John Bowlby and ethology : a study of cross-fertilization
Horst, F.C.P. van der
Citation
Horst, F. C. P. van der. (2009, February 5). John Bowlby and ethology : a study of cross- fertilization. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/1887/13467
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I NTERMEZZO .
H ISTORICAL VIEWS AND CURRENT RESEARCH
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INTERMEZZO
87 So far, we have argued that from the 1950s John Bowlby was in close personal and scientific contact with Robert Hinde, who introduced him to the finer details of the emerging science of ethology (Chapter 3). The theoretical implications drawn from this new approach for animal behavior eventually led him to “rewrite psychoanalysis in the light of ethological principles” (Dinnage, 1979, p. 325). At the same time, as we have shown, Bowlby‘s position was confirmed by Harlow’s early research on separation with rhesus monkeys (Chapter 4).
Also, it became clear that Bowlby’s influence on students of animal behavior was immense.
Encouraged by Bowlby, Hinde shifted his focus from song-learning in birds to studying mother-infant interactions in rhesus monkeys. Harlow modeled his experiments with rhesus infants on Bowlby’s theoretical ideas and thus sought and found empirical confirmation for Bowlby’s views as to the consequences of separation in human infants. But these reciprocal influences are not just a thing of the past. To this day researchers of attachment theory and animal behavior are profiting from each other’s work and their research is intertwined.
On the basis of the findings presented in the previous chapters, we decided to invite a leading expert in the field to discuss these issues in an in-depth interview as to further understand and clarify the cross-fertilization of ideas. We decided upon Dr. Stephen J. Suomi and conducted an interview with him on September 27, 2006 at the Centre for Child and Family Studies, Leiden University. The verbatim record of this interview was subsequently annotated by Frank van der Horst and edited several times by both him and Dr. Suomi. Questions that came up in the process were dealt with through email correspondence. The result of this extensive process of revision is presented in the next chapter as a running text.
In the general introduction we have addressed the importance of ‘oral history’ for the historical and theoretical research conducted in this thesis. The interview presented here is an illustration of this importance for the history of the cross-fertilization of ethology and attachment theory. First, the chapter nicely illustrates the relevance of oral histories to historical and theoretical research and, secondly, it shows that the interchange between attachment theory and studies of animal behavior bears fruit to this day. Before turning to this extensive illustration of merging attachment research with studies in primates, Suomi’s work shall be briefly introduced.
Dr. Suomi has received international recognition for his research on biobehavioral development in rhesus monkeys and other primate species. From 1968 he was a graduate student with Harry Harlow at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, receiving his PhD in Psychology in 1971. His initial research showed that reversal of the adverse affects of early social isolation, previously thought to be permanent, is possible in rhesus monkeys (e.g., Harlow & Suomi, 1971; Suomi & Harlow, 1972; Suomi, Harlow & McKinney, 1972; Suomi, 1973). Subsequent research led to his election as Fellow in the American Association for the Advancement of Science “for major contributions to the understanding of social factors that influence the psychological development of nonhuman primates”. Since joining the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) he has identified hereditary and experiential factors that influence individual biobehavioral development (e.g., Suomi, 1981, 1987, 1997, 2004), described both behavioral and physiological features of distinctive rhesus monkey phenotypes (e.g., Champoux, Coe, Schanberg, Kuhn, & Suomi, 1989;
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Roma, Champoux & Suomi, 2006; Suomi, 1990, 1996), and demonstrated the adaptive significance of these different phenotypes in naturalistic settings. His present research at the Laboratory of Comparative Ethology focuses on three general issues: “first, the role of specific genetic and environmental factors (and their interactions) in shaping individual developmental trajectories; second, the issue of developmental continuity vs. change and the relative stability of individual differences throughout development; and third, the degree to which research findings from monkeys studied in captivity generalize not only to monkeys living in the wild but also to humans living in different cultures” (Suomi, personal communication, September 6, 2006).
