1434 



HORMONAL REGULATION OF BEHAVIOR 



cultural materials/ with an effort to test 

 out the universality of certain forms of sex 

 behavior in the human species, and with 

 suggestions of new areas of research.- 



''■ Cross cultural studies may be classified as : 

 historic studies based entirely on archaeologic 

 and literary evidence, and contemporary studies, 

 in which the data have been collected from living 

 members of the society in question. Among con- 

 temporary studies, we may distinguish between 

 studies of preliterate peoples, in which the data 

 have to be collected from nonliterate informants 

 and processed into writing, or through the use of 

 observational technicjues, notes by investigators, 

 tapes, film, etc., and studies of literate societies. 

 The latter (because in most cases literacy and 

 social complexity go hand in hand) are limited, 

 on the one hand, because it is less easy to de- 

 scribe the entire culture, but, on the other, are 

 more appropriate for the use of quantitative meth- 

 ods because of the possibility of using question- 

 naires, selecting respondents from sociologically 

 defined classes, and subjecting individuals to a 

 large number of physiologic tests, anatomic ob- 

 servations, etc., all of which are difiicult in primi- 

 tive societies. 



The primary materials for this chapter are 

 studies of primitive cultures or, in a few instances, 

 literate cultures which have been studied by an- 

 thropologic methods, oral information, and ob- 

 servation. I will draw heavily on my own studies 

 of six primitive groups in the South Pacific, one 

 exotic literate culture (Bali), one American Indian 

 tribe (the Omaha), and on a systematic attention, 

 within an anthropologic frame of reference (Mead, 

 1949b; Gorer, 1948; Bollard, 1937; Kluckhohn and 

 Kluckhohn, 1948; Warner, 1941-47) for materials 

 on contemporary American cultural behavior. 



"One point should be noted. Many, if not most, 

 discussions of sexual behavior, including those in 

 the chnical literature, deal with its physiology and 

 ignore the processes whereby the many varieties 

 of behavior are patterned. The latter is the moiety 

 which, of necessity, has been the particular con- 

 cern of anthropologists and to which their contribu- 

 tion is so important. "Of necessity," we have added, 

 because nowhere in primitive peoples have there 

 been opportunities for the collection of data bear- 

 ing "on the physiology" of sexual behavior, i.e., 

 tests of the strength or intensity of sexual desire, 

 gonadectomy, replacement therapy, determination 

 of hormonal levels, etc. Recognition that differences 

 in the strength and duration of sex activity may 

 have a predominantly physiologic basis, in con- 

 tradistinction to a purely psychologic basis, appears 

 to be given in this chapter by the reference to 

 individual variation in the intensity of libido, and 

 by the references to the "period of endocrine rein- 

 forcement of sex drives" (p. 00) and to the "trigger- 

 ing of sex drives into the expected pattern". The 

 path by which animal experimentalists have also 

 arrived at these conclusions, particularly the last 

 conclusion, is traced in the chapter by Young. 



II. Methods 



The difficulties inherent in the study of 

 sex behavior in any society are generally 

 recognized, but they are complicated by ad- 

 ditional factors when primitive peoples are 

 studied, areas of taboo which cannot be 

 breached in any case with safety, refusal of 

 one or both sexes to undergo any form of 

 physical examination, small numbers of 

 cases, the width of the language barrier 

 which has to be overcome, status differences 

 between Caucasian investigator and the 

 aboriginal peoples. From such materials 

 negative statements on such matters as ab- 

 sence of homosexual behavior, or absence of 

 knowledge of the procreative role of the 

 father, can only be accepted with the great- 

 est caution and with very careful analysis 

 of the personality and training of the in- 

 vestigator. 



One further general consideration must be 

 advanced about the nature of the data we 

 have on sexual behavior (Bateson, 1947). 

 One characteristic of human sex behavior 

 is the insistence on privacy. This privacy 

 may be of many types; it may be only a 

 demand that others who share the same 

 dwelling may not be able to observe and 

 there may be no objections to nonpartici- 

 pants hearing what is going on. In certain 

 very rare instances, the only demand for 

 privacy may be that nonparticipants remain 

 at a distance and ignore sex activities. But 

 in most human societies, sex relations are 

 conducted in such a way as to exclude 

 witnesses other than couples or individuals 

 who are engaged in comparable activities. 

 This universal aspect of human sex behavior 

 is variously linked with demands for pri- 

 vacy in connection with other bodily func- 

 tions, such as eating, excretion, suckling, 

 etc. Crawley (1927) gives an illuminating 

 discussion of the incompatibility of dif- 

 ferent states of bodily urgency and involve- 

 ment, either within the same individual or 

 between individuals, so that human beings 

 may be repelled either by the food that is 

 left after hunger is satisfied or by the sight 

 of others eating when they themselves are 

 hungry and debarred from participation in 

 the meal. These human tendencies have 

 serious implications for research in the field 

 of sex. Coupled with demands for privacy. 



