Margaret Mead is an American anthropologist best known for her work in Polynesia. After her initial trip, she was always joined by a collaborator. In Margaret Mead's study of three different tribes in New Guinea, which tribe's gender differences were opposite to that of U.S. culture (women were political leaders and warriors while men stayed at home with children)? The American anthropologist (a scientist who studies human beings and their origins, distribution, and relationships) Margaret Mead developed the field of culture and personality research and was a leading influence in introducing the concept of culture into education, medicine, and public policy. Mead was one of the earliest American anthropologists to apply techniques and theories from modern psychology to understanding culture. However, The Institute for Intercultural Studies, founded by Margaret Mead in 1944, has closed its doors as of December 31, 2009; no further contact information is available. She was best known for her studies of the nonliterate peoples of Oceania, especially with regard to … Although Mead's studies took her to the far reaches of the earth she did keep her base in the United States. Did you know that she cooked up the global-warming "hoax"? Although Mead often responded sharply to criticism, she was sensitive to the possibility of observer bias in her field research. Her time at the museum culminated with a display of her … (a) The degree to which a culture regards gender as a difference does not seem to affect the degree to which the culture is peaceful or violent. Margaret Mead’s Coming of Age in Samoa purported to provide ethnographic proof that nurture was the dominant factor in child development and adolescence. Mead discovered such an intellectual bond and temperamental affinity with Bateson that she eventually divorced Fortune and married Bateson. These included her second husband, New Zealand psychologist Reo Fortune, and her third husband, the British anthropologist Gregory Bateson, whom she married in 1935. This was at the American Museum on natural History in New York. Mead did extensive field work throughout the 1920s and 1930s. Before then, children have no social standing within the community. What did Margaret Mead discover in her study of the Arapesh, Mundugumor, and Tchambuli tribes with regard to personality? This article was originally published at Aeon.. Accounting for the Observer During the summer of 1930, Mead and Fortune did fieldwork among the Omaha Native American people. Margaret Mead, American anthropologist whose great fame owed as much to the force of her personality and her outspokenness as it did to the quality of her scientific work. Here she began in 1926 as an assistant curator. Studying under Franz Boas , Mead was interested in cultural relativism and used a respectful and compassionate approach to other cultures in her research. In 1942, she was advanced to associate curator and a full fledge curator in 1961. Mead’s findings suggested that the community ignores both boys and girls until they are about 15 or 16. Thirty-two years after her death, the anthropologist Margaret Mead remains a favorite whipping girl for ideologues of all stripes. Margaret Mead was an anthropologist who studied indigenous people in Samoa and the Oceana region. I n 1978, after 50 years at the pinnacle of American opinion, the anthropologist Margaret Mead died with a secure reputation and a lustrous legacy. Mead also found that marriage is regarded as a social and economic arrangement where wealth, rank, and job skills of the husband and wife are taken into consideration. Her ascent seemed to mirror the societal ascent of American women. We encourage you to use this website to connect to the many resources available to answer your inquiry about Margaret Mead, Gregory Bateson and their intellectual legacy. Primarily for this reason, she preserved her complete field notes and other materials for other researchers to consult and interpret. In 1969, she was awarded curator emeritus. Mead is credited with changing the way we study different human cultures.