Margaret Mead and Her Contributions to Psychology - Term Paper Example

?Margret mead and her contributions to psychology: Margret mead (1901-1978) started her profession as a psychologist and labeled as a brand of psychology. She was born in December 16, 1901 in Philadelphia to a house of educators. Mead took master’s degree in psychology and switched to anthropology by the urging of Ruth benedict. Mead’s background in psychology equipped her effectively to embark on her field trip to American Samoa in 1925. While the anthropological coaching of her day didn't emphasize practical elements of conducting fieldwork mead’s coaching in psychology taught her ways to conduct case scientific studies, design experiments, and measure outcomes quantitatively. Her family background also contributed to her coaching as a social scientist, especially by way of the influence of her mother, sociologist Emily Fogg Mead (Foerstel , 1992). Mead's formal schooling prior to stepping into college was sporadic, and she was primarily educated at home by her grandmother. An unhappy year at DePauw University switched Mead against coeducation, and she eventually transferred to Barnard College. She initially focused in English and psychology but has become interested in anthropology under the influence of Columbia University anthropologists Franz Boas (1858-1942) and Ruth Benedict (1887-1948). Boas was immediately coordinating ethnographic research of ancient cultures throughout the world before ultimate contact with modern society, and he persuaded Mead that she could make participation to this burgeoning field. Right after acquiring her M.A. in psychology in 1924, she carried out her very first field work in American Samoa, exactly where she witnessed adolescent girls to determine if the problems associated with adolescence in the West are universal. Living with her research subjects in a Samoan village, Mead was the first American to use the participant-observer strategy developed by British anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski (1884-1942). After her return to the United States, she acquired her Ph.D. in anthropology in 1929 and published Coming of Age in Samoa (1928), in which she introduced a portrait of Samoan culture as free from the sturm und drang of the teen years in Western cultures because preparation for adulthood is an ongoing process that commences early in life rather than a series of stages, which create a more nerve-racking transition approach (Bowman-Kruhm, 2003). Margaret Mead created field of culture and personality research and she became dominant influence in introducing the idea of culture into education, medicine, and public policy. The contributions of the pioneer will have influenced people that formed 'social constructivist' theories - the awareness about ‘meaning of language’ (such as psychological ideas like 'normal' and 'mental illness' is directly connected to the society. For instance, the recognition that behaviors which can be deemed signs of "disorders" is America (just like sex among adults and young teenagers) are socially approved rites of passage in some other societies (just like ancient Athens) and ordinary in other people (Japan?). May be for example, there's no word for 'mental illness' inside the Samoan language Mead worked in. The idea does not exist in a society that does not have a word for it. If the behavior does nevertheless exist, it is actually interpreted differently. For example, as bewitchment in need to have remedy by a witch-doctor (Bowman-Kruhm, 2003). Mead's keen interest in psychiatry had turned her awareness for the trouble on the cultural context of schizophrenia, and with this particular thought in mind she went to Bali, a society where trance and also other kinds of dissociation are culturally sanctioned. At that time she was married to Gregory Bateson, a British anthropologist whom she had met in New Guinea. The Balinese research was primarily noteworthy for advancement of new field techniques (Lapsley, 1999). The intensive utilization of film created it attainable to record and analyzes vital minutiae of behavior that escape the pencil-and-paper ethnographer. On the 38,000 photographs which Mead and Bateson brought back, 759 have been chosen for Balinese Character (1942), a joint research with Bateson. This publication marks a serious innovation while in the recording and presentation of ethnological information and may perhaps prove while in the long term to become a single of her most vital contributions for the science of anthropology (Lapsley, 1999). Mead rooted and drew greatly on psychology, primarily learning theory and psychoanalysis- method of treatment for psychological disorders wherein an affected person talks through childhood experiences and recalls the significance of dreams. In return Mead contributed greatly into the enhancement and development of psychoanalytic theory by emphasizing the significance of tradition and culture in a personality development. She served on national and international committees for psychological health and fitness and was instrumental in introducing the study of tradition into training courses for medical doctors and social personnel (Francis, 1980). Mead was a dominant force in establishing the field of culture and personality plus the connected field of national character research. Her theoretical position is according to the assumption that an individual matures inside a cultural context which contains ideological concepts, the expectations of other people, and approaches of socialization (procedures of fitting in with one's social atmosphere) which influence not simply outward responses but in addition the inner mental structure (Bateson, 1984). Mead was criticized by certain social scientists for neglecting quantitative measuring procedures and for what has been named "anecdotal" (relying on brief stories of exciting incidents for proof) handling of information data. She was also accused of applying concepts of individual psychology for the analysis of social approach when ignoring historical and economic elements. But due to the fact her concern lay with predicting the behavior of people inside a given social setting and not using the development of institutions, the criticism does not hold any weight (Bateson, 1984). There's no question that Mead was on the list of top American intellectuals from the twentieth century. By way of her best-selling books, her public lectures, and her well-read column in Redbook magazine, Mead popularized anthropology inside the United States. Mead was also a role model for American women, encouraging them to pursue qualified and professional careers previously closed to women while in the same time championing their roles as mothers. Margaret Mead died on November 15, 1978, in New York and was later awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. REFRENCES Foerstel , L. (1992). Confronting the margaret mead legacy scholarship, empire, and the south pacific. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Bowman-Kruhm, M. (2003). Margaret mead: A biography . Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Lapsley, H. (1999). Margaret mead and ruth benedict. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press. Francis, L. K. (1980). Margaret mead and psychological anthropology. American Anthropologist New Series, 82(2), 349-353. Bateson, Mary Catherine. With a Daughter's Eye: A Memoir of Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson. New York: Morrow, 1984. Read More