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In this work Kardiner continues his fruitful collaboration with anthropological field workers, further applying his method of inferring from their reports the 'basic character' which corresponds to each culture. The basic character, as the term is used in this book, though it seems to be an elastic concept, comprises, generally speaking, what an extensive psychoanalytically informed personality study of the common man in a given group would presumably show. Certain of Kardiner's inferences from the field workers' reports possessed a broad explanatory value, accounting for many traits observed in the peoples studied; others could be confirmed by subsequent checking in the field. Hence, Kardiner's interpretations were extremely useful to his collaborators; indeed many social scientists see in this collaboration a new era in their field.
Kardiner, however, expresses in this book a certain reservation as to what can be done by his method. Dr. Oberholzer's 'blind Rohrschach' study of the Alorese picked up characteristics that Kardiner had not been able to make out. Although Kardiner's trained eye caught the importance of Alorese lack of maternal care, there was nothing in the material to explain why the women had to do all the heavy farm work and leave their babies at home after only a two-week's postpartum layoff. Nor was there anything to explain why the men spent most of their time in complicated financial deals, swapping, bargaining and haggling, not only so that they might acquire property but also to gain the prestige and renown that goes with skill at cheating and sharp practice in their community.
What Kardiner was able to explain, working within the limits of his concept, was the inevitable result of maternal neglect on the character structure of most Alorese. They grew up into suspicious, tricky people with weak affective relationships, reminding Oberholzer of certain types of psychopaths among us. Here the value of the collaboration was most evident: Ka