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In his review of Peter Mandler¡¯s Return from the Natives: How Margaret Mead Won the Second World War and Lost the Cold War, Chris Knight characterises as ¡°nonsense¡± Mead¡¯s belief that the swaddling of Russian infants led to adult Russians seeking ¡°maximum total gratifications¡± (¡°The rise and fall of a mother¡±, Books, 2 May). Yet this is an idea open to empirical test.

The classic study of British adults by Frieda Goldman-Eisler (1951) showed that early weaning and its combination with impulsiveness-aggression might prompt the development of oral pessimism. So I would expect Russian child- rearing practices, especially swaddling, to have a measurable influence on the development of personality.

R.E. Rawles
Honorary research fellow in psychology
University College London