the cluster of traits most commonly thought to be observed in people of any given culture. Benedict in Patterns of Culture, expresses her belief in cultural relativism. She desired to show that each culture has its own moral imperatives that can be understood only if one studies that culture as a whole. It was wrong, she felt, to disparage the customs or values of a culture different from one's own. Those customs had a meaning to the people who lived them that should not be dismissed or trivialized. Others should not try to evaluate people by their standards alone. Morality, she argued, was relative to the values of the culture in which one operated. As she described the Kwakiutl of the Pacific Northwest (based on the fieldwork of her mentor Boas), the Pueblo of New Mexico (among whom she had direct experience), the nations of the Great Plains, and the Dobu culture of New Guinea (regarding whom she relied upon Mead and Reo Fortune's fieldwork), she gave evidence that their values, even where they may seem strange, are intelligible in terms of their own coherent cultural systems and should be understood and respected. That also formed a central argument in her later work on the Japanese following World War II. Critics have objected to the degree of abstraction and generalization inherent in the "culture and personality" approach. Some have argued that particular patterns that she found may be only a part or a subset of the whole cultures. For example, David Friend Aberle writes that the Pueblo people may be calm, gentle, and much given to ritual in one mood or set of circumstances, but they may be suspicious, retaliatory, and warlike in other circumstances. In 1936, she was appointed an associate professor at Columbia University. However, Benedict had already assisted in the training and guidance of several Columbia students of anthropology including Margaret Mead and Ruth Landes. Benedict was among the leading cultural anthropologists who were recruited by the US government for war-related research and consultation after the US entered World War II. "The Races of Mankind" One of Benedict's lesser-known works was a pamphlet "The Races of Mankind," which she wrote with her colleague at the Columbia University Department of Anthropology, Gene Weltfish. The pamphlet was intended for American troops and set forth in simple language with cartoon illustrations the scientific case against racist beliefs. "The world is