No More Learning

A third large-sample study is reported by Bronfenbrenner ( 1961). His aim was to investigate the family background of sixteen-year-old boys and girls rated by teachers in regard to each of two criteria: (a) the extent to which they proved to be leaders or followers at school, and (b) the extent to which they could or could not be relied on to fulfil obligations. Information regarding their families came from a questionnaire, designed to measure twenty different aspects of parent-child relations, which was completed by the subjects themselves.
The sample studied numbered 192, made up of equal numbers of boys and girls and also of equal numbers from each of four socio-economic classes, determined in a rough-and-ready way by the amount of education father is reported to have received.
Results are given separately for boys and girls and for each of the two criteria. Boys tend to be rated higher on leadership than do girls and the reverse is true of responsibility. On each criterion children whose fathers are more educated tend to be rated
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higher than children whose fathers are less educated. Other principal findings are that an adolescent who shows leadership is likely to come from a home in which he is given much time, affection, and support from his parents; and that one who shows a sense of responsibility is likely to come from a home in which parents exercise a good deal of authority, usually by means of reason and reward rather than punishment. Leadership and responsibility in children and affection and authority in homes are all positively correlated with one another.
At the higher ends of the rating-scales in respect of both criteria certain differences in family experience were found between boys and girls. Whereas boys seemed to thrive on high levels of parental support and control, there seemed to be some danger of girls receiving an overdose of one or both from their parents.
At the lower ends of the rating-scales, by contrast, no differences of consequence in family background were found between boys and girls. Moreover, whether the adolescent was rated low on leadership or on responsibility the picture of the home that emerged was much the
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same: in either case parental indifference or rejection was the rule. The boy (or girl) concerned was likely to describe his parents as inclined to complain about him, to ridicule him and compare him unfavourably with other children, and to spend little time with him and perhaps to avoid his company. Discipline was likely either to be lacking or else to be administered by means of arbitrary and excessive punishment. In respect of a few children whose leadership was rated low, however, a very different picture emerged: so far from being neglected, they had parents who were markedly over-protective of them.
In a fourth study, which draws on a fairly large sample and is reported by Coopersmith ( 1967), information about the family was obtained first-hand, although only from mother. The sample was confined to boys from intact white families.
Coopersmith's sample comprised eighty-five boys, aged from ten to twelve years, who were attending schools in two middlesized towns in New England. The socio-economic classes from which most came were neither high nor low. The sample, which was drawn from a much larger number of children initially assessed, was stratified according to two criteria: (a) the boys' self-assessment on a test designed to measure selfesteem, and (b) the teachers' assessments of the boys in terms of their behaviour. As in the Rosenberg study, low self- esteem was
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found to be strongly correlated with anxiety as measured by clinical tests; it was also, though less strongly, correlated with emotional problems as reported by mother.
Information regarding the boys' families came from: (i) a questionnaire completed by mother, (ii) a two-and-a-half-hour interview with mother by an interviewer uninformed regarding the boy's rating on self-esteem, and (iii) the boy's answers to a series of questions on his parents' attitudes and practices. Fathers were not seen.
In reviewing his findings Coopersmith stresses, above all, the high level of maternal acceptance found in the families of boys with high self-esteem: 'The findings are all consistent, regardless of the instrument or source of information. They reveal that the mothers of children with high self-esteem are more loving and have closer relationships with their children than do mothers of children with low self-esteem. ' Furthermore, as regards the strongly contrasting forms of discipline that were used by the parents of boys in the high and low self-esteem groups respectively, Coopersmith's findings are remarkably similar to those of Peck & Havighurst and to those of Bronfenbrenner, although the criteria of favourable personality development were quite different in the three studies. In the Coopersmith study not only were the boys of high self-esteem expected by their parents to meet high standards but parental control was exercised with care, respect, and firmness, and by the use of reward rather than punishment. By contrast, it was found that the boys of low self-esteem were not only given little care or guidance by their parents but often subjected to harsh and disrespectful punishment, which included loss of love.
Personality Development, Modes of Discipline, and Social Class
The consistency with which differences are reported in the modes of discipline and care to which children who show favourable or unfavourable development respectively are subjected is very striking. Equally striking is the consistency with which some of these same differences
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are reported to be associated with social class. Thus it is found that less-educated and working-class parents are more likely to use severe and arbitrary punishment, and to ignore or reject a child, than are better-educated and middle-class parents; and working-class fathers are less likely to spend time in joint activities with their adolescent children than are middle-class fathers (see review by Bronfenbrenner 1958). Taken together, these findings regarding
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(a) modes of discipline and personality development and (b) modes of discipline and social class support the hypothesis proposed earlier that the positive, if weak, correlation found between healthy personality development and higher social class may be explained, in part, by the differences in the ways in which parents belonging to different social classes tend to treat their children. The findings of Bronfenbrenner empirical study ( 1961) can be taken to illustrate a set of correlations that appear to be typical:
-- low ratings for leadership and responsibility in children are associated with parents who show little interest in their children and who either adopt arbitrary and punitive methods of discipline or else give them little guidance;
-- arbitrary methods of discipline, including physical punishment and ridicule, are more likely to be used by less-educated parents than by better-educated ones;
-- the children of less-educated parents are likely to be rated lower on leadership and responsibility than are those of better-educated parents.
Rosenberg reports a similar set of correlations between level of self-esteem, the amount of attention and concern fathers give their children, and social class. Further evidence compatible with the hypothesis is already given in Chapter 15 in which the relationship between symptoms of anxiety in a child and parental threats to abandon him or to commit suicide is discussed. These threats, it is found, are used by a larger proportion of parents in the working and lower-middle classes than of parents in the higher social classes. It would be inappropriate to pursue these complex and sensitive matters further in this work. Another large and difficult area which again it is not proposed to pursue here is the differential influence of father and mother on the development of their children, with special reference to the influence of each on boys and on girls. Those interested are referred to the study by Bronfenbrenner ( 1961) and to one by Douvan & Adelson ( 1966) who discuss in much detail the difference in developmental patterns shown by boys and girls between the ages of twelve and eighteen.
Further Studies of Small Samples
Next we revert to more intensive studies by considering the findings of three projects in each of which small samples of men
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or youths, selected especially for their apparently healthy and well-integrated development, were subjected to intensive clinical examination and observation over a period of at least a year. Presented in descending order of the subjects' age, the first study is of astronauts in training, the second of youths attending college, and the third of high-school students bound for college.
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In respect both of the developmental pathways that these personalities are following and of the family life they have experienced or are still experiencing, the findings of these three studies are in agreement; they are in agreement also with those of Peck & Havighurst. First, these well-adapted personalities are found to show a smoothly working balance of, on the one hand, initiative and self-reliance and, on the other, a capacity both to seek help and to make use of help when occasion demands. Second, an examination of their development shows that they have grown up in closely knit families with parents who, it seems, have never failed to provide them with support and encouragement.
So far as it goes, each study gives the same picture, that of a stable family base from which first the child, then the adolescent, and finally the young adult moves out in a series of ever- lengthening excursions. While autonomy is evidently encouraged in such families, it is not forced. Each step follows the previous one in a series of easy stages. Though home ties may attenuate, they are never broken.
Astronauts rank high as self-reliant men capable of living and working effectively in conditions of great potential danger and stress. Their performance, personalities, and histories have been studied by Korchin & Ruff. In two articles ( Korchin & Ruff 1964; Ruff & Korchin 1967) they publish preliminary findings on a small sample of seven men.
Although these men tend to be individualists who show a high degree of self-reliance and a clear preference for independent action, all are reported to be 'comfortable when dependence on others is required' and to have a 'capacity to maintain trust, in what might seem conditions of distrust'. The performance of the crew of Apollo 13, which met with a mishap en route to the moon, is testimony to their capacity to sustain trust. Not only did they maintain their own efficiency in conditions of great danger but they continued to cooperate trustingly and effectively with their companions at the base on earth.
Turning to their life-histories we find that they:
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grew up in relatively small well-organized communities, with considerable family solidarity and strong identification with the father. . . . a common theme in many of the interviews is the happy memory of out-door activities shared with the father. . . . Their environments did not challenge them beyond their capacities. They went to schools and colleges in which they could do well. . . . We saw a relatively smooth growth pattern in which they could meet available challenges, increase levels of aspiration, succeed and gain further confidence, and in this way grow in competence. . . . [They] had stable self-concepts in which professional values were clearly and sharply defined.
In evaluating these findings and the conclusions to which they point, it is necessary to consider to what extent the men's history of family solidarity, identification with father, and smooth growth patterns may themselves have been criteria in the procedures that led them to be selected for astronaut training. Since, no doubt, these factors played some part there is danger of circular argument. Yet it must be remembered that, before selection, these men had already proved outstandingly successful test pilots. 1 At the least, therefore, the study demonstrates that the family background and experience described by Korchin is highly compatible with the development of a stable personality in which high self-reliance is combined with a capacity for trustful reliance on others.
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The second study, this time of young men at college who appeared to their teachers to be of good general mental health and stability and to promise well as youth leaders and community workers, is reported by Grinker ( 1962). The sample studied comprised over a hundred students. Though in the drawing of conclusions the danger of circular reasoning remains, in this study it is reduced by its being possible to compare the family backgrounds of the members of three subsamples which differed in the degree of integration and mental health shown by their members.
The study was initiated when Grinker and his colleagues
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1 Though it gives less detail than the papers by Korchin & Ruff, a study by Reinhardt (
1970) of 105 outstanding US Navy jet pilots suggests that the much larger population of successful pilots from which astronauts are drawn have, in regard to personality and home background and especially in their relation to father, much in common with the astronauts themselves.
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were seeking healthy subjects on whom to conduct psychosomatic research. During initial interviews at a particular college Grinker was so deeply impressed by how free these young men seemed to be of neurotic difficulties that he decided to make a study of the entire male intake of the college in the following year. The main findings derive from the results of a very extensive questionnaire administered personally to all eighty students. They are much amplified by psychiatric interviews of thirty-four volunteers from that sample and also of another thirty-one students who had been seen the previous year. Findings from the interview study are presented first; those from the questionnaire study second.
The college in question is sponsored by the Young Men's Christian Association and has as its aim the training of young men and women to undertake work in keeping with the Association's objectives. Students come from all parts of the United States and Canada, with a preponderance from the middlewest and from rural communities and small towns. Many enter the college 'with strong convictions and motivations for YMCA work or that of settlement houses, community playgrounds etc. '. Entry standards are not as high as at many colleges and the curriculum tends to be less academic. Most of the students tend to be practical and good at games; IQs range from 100 to 130. For a great majority there is a close match between their own values and goals, those of their parents, and those of the college staff. Graduates have an excellent reputation and are much sought after to fill posts.
Among the sixty-five students interviewed Grinker reported only a handful as showing neurotic character structure. The large majority seemed straightforward youths, honest and accurate in their self-evaluation, with a 'capacity for close and deep human relationships . . . to members of their families, peers, teachers and to the interviewer'. Their reports of experiencing anxiety or sadness suggested that such feelings arose in appropriate situations and were neither severe nor prolonged. Grinker notes especially that a majority described how, on the one hand, they liked and sought responsibility and, on the other, would still seek advice on matters of importance. Thus there is nothing incompatible, Grinker concludes, between being prepared to seek aid from others in appropriate circumstances and the development of independence.
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As regards their experience of home life, the overall picture
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reported by the students is remarkably similar to that reported by the astronauts. In almost every case both parents were reported to be still alive. The typical picture presented was of a happy peaceful home in which the parents shared responsibilities and interests, and were regarded by the children as loving and giving. Mother was seen as somewhat more encouraging, warmer, and closer than father. Discipline, mainly from father, was held to have been consistent and fair; it was said to have comprised mainly scolding, physical punishment of a moderate sort, and deprivation of privileges. Only rarely was a parent said to have used a threat to withhold love.
These students described how during childhood they had felt above everything else secure with mother. At the same time they had identified strongly with father. So impressed indeed was Grinker by these youths' strong identifications with father and father figures that he is tempted to conclude that in males such identification is 'an extremely significant factor in the process of becoming and remaining [mentally] healthy'.
These conclusions are strongly supported by the findings from the questionnaire study of the total intake of eighty students, for which a within-group comparison was possible. On the basis of their answers to the questionnaire, students were placed in one of three subgroups according to the degree to which personality development seemed free of neurotic features. Students placed in the most healthy subgroup reported the closest and most rewarding of relationships with both parents, whereas those in the least healthy of the subgroups were more likely to report family relationships that were somewhat distant or strained; and they were also more likely to report episodes of stress, anxiety, and conflict during adolescence. Again, in summing up his findings about the best integrated and most healthy of his students Grinker uses words very similar to those that Korchin uses to describe the astronauts. He is impressed by the simple directness of the developmental pathways they have followed, by the gradualness of the changes that have taken place both in the growth of the personalities and in the environments in which they have grown, and by the almost complete absence in these students' lives of stress, conflict, and disappointment.
Grinker discusses some of the objections that can be made to his study and his conclusions. He is aware, for example, that critics might allege that these young men are merely dull conformists lacking creative spirit and capacity for innovation.
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Even were that to be true, however, and it is debatable, the criticism would not be relevant. For, as was remarked earlier, as psychiatrists we are concerned with the development of personalities rated highly in respect of mental health and selfreliance, and not in respect of any of the other criteria applicable in evaluating personality. And, as Grinker observes in defending his students against the easy criticisms that might be made by professional people who are committed to innovation and to competitive careers, constant innovation and intense competition may themselves be both symptoms of neurosis and agents in its production. The healthy population, by contrast, may perhaps provide that steady core of stability without which all would be chaos.
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Grinker is also aware that the validity of the historical information he uses can be challenged, since all of it is derived from the subjects' own reports. Furthermore, he knows that he is in no position to estimate the extent to which the healthily developing subjects had themselves contributed to the stability and harmony of their homes. These deficiencies are in some measure offset, however, when we find that Grinker's data and conclusions are little different from those of studies in which information regarding parents is obtained first-hand, as it was in the studies of Peck & Havighurst ( 1960) and of Coopersmith ( 1967), and as it was also in the study next to be reported.
This is a study of students during their transition from high school to college, undertaken in Washington D. C. by Hamburg and his colleagues (see Murpheyet al. 1963). The nineteen college-bound students, of both sexes, were selected during their last year at high school, on the basis of school record and a screening interview, as showing a high degree of competence; this was assessed in terms of their academic effectiveness, their satisfying and close peer relationships, and their ability to participate in social groups. The students were interviewed no fewer than seven times during the six months before going to college and four times during their freshman year. Parents were interviewed three times, once before the student went to college, once during the Christmas vacation, and once, jointly with the student, at the end of the year.
At the end of the study each student was assessed on two criteria: (i) the degree of autonomy he showed, defined in terms of his ability to make his own choices and to assume responsibility for his own decisions, and (ii) the extent to which he was able to maintain, or increase, mutually rewarding
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relationships with his parents. On the basis of these two criteria, the students could be assigned to one of four subgroups:
a. those high in both autonomy and family relatedness: nine students
b. those high in autonomy but low in family relatedness: six students
c. those low in autonomy but high in family relatedness: one student
d. those low in both autonomy and family relatedness: three students.
The nine students in subgroup (a) were plainly having the best of both worlds, being self- reliant and effective in college yet enjoying increasing intimacy with parents during the vacations. They resemble Grinker's very well-adjusted group. Those in subgroup (b) were also making good use of their opportunities at college, but relations with parents were growing distant or even hostile. The four students in subgroups (c) and (d) combined were showing little ability to stand on their own feet or to organize their own lives. It thus turned out that, on the basis of evidence collected during the course of the year, only half the students in the sample succeeded in living up to the high expectations of those who had originally selected them.
Interviews with parents, including one joint interview with parents and student together, showed considerable differences in the ways in which the students in the different subgroups were treated by their parents.
Parents of students placed in subgroup (a) were found to have clearly defined values and standards, which they were able to communicate to their offspring. At the same time they
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placed high value on the student's developing his own autonomy and encouraged it. Should their son (or daughter) require help or advice they were ready to respond, but they avoided doing so unless asked. They treated him with respect and kept him informed of both good and bad news, believing him adult enough to carry the responsibility. In a word, they encouraged their child to develop a life and a personality of his own, enjoyed his company during vacations, and were ready to give help when called upon.
The parents of the six students placed in subgroup (b), who showed high autonomy but low family relatedness, were able to provide many of the conditions provided by the parents of those
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in subgroup (a). The main difference was that the subgroup (b) parents were found to assign a role to their offspring that was more in keeping with their (the parents') interests than the interests of the son or daughter concerned. As a result, given the chance of an independent life, these students broke away from home and went their own way. Whether the resulting conflicts would persist was uncertain; it seemed likely to depend on whether or not the parents could reconcile themselves to the way of life their child had decided upon.
Finally, the three students placed in subgroup (d), who were characterized by low autonomy and low family relatedness, had parents who, it was found, were often unclear who they were and what they stood for. Communication in these families was poor and conflicts of opinion, when present, remained latent and obscure. After making a choice a student might be uncertain whether he had made it himself or been manipulated into making it by one of his parents.
Thus, as in Grinker's study, a within-sample comparison shows that the students who best meet the initial criteria are those who come from homes in which children receive the most support, in which communication between parents and children is most clear, and in which children are most trusted and are given most responsibility. The conclusion seems clear. When a student feels confident that relationships at home are secure, supportive, and encouraging he finds no difficulty in making the most of the new opportunities that college offers.
This same pattern of growing self-reliance resting on a secure attachment to a trusted figure and developing from it, found in each of the studies so far reviewed, is to be found also during the earliest years of life.
Studies of young children
Though there are other studies of adolescents and their families, notably that of Offer ( 1969), the findings of which support the thesis, it is time to turn to another sector of the life-cycle. What evidence is there, we may ask, that the kind of family experience that is associated with well-integrated and adaptable adolescents is found also to be the kind of family experience that is associated with young children who, so far as can be told, promise to develop along the same or similar pathways? A cross-sectional study by Baumrind ( 1967) of children attending a nursery school and a short-longitudinal study by Ainsworth and her colleagues ( 1971) of children developing during and
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up to the end of their first year are steps to answering this question. Nursery-school Children
To obtain her sample for systematic study Baumrind screened all the 110 children who were attending one of the four sections of a university nursery school. They were aged three or four years and were mainly from middle-class homes. To ensure that the children selected for study fell into three distinctive groups, each containing subjects with clear-cut and consistent patterns of interpersonal behaviour, screening was done in two steps. First, at the end of fourteen weeks of observation, teachers and psychologists ranked the children on five dimensions of behaviour. The second step was carried out immediately afterwards: fifty-two children ranked consistently either high or low on these dimensions were studied in an experimental situation in which each child was given three puzzles, graded in difficulty, to see how he responded in situations of easy success, probable success, and certain failure. As a result of these two screenings three groups of children, numbering thirty-two in all, were selected.
Children in group I, comprising seven boys and six girls, were ranked and rated highly, in nursery class and in the laboratory, in regard to such characteristics as vigorous and cheerful participation in school activities; willingness to tackle new and difficult tasks; active exploration of the environment; ability to sustain effort, to take turns, and to obey school rules; ability to stand up for themselves; and willingness to seek help from adults when necessary.
Children in group II, comprising four boys and seven girls, had low rankings in these regards. In particular, they were poor at exploring, tackling new and difficult tasks, and cooperating with other children; they were also liable to moods, in which they were either aggressive and obstructive or fearful, bored, or subdued.
Children in group III, comprising five boys and three girls, were also poorly thought of. In particular, they were rated low in regard to participation in activities and exploration; ability to sustain effort, to take turns, and to obey school rules; and also in regard to capacity to stand up for themselves and make their own way.
While children in group I can be regarded as well integrated and adaptable for their age, the development of those in groups II and III is clearly suboptimal by almost any standard.
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Information regarding the family experience of each child came from three sources: (a) two home visits, each lasting about three hours, one of which was during the evening at a time of maximum domestic stress; (b) a structured observation of mother and child in the laboratory; (c) interview of each parent separately. During a home visit an observer recorded every occasion of parent-child interaction in which one member of the pair attempted to influence the behaviour of the other. To gauge reliability of observation, eight families were observed by two observers. Records were coded. Subsequently the father and mother of each child were rated on four rating-scales which can be summarized as follows:
nurturance: the extent to which the parent is concerned about the child's physical and 266
emotional wellbeing, is attentive to him, and expresses affection, and pride and pleasure in his achievements;
maturity demands: the extent to which the parent expects the child to be self-reliant and to perform up to his abilities; control: the extent to which the parent seeks to modify the way the child behaves, either by exerting pressure or by resisting pressure;
mode of communication: the extent to which the parent consults the child's opinions and feelings, and uses reason, and open and clear techniques of control in contrast to manipulative ones.
The second source of information about a child's family experience came from observation of mother and child in a laboratory setting. Their interaction was observed and recorded by two psychologists. The session was divided into two phases: first, mother was asked to teach her child elementary concepts using rods of different lengths and colours; second, she was asked to be with him while he played. Mother was free to play with him or not as she wished, but in any case she was asked to ensure that during play he kept within certain limits set by the experimenters. In this setting it was possible to note how a mother assisted and supported her child, what expectations of him she appeared to have, her use of praise and disapproval, her way of enforcing rules, her modes of teaching, and her ability to secure his collaboration. Subsequently, mothers were rated on the same four rating-scales that were used to rate parents following the home visits.
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The consistency of findings for the behaviour of each mother in the two settings, home and laboratory, was such as to suggest that each observation gave a valid picture (though it must be recognized that the two sets of ratings were not made entirely independently of each other).
When the behaviour of parents is compared in relation to the three groups in which their children were initially placed, differences are of exactly the kind that the studies of adolescents and their parents have led us to expect. The fathers and mothers of children in group I are found to be rated highly on each of the four rating-scales described above. The parents of children in both groups II and III are rated consistently lower on these scales than are those of children in group I. Parents of children in group II score especially low on nurturance; those of children in group III score especially low on control and on maturity demands.
Typical pictures of family experience for children in each of the three groups, based on information derived from all three sources, i. e. including interviews, are as follows:
Family experience of children in group I: In the home setting, parents of these active, controlled, and self-reliant children were consistent in handling their child and also loving and conscientious in their care. They respected his wishes but could also stick to their own decisions. They gave their reasons for going against a child's wishes and encouraged plenty of verbal give-and-take. In the laboratory they showed firm control and expected a good deal of the child but were also supportive. They made their wishes clearly known.
Family experience of children in group II: In both the home and the laboratory the parents of these rather anxious and aggressive children were found to give their child relatively little affection, attention, or support. Though they exerted firm control, they gave no reasons for
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their action.
Moreover, they gave their child little encouragement or approval. In interview, mother reported using disciplinary measures that entailed frightening the child.
Family experience of children in group III: The parents of these unassertive and rather inactive children were found to be selfeffacing and insecure themselves, and not very effective in managing their homes. Neither parent demanded much of the child, and they were apt to baby him. In interview it emerged
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that mothers were inclined to use withdrawal of love and ridicule as methods of discipline.
Another study aimed at throwing light on the relationship between family experience and the behaviour of young children in a nursery school is being conducted in Los Angeles by Heinicke. Children are being studied longitudinally, starting when they enter nursery school at the age of three and continuing for the next four years. In addition to regular assessments of performance on educational tasks, a child's day-to-day social and emotional behaviour is recorded in much detail with special reference to the behaviour he experiences from his teachers and from his parents. When the different patterns of behaviour shown in school are correlated with the different ways a mother may treat her child, the same kinds of association that Baumrind reports are found. In a preliminary communication Heinicke and his colleagues (in press) illustrate their results by describing the contrasting development of two children and their families. The extent to which behaviour in school is found to be reactive to experience at home, especially to the availability or non-availability of the child's attachment figures, strongly supports the present thesis.
Nevertheless, it must be remembered, the children studied by Baumrind and by Heinicke were already three or four years old, by which age several years of very complex interactions between child and parents have taken place and considerable developments have occurred in a child's personality. What, we may therefore ask, do we know of patterns of personality and the conditions in which they develop during an even earlier sector of the life-cycle? For light on this we turn to the study by Ainsworth and her colleagues of twenty-three infants and their mothers, observed during the first year of the infants' life.
One-year-olds
In Chapter 3 a description is given of Ainsworth's method of observing the interaction of a mother and her twelve-monthold child, first, when they are together in a benign but strange situation and, later, after mother has left the room briefly and has then returned. Of the total of fifty-six infants from white middle-class homes whom Ainsworth studied at twelve months, a sub-sample of twenty-three were observed in their own home with mother throughout their first year.
The home of each child in this sub-sample was visited every
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three weeks by an observer, who stayed for a long session lasting about four hours during which mother was encouraged to carry on her activities in her usual way. Detailed notes were made during the visits, from which was subsequently dictated and transcribed a narrative
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report of the infant's behaviour and of the interactions that had occurred between mother and infant. From all the data that are available on this sub-sample it is necessary for our purpose to concentrate on only three sets:
-- behaviour of infant as observed at twelve months when with his mother in the experimental situation
-- behaviour of infant as observed at eleven and twelve months when with his mother at home
-- behaviour of mother towards her infant as observed during visits to the home during the whole of the infant's first year.
An examination of the findings, reported by Ainsworth, Bell & Stayton ( 1971), shows that, with only few exceptions, the way an infant of twelve months behaves with and without his mother in his own home and the way he behaves with and without her in a slightly strange test situation have much in common. By drawing on observations of behaviour in both types of situation it becomes possible to classify the infants into five main groups, using two criteria: (a) how much or how little an infant explores when in different situations; and (b) how he treats his mother -- when she is present, when she departs, and when she returns. 1
The five groups, with the number of infants classifiable into each, are as follows:
Group P: The exploratory behaviour of an infant in this group varies with the situation and is most evident in mother's presence. He uses mother as a base, keeps note of her whereabouts, and exchanges glances with her. From time to time he
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1 The classification presented here, based on behaviour in both types of situation, is a
slightly modified version of the one presented by Ainsworth et al. ( 1971) in which a child's behaviour in his own home is the sole source of data. Infants classified here into groups P, Q, and R are identical with the infants classified into Ainsworth's groups I, II, and III. Those classified here into group T are the same as those classified into Ainsworth's group V, less one infant who, although passive at home, proved markedly independent in the strange test situation and is therefore transferred to group S. The infants in group S are the same as those in Ainsworth's group IV, plus the one infant transferred. The reclassification presented here has Professor Salter Ainsworth's approval.
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returns to her and enjoys contact with her. When she returns after a brief absence he greets her
warmly. No ambivalence towards her is evident. N = 8.
Group Q: The behaviour of these infants is much like that of infants in group P. Where it differs is in that, first, infants in this group tend to explore more actively in the strange situation and, second, they tend to be somewhat ambivalent towards mother. On the one hand, if ignored by her, an infant may become intensely demanding; on the other, he may ignore or avoid her in return. Yet at other times the pair are capable of happy exchanges together. N = 4.
Group R: An infant in this group explores very actively whether mother is present or absent and whether the situation is familiar or strange. He tends, moreover, to have little to do with his mother and is often not interested in being picked up by her. At other times, especially after his mother has left him alone in the strange situation, he behaves in a very contrary way,
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alternately seeking proximity to her and then avoiding it, or seeking contact and then wriggling away. N = 3.
Group S: The behaviour of infants in this group is inconsistent. Sometimes they appear very independent, though usually for brief periods only; at other times they seem markedly anxious regarding mother's whereabouts. They are distinctly ambivalent about contact with her, seeking it frequently yet not seeming to enjoy it when given, or even strongly resisting it. Oddly enough, in the strange situation they tend to ignore mother's presence and to avoid both proximity to and contact with her. N = 5.
Group T: These infants tend to be passive both at home and in the strange situation. They show relatively little exploratory behaviour but much autoerotic behaviour. They are conspicuously anxious about mother's whereabouts and cry much in her absence; yet when she returns they can be markedly ambivalent towards her. N = 3.
When an attempt is made to evaluate these different patterns of behaviour as forerunners of future personality development the eight children in groups S and T seem the least likely to develop a well-integrated personality in which self-reliance is combined with trust in others. Some are passive in both situa-
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tions; others explore but only briefly. Most of them seem anxious about mother's whereabouts, and relations with her tend to be extremely ambivalent.
The three children in group R are most active in exploration and appear strongly independent. Yet their relations with mother are cautious, even slightly detached. To a clinician they give the impression of being unable to trust others, and of having developed a premature independence.
The four children in group Q are more difficult to assess. They seem to lie half-way between those in group R and those in group P.
If the perspective adopted in this work proves correct, it would be the eight children in group P who would be most likely in due course to develop a well-integrated personality, both self- reliant and trustful of others; for they move freely and confidently between a busy interest in exploring their environment and the people and things in it, and keeping in intimate touch with mother. It is true that they often show less selfreliance than the children in groups Q and R, and that in the strange situation they are more affected than those children are by mother's brief absences. Yet their relations with mother seem always to be cheerful and confident, whether expressed in affectionate embraces or in the exchanging of glances and vocalizations at a distance, and this seems to promise well for their future.
When we turn now to the type of mothering that was received by infants in each of the five groups, on the basis of data obtained during the long visits observers paid to the homes, the differences and correlations found are, once again, of the same kinds as those found in studies of older children and adolescents.
In assessing a mother's behaviour towards her child Ainsworth uses four distinct nine-point rating-scales. These are: an acceptance-rejection scale, a cooperation-interference scale, an
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accessibility-ignoring scale, and a scale measuring the degree of sensitivity a mother shows to her baby's signals. Since ratings on all these scales intercorrelate highly, detailed results are given for the last scale only, that of sensitivity or insensitivity to the baby's signals and communications. Whereas a sensitive mother seems constantly to be 'tuned in' to receive her baby's signals, is likely to interpret them correctly, and to respond to them both promptly and appropriately, an insensitive mother will often not notice her baby's signals, will
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misinterpret them when she does notice them, and will then respond tardily, inappropriately, or not at all.
When the ratings on this scale for the mothers of infants in each of the five groups are examined, it is found that the mothers of the eight infants in group P are rated uniformly highly (range 5? 5 to 9? 0), those of the eleven infants in groups R, S, and T are rated uniformly low (range 1? 0 to 3? 5), and those of the four in group Q are in the middle (range 4? 5 to 5? 5). Differences are statistically significant. Furthermore, when mothers are rated on the other three scales, differences between groups, in the same direction and of roughly the same order of magnitude, are found.
In a further analysis of the data ( Bell & Ainsworth 1972) it was found that the more responsive a mother was in tending her baby when he cried during the early months of his life the less frequently did he cry during the later months of the first year. In discussing their findings, Ainsworth and her colleagues (in press) emphasize that
mothers who give relatively much physical contact to their infants in their earliest months . . . have infants who by the end of the first year not only enjoy active affectional interaction when in contact but are also content to be put down and turn cheerfully to exploration and play. . . . [Such contact] does not make [an infant] into a clingy and dependent one-year-old; on the contrary it facilitates the gradual growth of independence. It is infants who have had relatively brief episodes of being held who tend to protest being put down, and also do not turn readily to independent play . . . ?
Plainly a very great deal of further work will be required before it is possible to draw conclusions with any high degree of confidence. Nevertheless the overall patterns of personality development and mother-child interaction visible at twelve months are sufficiently similar to what is seen of personality development and parent-child interaction in later years for it to be plausible to believe that the one is the forerunner of the other. At the least, Ainsworth's findings show that an infant whose mother is sensitive, accessible, and responsive to him, and accepts his behaviour and is cooperative in dealing with him, is far from becoming the demanding and unhappy child that some theories might suggest. Instead, mothering of this sort is evidently compatible with a child who is developing a limited measure of self-reliance by the time of his first birthday
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combined with a high degree of trust in his mother and enjoyment of her company.
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Self-reliance and reliance on others
In Chapter 14 three propositions regarding personality functioning and development are introduced. The first is that, whenever an individual is confident that an attachment figure will be available to him when he desires it, that person will be much less prone to either intense or chronic fear than will an individual who for any reason has no such confidence. The second postulates that confidence in the accessibility and responsiveness of attachment figures, or a lack of it, is built up slowly during all the years of immaturity and that, once developed, expectations tend to persist relatively unchanged throughout the rest of life. The third postulates that expectations regarding the availability of attachment figures that different individuals build up are tolerably accurate reflections of the experiences those individuals have actually had. It is only because each proposition is, or at least has been, so controversial that it has seemed necessary to display the evidence on which they rest in so much detail.
Although each proposition was derived initially from attempts to understand and treat disturbed children, especially those whose disturbance had developed after a separation, the propositions are seen to have a wider application. For not only young children, it is now clear, but human beings of all ages are found to be at their happiest and to be able to deploy their talents to best advantage when they are confident that, standing behind them, there are one or more trusted persons who will come to their aid should difficulties arise. The person trusted provides a secure base from which his (or her) companion can operate. And the more trustworthy the base the more it is taken for granted; and the more it is taken for granted, unfortunately, the more likely is its importance to be overlooked and forgotten.
Paradoxically, the truly self-reliant person when viewed in this light proves to be by no means as independent as cultural stereotypes suppose. An essential ingredient is a capacity to rely trustingly on others when occasion demands and to know on whom it is appropriate to rely. A healthily self-reliant person is thus capable of exchanging roles when the situation changes: at one time he is providing a secure base from which his companion(s) can operate; at another he is glad to rely on one or
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another of his companions to provide him with just such a base in return.
A capacity to adopt either role as circumstances change is well illustrated by a healthily self- reliant woman during the successive phases of her life running from pregnancy through childbirth and on into motherhood. A woman capable of coping successfully with these shifts is found by Wenner ( 1966) 1 well able, during her pregnancy and puerperium, both to express her desire for support and help and to do so in a direct and effective fashion to an appropriate figure. Her relationship with her husband is close and she is eager and content to rely on his support. In her turn she is able to give spontaneously to others, including her baby. By contrast, Wenner reports, a woman who experiences major emotional difficulties during pregnancy and puerperium is found to have great difficulty in relying on others. Either she is unable to express her desire for support or else she does so in a demanding and aggressive way; in either case her behaviour reflects her lack of confidence that support will be forthcoming. Commonly she is both dissatisfied with what she is given and is herself unable
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to give spontaneously to others. A study by Melges ( 1968) shows that women with these problems almost always have a deeply ambivalent relationship with their own mother.
Agreement on Some Basic Principles
The theoretical position adopted here has much in common with positions adopted by a number of other psychoanalysts, especially those who give substantial weight to the influence of the environment on development.
In the United Kingdom, for example, Fairbairn ( 1952), insisting that 'any theory of ego- development that is to be satisfactory must be conceived in terms of relationships with objects', postulates that during an individual's development 'an original state of infantile dependence . . . is abandoned in
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1 Wenner ( 1966) reports preliminary findings from a study of fifty-two married women
during and after a pregnancy. The subjects were middleclass, middle-income Americans, aged from twenty years upwards, and included both primiparas and multiparas. They had been referred to a psychiatrist during pregnancy because of possible emotional problems, and were seen in weekly therapeutic interviews until at least three months post-partum. Some of them showed major emotional difficulties during the period of study, but the majority did not.
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favour of a state of adult or mature dependence . . . ' In Winnicott's view:
Maturity and the capacity to be alone implies that the individual has had the chance through good-enough mothering to build up a belief in a benign environment. . . . Gradually the ego- supportive environment is introjected and built into the individual's personality, so that there comes about a capacity actually to be alone. Even so, theoretically, there is always someone present, someone who is equated ultimately and unconsciously with the mother . . . ( Winnicott 1958).
In the United States a similar tradition of theorizing has been influential for many years, and is well described in a recent paper by Fleming ( 1972). Benedek ( 1938; 1956) emphasizes how a person's confidence in the existence of helping figures derives from repeated gratifying experiences in his relationship with his mother during infancy and childhood and how, as a result, a strong ego develops, capable of maintaining integration and self-regulation during periods when no support is available. Mahler ( 1968), basing her views on studies of severely disturbed and psychotic children, reaches a similar conclusion. Selfconfidence, self-esteem, and pleasure in independence, she concludes, develop out of trust and confidence in others. This trust is built up during infancy and childhood through a child's experience of a mothering person who acts as a 'reference point' for his activities while at the same time giving him sufficient freedom to enable him to pass through the developmental phase that Mahler terms 'separation-individuation'. Fleming ( 1972), after spending many years studying the problems of adult patients who have suffered bereavement during childhood or adolescence, endorses these views and insists that, even in adult life, 'we are never completely independent of the need that a trusted helpful person exists and could be called if necessary'.
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Thus, though the sources of the observations on which different clinicians base their conclusions and the theoretical frameworks within which they describe them are often very different, and different again both from the sources of observation and from the theoretical model used in this work, on certain basic principles there is strong agreement. A well-founded selfreliance, it is clear, not only is compatible with a capacity to rely on others but grows out of and is complementary to it.
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Both, moreover, are alike products of a family that provides strong support for its offspring combined with respect for their personal aspirations, their sense of responsibility, and their ability to deal with the world. So far from sapping a child's self-reliance, then, a secure base and strong family support greatly encourage it.
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Chapter 22
Pathways for the Growth of Personality
Organism and environment are not two separate things, each having its own character in its own right, which come together with as little essential inter-relation as a sieve and a shovelful of pebbles thrown on to it. The fundamental characteristics of the organism are timeextended properties, which can be envisaged as a set of alternative pathways of development . . .
C. H. WADDINGTON ( 1957)
The nature of individual variation: alternative models
For most of the present century the model of personality development most favoured has regarded a personality as progressing through a series of stages on a single track towards maturity. The various forms of disturbed personality are then attributed to an arrest having occurred at one or another of these stages. Such an arrest, it is thought, can be either more or less complete. Most often, it is supposed, it is only a partial arrest. In such an instance development is conceived as continuing in an apparently fairly satisfactory way except that, in conditions of stress, it is liable to breakdown, in which case the personality is thought to regress to whatever stage in development the partial arrest, or fixation, is deemed to have occurred at. In some of the best-known theoretical systems based on that model, for example that of Abraham ( 1924), each form of personality disorder, of neurosis and of psychosis is held to be traceable to some measure of fixation that has occurred at one or another particular phase of development. It is from this model that application of the terms mature and immature to healthy and disturbed personalities, respectively, derives (see Chapter 14).
A theoretical system more recently outlined by Anna Freud ( 1965), although more elaborate than Abraham's, none the less retains the same essential features: individual differences are still measured in terms of the degrees of progression, fixation, and regression that are thought to be shown. The main new
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feature is that, whereas Abraham's model takes account only of phases in libido development, Anna Freud's model takes account of phases of development that are postulated to occur in each of a number of different areas of personality functioning, e. g. in the development of modes of eating or of object relationships. Thus the concept is introduced of a set of 'developmental lines' along all of which a healthy personality is expected to progress relatively evenly and harmoniously, and at a rate appropriate to chronological age. The different forms of psychological disturbance are then explained in terms of a profile in which some degree of fixation and regression is held to have occurred during development along one or more of these lines.
Alternative models of personality development have been little discussed in clinical circles. One alternative that, it is now maintained, fits presently available evidence far closer than does the traditional one conceives of personality as a structure that develops unceasingly along one or another of an array of possible and discrete developmental pathways. All pathways are thought to start close together so that, initially, an individual has access to a large range of pathways along any one of which he might travel. The one chosen, it is held, turns at each and every stage of the journey on an interaction between the organism as it has developed up to that moment and the environment in which it then finds itself. Thus at conception development turns on interaction between the newly formed genome and the intra- uterine environment; at birth it turns on interaction between the physiological constitution, including germinal mental structure, of the neonate and the family, or non-family, into which he is born; and at each age successively it turns on the personality structure then present and the family and, later, the wider social environments then current.
At conception the total array of pathways potentially open to an individual is determined by the make-up of the genome. As development proceeds and structures progressively differentiate, the number of pathways that remain open diminishes.
These two, alternative, theoretical models can be likened to two types of railway system. The traditional model resembles a single main line on which are set a series of stations. At any one of them, we may imagine, a train can be halted, either temporarily or permanently; and the longer it halts the more
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prone it becomes to return to that station whenever it meets with difficulty further down the line.
The alternative model resembles a system that starts as a single main route which leaves a central metropolis in a certain direction but soon forks into a range of distinct routes. Although each of these routes diverges in some degree, initially most of them continue in a direction not very different from the original one. The further each route goes from the metropolis, however, the more branches it throws off and the greater the degree of divergence of direction that can occur. Nevertheless, although many of these sub-branches do diverge further, and yet further, from the original direction, others may take a course convergent with the original; so that ultimately they may even come to run in a direction close to, or even parallel with, routes that have maintained the original direction from the start. In terms of this model the critical points are the junctions at which the lines fork, for once a train is on any particular line, pressures are present that keep it on that line; although, provided divergence
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does not become too great, there remains a chance of a train taking a convergent track when the next junction is reached.
The implications of these different models for research and practice are far-reaching. In regard to research the traditional model postulates that every form of personality disorder found in adults is patterned on a form of personality structure that is normal and healthy at some (appropriate) phase of life, usually thought to occur during the early years, or even months. In keeping with this assumption, a scheme is advanced that attributes to successive phases of healthy childhood features of a kind that are characteristic of one or another form of disordered personality of later life. Thus a developmental psychology is constructed that takes as its primary data for each phase of early development observations of how one or another form of disturbed personality is found to perform at some point later in the life-cycle.
The implications for research of the alternative model, which postulates a range of diverging developmental pathways, are very different. As was argued at the end of Chapter 14, this model disputes the notion that disordered states of adult personality are reflections of early states of healthy development and it regards as seriously mistaken any attempts to build a developmental psychology on that basis. What is required instead, it holds, is that the many and often divergent developmental pathways potentially available to humans should each
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be mapped, together with those organismic and environmental variables that constrain an individual to take one pathway rather than another. Such mapping, it insists, can be done only by studying personalities as they develop in the particular environment in which they happen to be developing. Only in this way is it possible to gain understanding of the interactional sequences of personality and environment that result in that personality growing along that particular pathway.
Developmental pathways and homeorhesis
This alternative model, which sees differences in personality structure as being a result of growth having proceeded along different and divergent developmental pathways, is patterned on the theory of epigenesis proposed by Waddington (1957) and now widely adopted by developmental biologists. In this theory the processes that determine an organism's development, and in particular the extent to which each feature of development is sensitive or insensitive to environmental variation, are seen as governed by the genome. Any feature of development that is relatively insensitive to changes of environment can be termed 'environmentally stable'; any feature that is relatively sensitive can be termed 'environmentally labile' (see Chapters 3 and 10 of Volume I).
The advantages and disadvantages, in terms of survival, that ensue for a species according to the greater or lesser degree of sensitivity to environmental change during development with which its members are endowed are discussed by Waddington. On the one hand, a low degree of sensitivity to environmental change may ensure adaptive development within a great variety of environments but at the price of a total inability to adapt should the environment change beyond certain limits. On the other, a high degree of sensitivity enables an organism to vary its development according to the particular environment in which development happens to be taking place, with a good prospect of the adult's being better adapted to that environment than it would otherwise be. It also ensures a reserve of adaptability within the species's gene
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pool so that, should there be great fluctuations in the environment, there are likely always to be some members of the population capable of adapting and surviving. Such flexibility, however, is bought at the risk that in a number of environments the development of many individuals may go badly astray and the resulting forms may be seriously maladapted to any or perhaps all
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environments. Because of this danger no species can afford its members more than a limited degree of sensitivity to environmental fluctuation during their development.
In their evolution different species have adopted very different strategies in regard to the degree of sensitivity to environment that is permitted during development. Because either extreme, whether of sensitivity or of insensitivity, has serious dangers for survival every species comes to have some balance of the two properties. Probably in all species such epigenetic sensitivity as it possesses is greatest during early life and then diminishes.
In order to limit epigenetic sensitivity and so ensure consistent development despite fluctuations of environment, physiological and behavioural processes are evolved that buffer the developing individual against the impact of the environment. Acting in concert, these processes tend to maintain an individual on whatever developmental pathway he is already on, irrespective of most of the fluctuations that might occur in the environment in which further development will be taking place. The strong self-regulative property of which these processes are agents Waddington terms 'homeorhesis'.