for both males and females.
A graduate student told me about driving 65 miles away to view tv sets and finding so many that the couple drove home without buying, having been overwhelmed by the range of choices. Just too much on offer, too much to make a decision. When I first began to use a Kindle ereader, I had to govern myself since I was steadily aware that whatever book I was reading, I had dozens of other books at hand that I could switch over to at any time. Sometimes people get stuck changing channels and changing more channels, somewhat bogged down by too many choices.
