Some Issues in Human Development

Some Issues in Human Development VICTOR C. VAUGHAN, Ill * Department of Pediatrics, Temple University School of Medicine and St. Christopher's Hospital for Children, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19133 It is a great pleasure and priv missing this as mental retardation ilege to address you in memory in goslings, studied the matter in and honor of Dr. Lee Sutton, who detail. He determined not only that was for many years a friend of the this behavior is characteristic of Vaughan family, and, as you know, newly hatched geese, but that ducks a devoted, able and thoughtful and a variety of birds behave in a physician who gave much to the similar manner. care of Virginia's children as Pro In further study of this behavior, fessor and Chairman of the Depart it has been determined that newly ment of Pediatrics and as Dean of hatched ducklings will follow any the Medical College of Virginia. moving object, with maximal drive In discussing certain issues in or urgency at about 11 to 14 hours human development, I would like of age. The moving object can be to touch on three phenomena. On a mother duck, another animal, or two of them we have information even a little block of wood on chiefly from animal studies; the wheels pulled by a piece of string. third is a more immediate part of If the object emits sound, the our lives and the Jives of our chil duckling will follow a little more dren. effectively. Depending upon the du The first phenomenon is imprint ration or intensity of his following ing, which was described about 30 reaction, later in life in a situ years ago by Konrad Lorenz, who ation where he is exposed to the first observed it in geese. Lorenz imprinting object, to his own has summarized some of his stud mother, and to an anxiety provok ies in a remarkable little book en ing stimulus, the duckling will run titled King Solomon's Ring. In it to the imprinting object for refuge. he describes the experience of During the initial following reac hatching goose eggs in an incu tion, an electrified grille may be bator, watching these little crea put in front of the duckling, so tures for a day or two, and then that as he follows, he gets shocked. shooing them out into the yard Any normal adult duck would stop to join their mother. Thereafter, following. During the imprinting whenever Lorenz appeared in the period, however, the duckling fol yard, the little geese who had lived lows even more urgently, and the in his presence for the first two or intensity of the imprinting is made three days ran to him instead of more powerful by the painful stim their natural parent. As a thought ulus. ful biologist, Lorenz, instead of dis- This misidentification of one's natural refuge or parent turns out * Sutton Memorial Lecturer, Third not to be limited to birds. Most Annual Pediatrics Day, December 8, of us first heard of imprinting 1967, Medical College of Virginia, with the story of Mary's little Richmond. lamb, plainly imprinted to Mary. MCV QUARTERLY 4(4): 173-1 81 , 1968 173 SOME ISSUES IN HUMAN DEVELOPMENT Other studies of this phenomenon much earlier than a dog in order -both of which have a bottle indicate that dogs, too, have a criti to make a house pet out of it. It attached and an electric light bulb cal period in which they will be is said that if one brings a wolf into inside, so that they give both nutri come accustomed to human hand human company before its eyes are tion and warmth-the infant will ling. If you mean to make a puppy open, as Elsa came to the Adam attach himself to the terry cloth a lap dog, a house dog, a close sons, it is relatively easy to raise covered mother. There is something friend of the family, you will best him as a domestic animal. This is in the feel of the available parent bring him into the house at five to done with increasing difficulty after that profoundly conditions the be seven weeks. If you put this off un the wolf has lived for even a short havior of infant monkeys in the til 12 to 14 weeks, you wil1 not ulti period in the company of his nat area of socialization. mately have the same kind of dog; ural parents. It ultimately becomes Now what do monkeys have to for the dog that has lived in a virtually impossible to make a do with people? We don't really kennel for that period of time has house pet out of a wolf. know. There are likely to be dif a different social orientation. He Further observations add to the ferences between monkeys and doesn't become a big, friendly pup mystery and wonder of imprinting people, just as there are between like our family's current watch and related phenomena. In goats birds. Here it might be of interest dog, who came to us at seven a relationship is established be to examine the difference between weeks, and who might kill a tween mother and infant in the a precocial and an altricial bird. stranger-by licking him to death. first day of life which is quite When precocial birds are hatched, An earlier dog came to our house essential to the nutrition of the in they are able to feed themselves, at about 14 weeks. We tried for fant goat. When the kid is taken follow their mothers, and so on, nearly two years to make a friend away from the mother for a period within minutes of the time of de out of her, but she truly earned the of 40 minutes during the first day, livery. The altricial bird, on the name "Bitch" in the way she used the bond between the two may be other hand, is fed in a nest for a to greet not only strangers but the irrevocably fractured. After this considerable period. The ring rest of the family. She was snap separation, the mother receives the necked dove, for example, is fed pish, irritable, unpredictable, and kid with butts, pushing it away and in the nest for 14 days, then downright mean. Her pups, on the refusing to nurse it. In contrast, the mounts to the side of the nest, and other hand, born in the house and normal nanny goat, immediately af in 21 days flies away. If a human raised by hand by our own chil ter delivery, will accept any small handler is to come into the life of dren, were domesticated in just the goat as her own (Hersher Moore a ring-necked dove with an opti way one would expect house pets and Richmond, 1958). mum chance of creating conditions to be domesticated. They had none Something very important, then, under which this dove will accept of their mother's evil temper. is going on in the first day of life human company as belonging to its One of the most remarkable ex in goats, geese, and ducks-some natural state of living, the human amples of imprinting is given in the thing which is very important for handler has to come in at nine book Born Free. You will re the socialization of the animal with days. Increasingly, prior to nine member that Elsa, the lioness, was other members of its own species. days and after nine days, up to found with two siblings in a cave, Have these phenomena anything the time when the dove leaves the before her eyes were opened and to do with the human condition? nest, one loses the capacity to so shortly after her mother was shot. We really don't know. But studies cialize the dove to the human ex She was brought into human com undertaken at Wisconsin and else perience. pany and grew to adult lionhood where are beginning to tell us The human infant is probably absolutely free-living in a human something about early socialization much less precocial and much more family. Her foster parents put a in other primates. The studies of altricial than the rhesus monkey. rope around her neck when they Harry Harlow have become famous. A monkey is able to fend for him went to town, but Elsa was ap He has raised small monkeys with self pretty well in a few days; the parently quite able to generalize chicken-wire mothers, some of human infant not for many months her identification of the human them covered with terry cloth and or years. If imprinting as a kind species, and in her short life, al some of them not. The infant asso of socialization has any counterpart though she roamed quite free in ciates with these inanimate mothers in the human animal, it probably human society, she never made an without much in the way of feed goes through stages somewhat as attack upon a human being. back from his own input to the follows. The human infant begins Within various families of ani mother. Harlow has shown that if to smile, as a rule, sometime be mals there are variations in im he gives the infant a choice be tween three and five weeks of age. printing. It is apparently necessary tween a bare chicken-wire mother If he hasn't begun to smile by to domesticate a wolf, for example, and one covered with terry cloth eight weeks, we begin to be 174 V.

Load more