Foreword
as unavoidable periods of adjustment through which every one has to pass. The whole psycho-analytic approach is largely based on this supposition.
The anthropologist doubts the correctness of these views, but up to this time hardly any one has taken the pains to identify himself sufficiently with a primitive population to obtain an insight into these problems. We feel, therefore, grateful to Miss Mead for having undertaken to identify herself so completely with Samoan youth that she gives us a lucid and clear picture of the joys and difficulties encountered by the young individual in a culture so entirely different from our own. The results of her painstaking investigation confirm the suspicion long held by anthropologists, that much of what we ascribe to ‘human nature’ is no more than a reaction to the restraints put upon us by our civilisation.
[xv]
