Margaret Mead
In TOK, we've started learning about the controversy surrounding Margaret Mead and her research. We began by watching a documentary called “Margaret Mead, Tales from the Jungle”. In case you have the time to watch it, the link are below:
The entire point of her research was to prove that the stress in teenagers is caused by nurture instead of nature. She took a trip to the island of Samoa to compare American teenagers to Samoan teenagers. Overall, if she could prove that they lived a relatively stressless life, her hypothesis would be proven correct. After nine months in Samoa, Mead returned with the novel Tales from the Jungle and a theory of "nurture over nature". However, her work was challenged 40 years later by Derek Freemen. He claimed that her sample of teenagers was too small and that the girls has lied to her, leading to false conclusions. Freemen, on the other hand, only talked to high ranking men in Samoa about the teenagers. Overall, the two researchers came up with very different information. But this is to be expected when you research different people at different times! Nowadays, people have come to compromise that teenagers are stressed as a result of both nature and nurture. So don't worry! It might be in our genetics!
- Giselle D.
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