d was blind to the competitiveness found in all societies--even in her idyllic Samoan village.
In light of present studies critical of Mead, such as those done by the New Zealand anthropologist Derek Freeman, it must be remembered that Mead had to invent her investigative strategies as she went along, since procedures and guidelines did not yet exist. In her grant proposal she wrote that she hoped to "add appreciably to our ethnological information on the subject of the culture of primitive women. Owing to the paucity of women ethnologists, practically no ethnological [work] has been done among women as such, and this investigation offers a particularly rich field for the study of feminine reactions and participation in the study of the group."
Mead's perspective was that of a woman writing about women; however, she also studied the behavior of male children and adolescents. Because she was limited to non-intimate settings when observing the males, she had to rely more on field observations of their work and play. Mead realized that it was necessary to describe both males and females if one were to describe human culture, yet she was even more of an outsider when it came to studying the boys and young men. It could be argued that Mead's characterization of the Samoans as non-competitive was somewhat influenced by the fact that she spent more time with the women than men. However, even the assumption that men are biologically more aggressive, and thus more competitive, is likely to be refuted by those who view culture, rather than biology, as the primary determinant of human behavior.
The interactionist view taken by most theoreticians in the social and psychological sciences today is the most workable stance, yet the nature versus nurture (biology versus culture, or environment) controversy continues unabated, because there always remains the question of how much influence is generated by each aspect of heredity or e...