AN ETHOLOGICAL APPROACH TO THE EMERGENCE OF SOCIAL AND EMOTIONAL DEVELOMENT IN HUMAN INFANTS Traditionally, innate behaviour was said to be genetically determined. In other words, genetic information was thought to be required for the development of instincts but not for learned behaviour. This division is an example of the hoary nature versus nurture controversy in which traits were felt to be caused either by hereditary factors (nature) or by experiencial factors (nurture).
An either/or approach is meaningless. A genotype without environmental building blocks (nurture) would remain a genotype and nothing more. Environmentally supplied materials, in the absence of genetic information (nature) to organize their use in development would remain an unorganized collection of mollecules. The development of every aspect of an individual -its appearance, its physiological mechanisms, its behaviour, its everything- is the product of an interaction between hereditary information and the environment that provides the substances for development (Hinde, 1974).
The function of a behavioural adaptation is to contribute to the gene-copying success of an individual. There are many obstacles in an animal's environment (predation, competitors, strangers, etc.) that stand in the way of gene survival. An evolutionary approach suggests that behavioural traits should help individuals overcome these obstacles.
I intend further to elaborate on the issue of irrationalism versus rationalism because of its crucial role in the understanding of the difference between the epistemological status of Bowlby's Theory of Attachment and other approaches, either before or after Bowlby's scientific output.
I deem Bowlby's approach the first to take socio-emotional issues seriously; which is totally in keeping with the rationalist attitude to take arguments seriously.
For this is the fundamental difference between the two views: for irrationalism will use reason too, without any feeling of obligation and thus will use it or discard it as it pleases. In other words, the irrationalist uses reason either to amuse himself or to manipulate others. He never feels that reason is above him.
Typically irrationalists will argue that human nature is in the main not rational. Men and women, they hold, are more than mere rational animals, and also less.
Much of the criticism Bowlby's approach has arisen is in exactly the same vein as other rationalists have gathered ever since the Middle Ages! (the opposition between scholasticism and mysticism). If you care to confront Bowlby's statements with Nagel's, you will become aware of the parallelism both lines of arguments share. Bowlby states: "Data drawn from direct observations is currently (1969) regarded as of peripheral concern... it can provide only superficial information in sharp contrast with the direct observation of mental intrap`sychical functioning that obtains during psychoanalytic treatment. (Not that I attack psychoanalysis, I simply see no reason why psychoanalysis must remain static and thereby proto-scientific). Nagel expresses: "To the irrationalists, the rationalists, and especiallly the rational scientist, are the poor in spirit, pursuing soulless and largely mechanical activities, and completely unaware of the deeper problems of human destiny and of its philosophy".
Needless to say, no rational argument will have a rational effect on somebody who does not want to adopt a rational attitude.
Resuming our brief outline of an ethological approach to early social development, I now add:
In non-human primates the early development of social behaviour occurs in interaction with the mother.
As the infant matures he interacts to a considerable extent with his peers, but these interactions are largely controlled by the mother.
Thus it is with mother-infant interacions that the ethologist is first concerned.
Newborn primates, like newly-hatched birds have a repertoire of behavioural patterns which mediate interaction with their social environment, i.e., their mother. These include rooting, grasping, clinging, finding the nipple, gesturing, vocaliztions and other social signs.
Monkeys spend most of thier early months, and apes most of their early years, clinging to their mothers in a ventro-ventral position or riding on their backs, and when moving about most mother give little if any support to their infants. It is thus essential for the infant to be able to cling to his mother as she runs or leaps about.
The infant's ability to cling depends on basic reflex patterns. Sudden movement of the mother produces movements of the arms which serve to bring them into contact with the mother's body. This response is still present in the human baby as the MORO reflex, given on stimulation of the vestibular organs or the muscles of the neck.
In addition to clinging with hans and feet, an infant monkey also holds on to its mother's nipple with its mouth. The NIPPLE thus provides a 5TH POINT OF SUPPORT.
Neonatal gorillas (Fossey, Dianne, 1975) also can cling unaided, though the mother often gives additional support with her arms and thighs. In human newborns remnants of the grasping pattern are still present, thereby the fact that human mothers of many societies normally carry their babies.
The means whereby the baby finds the nipple provides another example of an early movement pattern important for early social development. The young primate, and this includes the human baby, has a rooting reflex. It moves its head from side to side, thereby increasing the probability that the nipple will contact a sensitive area round the mouth which includes the upper and lower lips and parts of the cheeks. If this region is stimulated the head is turned in such a way that the mouth moves towards the point with which contact was made. The nipple is the grasped with the lips and, if the nipple touches the soft palate, sucking is induced.
Sucking has a soothing effect on the baby, even though it obtains no milk thereby and even if it has never previously been fed from breast or bottle.
HARLOW's EXPERIMENTS
Harlow (Harlow and Suomi, 1959) provided rhesus monkey infants with surrogate mothers consisting of a wire framework which might or might not be covered in terry cloth, might or might not have a nipple providing milk, might or might no have a head, and so on. One of the most importnat characters turned out to be the terry cloth covering. When rhesus monkey infants were given two artificial mother surrogates of which one was covered with terry cloth and one was not, they spent nearly all their time on the cloth mother even though they could obtain milk only from the wire one. Textural stimuli are not the only ones determining an infant's clinging preferences, though. Mother surrogates that provide milk. are warm, or that rock, are preferred to ones that are milkless, cold or stationary (Harlow and Suomi, 1970). Paralleles with human infants are obvious: they also can be soothed by contact, warmth, or being rocked, as well as by the opportunity to suck.
COMMUNICATION BETWEEN MOTHER AND INFANT
Pregnancy and birth form the beginning of and on-going interaction between mother and infant which involves intersubjective communication (Stern, 1985) and that evolves with the growing and interrelated perceptual, cognitive and motor capacities of the infant.
The early post-natal development of most non-human primates occurs in an environment formed in large part by the mother's body. Closely attached to her, the infant must become closely acquainted with the tactual, kinaesthetic, auditory, visual, and olfactory stimuli that she provides. To some of these stimuli he responds as soon as he is born. As he develops further, his mother's body is his first toy, and many of his waking hours are spent in its exploration. In addition, the manner in which the mother holds the baby makes it easier for the baby to learn her features. She likes to look into her baby's face, and tries to get the baby to look at her. Being held and rocked may not only soothe a crying baby, but also alert it, and when the infant is at the breast, its mother's face is at about the distance at which it can focus most clearly. (Let us remember infants are myopic at birth and that their visual focal distance is barely 25-30 cms.).
As regards the auditory modality, there is evidence that infants exposed to the sound of the human heartbeat gain weight better than do infants not so exposed: the tendency of parents to carry babies against the left breast rather than the right may be related to this.
One of the most outstanding communication features deployed by mammals in general and humans in particular are distress signals. Human infants cries adopt different patterns: in hunger, it progresses from an arrhythimical low-intensity cry to a louder and rhythmical form; an agry cry, somewhat similar in form but with the components of the sequence differently emphasized; and a pain cry with a sudden onset, a pause, and then a series of gasping cries.
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Attachment Research Center - Department of Early Development