Ciba Foundation Symposium 33 - Parent-Infant Interaction

321 Pages·1975·13.4 MB·English

Parent-Infant Interaction
The Ciba Foundation for the promotion of international cooperation in
medical and chemical research is a scientific and educational charity established by
CIBAL imited - now CIBA-GEIGY Limited - of Basle. The Foundation operates
independently in London under English trust law.
Ciba Foundation Symposia are published in collaboration with
Associated Scientific Publishers (Elsevier Scientific Publishing Compmy,E xcerpta Medics,
North-Holland Publishing Company) in Amsterdam.
Associated Scientific Publishers, P.O. 211, Amsterdam
Box
Parent-Infant
Interaction
Ciba Foundation Symposium 33 (new series)
1975
Elsevier . Excerpta Medica . North-Holland
Associated Scientific Publishers Amsterdam . Oxford New York
0 Copyrighi 1975 Ciba Foundaiion
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any
form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording,
or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the
publishers.
ISBN Excerpta Medica 90 219 4037 x
ISBN American Elsevier 0-444-15181-8
Published in August 1975 by Associated Scientific Publishers, P.O. Box 21 1, Amsterdam, and
American Elsevier, 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10017.
Suggested series entry for library catalogues : Ciba Foundation Symposia.
Suggested publisher’s entry for library catalogues: Associated Scientific Publishers.
Ciba Foundation Symposium 33 (new series)
Printed in The Netherlands by Mouton, The Hague
Contents
M. A. HOFER Introduction 1
R. A. HINDE Mothers’ and infants’ roles: distinguishing the questions to be
asked 5
Discussion 13
J. s. ROSENBLATT Prepartum and postpartum regulation of maternal behaviour
in the rat 17
Discussion 32
R. A. HINDE & M. J. A. SIMPSON Qualities of mother-infant relationships in
monkeys 39
Discussion 58
M. H. KLAUS, M. A. TRAUSE & J. H. KENNELL Does human maternal behaviour
after delivery show a characteristic pattern? 69
Discussion 78
J. H. KENNELL, M. A. TRAUSE & M. H. KLAUS Evidence for a sensitive period in
the human mother 87
Discussion 95
J. A. MACFARLANE Olfaction in the development of social preferences in the
human neonate 103
Discussion 1 13
P. JOHNSON & D. M. SALISBURY Breathing and sucking during feeding in the
newborn 119
Discussion 128
CONTENTS
V1
T. B. BRAZELTON, E. TRONICK, L. ADAMSON, H. ALS & s. WEISE Early mother-
infant reciprocity 137
Discussion 149
J. F. DUNN Consistency and change in styles of mothering 155
Discussion 170
E. THOMAN How a rejecting baby may affect mother-infant synchrony 177
Discussion 192
R. Q. BELL A congenital contribution to emotional response in early infancy
and the preschool period 201
Discussion 208
P. H. LEIDERMAN & M. J. SEASHORE Mother-infant separation: some delayed
consequences 21 3
Discussion 232
H. PAPOUSEK M. PAPOUSEK Cognitive aspects of preverbal social interactions
between human infants and adults 241
Discussion 260
A. BLAKE, A. STEWART & D. TURCAN Parents of babies of very low birth-weight :
long-term follow-up 271
Discussion 28 1
T. E. OPPE Speculations on the relevance of developmental psychology to
paediatrics 289
Discussion 293
General Discussion: Neonatal care units 299
M. A. HOFER Summing Up 309
Index of contributors 3 15
Subject index 317
Participants
Sjwiposium on The Parent-Infant Relationship held at the Ciba Foundation,
London, 5tli-7th Norenzbev, 1974
M. A. HOFER (Chaivrnan) Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Montefiore
Hospital and Medical Center, 111 East 210th Street, Bronx, New York, USA
‘k~.Q . BELL Child Research Branch, National Institute of Mental Health,
Bethesda, Maryland 20014, USA
A. BENTOVIM Department of Psychological Medicine, The Hospital for Sick
Children, Great Ormond Street, London WClN lEH, UK
J. BOWLBY School of Faniily Psychiatry and Community Mental Health, The
Tavistock Institute of Human Relations, Belsize Lane, London NW3 5BA,
UK
T. B. BRAZELTON The Children’s Hospital Medical Center, 300 Longwood
Avenue, Boston, Mass. 021 15, USA
GENEVIEVE CARPENTER Psychology Department, Belmont Hospital, Brighton
Road, Sutton, Surrey, UK
CHRISTINE E. COOPER Children’s Department, The Royal Victoria Infirmary,
Queen Victoria Road, Newcastle upon Tyne NEI 4LP, UK
G. H. CURTIS-JENKINS 50 Church Road, Ashford, Middlesex, UK
COLETTE DREYFUS-BRISAC Centre de Recherches Biologiques NConatales, H6-
pita1 Port-Royal, Universite RenC Descartes, 123 Boulevard de Port-Royal,
75674 Paris Cedex 14, France
FRANCES D’SOUZA Wellcome Institute of Comparative Physiology, The Zoo-
logical Society of London, Regent’s Park, London NWI 4RY, UK
*Present address: Department of Psychology, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia
22901, USA
VIII PARTICIPANTS
JUDY DUNN MRC Unit on the Development and Integration of Behaviour,
University Sub-Department of Animal Behaviour, Madingley, Cambridge
CB3 8AA, UK
J. HESS-HAESER Zoological Department, University of Basel, Rheinsprung 9,
CH-Basel-4000, Switzerland
R. A. HINDE MRC Unit on the Development and Integration of Behaviour,
University Sub-Department of Animal Behaviour, Madingley, Cambridge
CB3 8AA, UK
H. KENNELL Department of Pediatrics, Case Western Reserve University,
J.
2103 Adelbert Road, Cleveland, Ohio 44106, USA
M. H. KLAUS Department of Pediatrics, Case Western Reserve University, 2103
Adelbert Road, Cleveland, Ohio 44106, USA
P. H. LEIDERMAN Department of Psychiatry, Stanford University School of
Medicine, Stanford, Calif. 94305, USA
J. A. MACFARLANE Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Ox-
ford, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3PS, UK
T. E. OPPB Paediatric Unit, St Mary’s Hospital Medical School, Praed Street,
London W2 lPG, UK
H. PAPOUSEK Max-Planck-Institut fur Psychiatrie, Kraspelinstrasse 2 und 10,
D-Munchen 22, German Federal Republic
M. P. M. RICHARDS Unit for Research on Medical Applications of Psychology,
5 Salisbury Villas, Station Road, Cambridge CB1 254, UK
J. s. ROSENBLATT Institute of Animal Behaviour, Rutgers University, 101 War-
ren Street, Newark, New Jersey 07102, USA
D. M. SALISBURY Department of Paediatrics, University of Oxford, John Rad-
cliffe Hospital, Headington, Oxford OX3 9DU, UK
M. J. A. SIMPSON MRC Unit on the Development and Integration of Behaviour,
University Sub-Department of Animal Behaviour, Madingley, Cambridge
CB3 8AA, UK
ANN L. STEWART Department of Paediatrics, University College Hospital,
Huntley Street, London WClE 655, UK
EVELYN B. THOMAN Department of Biobehavioral Sciences, The College of
Liberal Arts and Sciences, The University of Connecticut, Storrs, Conn.
06268, USA
Editors: RUTH PORTER (organizer) and MAEVE O’CONNOR
ParenUdani Inleraciion
RUTH PORTER and MAE^ O’CO~WOR
0 Copyrkht I975 Cibo Foundation
Introduction
M. A. HOFER
Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Montefiore Hospital and Medical Center, Bronx,
New York
The area of research that we are going to be discussing at this meeting is in a
very exciting phase. We are beginning to see a kind of cross-pollination between
research in animal behaviour and human neonatal studies which has injected
vigorous new ideas into both fields. Probably as a part of the environmental or
ecological movement, which is now worldwide, man is beginning to consider
himself part of the living organic matrix of nature. The fact that social relation-
ships have been demonstrated to be vital to the development of most other
primates and some other infra-human mammals has in a peculiar way helped
us to accept our own dependency on our first experiences with our parents.
During my medical school years, it was Harlow’s work with monkeys that
convinced me and many of my colleagues that Spitz and Bowlby were right
about the importance of the early human mother-infant relationship.
Over the past decade, we have come to recognize that the early parent-
infant relationship has a profound impact on the development of emotional
behaviour, cognitive faculties, even biological organization and resistance to
illness.
Most recently, our views of the infant as a passive beneficiary, or victim, of
the parents’ influence has been successfully challenged by data from both
animal and human studies. The infant turns out to be immensely powerful in
his own special field-that of promoting and regulating the behaviour of his
parents. This has had the good effect of making us think, design studies, and
interpret those studies in terms of an evolving interaction. Such a complex
model presents methodological problems which we must solve as soon as
possible.
Much fo the work I have just described was done by people in this room,
and with rats and monkeys as well as humans. So we can be sure that we are
dealing with something absolutely fundamental to the life of mammals, but
1
2 M. A. HOFER
we must also admit how little we know about how it all works. Fortunately,
ignorance arouses curiosity, and there are some interesting new developments
in data, in methods and in theory which are the reason for this conference.
We are also learning more about the differences between species and beginning
to know at what level of abstraction we can hope to apply principles across
species. This particular point should come up early in the conference and
probably will not be settled by us here, even in the limited area of the processes
underlying early parent-infant interaction. Specifically, several recent lines of
evidence have suggested that small differences in the timing, duration and
setting of early mother-infant contact have a surprisingly powerful effect on
the quality and intensity of that relationship, months and even years later.
This phenomenon reminds one immediately of the ethological work on
‘imprinting’ and the concept of critical periods. However, these concepts are
by no means settled issues in the field of animal behaviour, despite the 35 or
40 years since the words were first applied to the formation of early social
relationships. In this field, enquiry has shifted to the next underlying level,
namely to the patterns of sensory, hormonal and other influences which
together determine the earliest behavioural interactions and the subsequent
course of development. Our conference seems to indicate that this shift in the
area of animal behaviour has also taken place in human studies.
We are concerned now with whether the infant has a period of special recep-
tivity for the mother immediately after birth, and with the processes acting on
parent and infant which make that period of life special.
These research issues have become enmeshed, at least in the United States,
in a social movement which provides exciting energy and a sense of urgency to
people working in this field. We are asked, should human birth be a very
different experience from what it is now? Should medical and nursing practice,
hospital design and obstetric and paediatric procedures be substantially altered
on the basis of the research evidence now available? Equally important, we must
be careful that research findings are not misinterpreted and exploited by vocal
pressure groups forcing changes which we will all regret later.
The usefulness of international conferences like this one is that we have a
chance to learn from others in widely different areas, with different methods
and different theoretical bases. Our group represents a wide range of disciplines :
animal behaviour, neonatal physiology, development psychology, paediatrics,
psychiatry and social psychology. Usually in such a heterogeneous group there
is an initial phase of defining one’s discipline and drawing distinctions-a kind
of ‘territorial marking’, to use the ethologists’ term-a phase which can be
prolonged and which delays transition to the next two stages: information
transfer and eventually some kind of synthesis or shared understanding. I hope