The Psychology of WomenThe Psychology of Women by Helene DeutschReview by: M. F. Ashley MontaguThe Scientific Monthly, Vol. 59, No. 4 (Oct., 1944), p. 315Published by: American Association for the Advancement of ScienceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/18258 .

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BOOK REVIEWS THE PSYCHOLOGY OF WOMEN

The Psychology of Women. Helene Deutsch. xiv+ 399 pp. $4.50. 1944. Grune and Stratton.

THIS is a psychoanalytic interpretation of the psychology of women from their early years to maturity, by a psychoanalyst of con- siderable experience who has made woman her special study. A second volume will deal with the psychology of adult womanhood.

The book will be of particular interest to teachers, parents and, of course, psycholo- gists, for Dr. Deutsch manages to throw much light on many obscure problems con- nected with woman, of whom it has been cor- rectly stated that "age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety. " Many readers will find in the pages of this book much with which they will be unable to agree, and they may find its style somewhat arid, but they will carry away with them some new insights into the psychology of women. Hey- man 's Psychologie der Frauen (not men- tioned in the present work) was a much more readable book and very informative, even though it was published over thirty years ago, but it was written from a more formal psychological standpoint.

On the whole this book may be recom- mended as an original and stimulating con- tribution to our understanding of woman. We look forward with interest to the publi- cation of the second volume.-M. F. ASHLEY MONTAGU.

THE AMERICAN NEGRO Characteristics of the American Negro. Edited

by Otto Klineberg. 409 pp. 1944. $4.00. Harper and Brothers.

IN this volume there have been brought together a number of the monographs pre- pared in connection with the Study of the Negro in America under the direction of Dr. Gunnar Myrdal and the sponsorship of the Carnegie Corporation of New York. In a sense, therefore, this volume is a sort of om- nibus for rather generally-connected studies: "The Stereotype of the American Negro" by Guy B. Johnson; " Tests of Negro Intelli- gence" and "Experimental Studies of Negro Porsoinalitv" bv Otto Klineberg: "Race At-

titudes " by Eugene L. Horowitz; " The Hybrid and the Problem of Miscegenation" by Louis Wirth and Herbert Goldhamer; "Mental Disease among American Negroes: a Statistical Analysis" by Benjamin Malz- berg. As one reads the volume, one is struck by an inherent tendency of the subject mat- ter to overlap and a more serious conflict of terminology, especially with reference to the use of race and racial, and the frequent sub- stitution of these terms by ethnic, national, caste, and similar terms. Since the person- ality of the American Negro is vitally affected by how he is racially defined, it seems imperative that scholars agree on this defini- tion, its biological basis, and its social inter- pretation.

The presentation of the stereotype of the American Negro is itself a stereotype: quotes from various printed media, scientific and unscientific, which delineate more or less popular concepts of the Negro and Negro- White relationships. Johnson himself ob- serves that evaluation of such a method of assessment is far from satisfactory; it is sub- jective, personal, and leads to no really sound concept of Negro personality and culture traits. Klineberg offers more objective mate- rial in the form of scores and ratings based on various performance tests. Klineberg presents some new material, but for the most part his two contributions are based on his book "Race Differences." The tabulation of calculated scores, arranged in a hierarchical rating, highest to lowest, pays obeisance to performance rather than innate ability or potentiality. In other words, there is far more a mere measure of achievement level rather than an analysis of educational oppor- tunity-or the lack of it !

The section on attitudes by Horowitz con- tains much original material, though it leans heavily on Lasker, Moreno, Minard, and Crisswell. Then, too, this section seems to integrate more clearly with the theme of the entire volume, for in discussing the inception of race attitudes it regards personality as a biosocial complex that must take cognizance of race not only as a biological classificatory nrodiiet biit onte which is molded bhv and

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