Mead's version of Samoan society was overly circumscribed in no small part because she had failed to understand the chiefs' point of view as she was misled by her young female informants' biases against them

In contrast to Freeman's much larger and more wide-ranging study, Mead's sample size was too small to be representative of Samoan society

Unlike Freeman who studied the contemporary world in all its complexity, Mead practiced salvage anthropology and as a result described  a world that no longer existed and indeed possibly never had. 

Mead's understanding of Samoan society was flawed in no small part because she had been deceived by her informants who were joking with her and didn't realize it