JOURNAL OF SOCIAL ISSUES VOLUME 90, NUMBER, 1974 Evolution and Parenting Judith M. Bardwick ‘University of Michigan {An ethological or evolutionary analysis of parenting behaviors supports the idea that primates, including man, have evolved psychological structures which are particularly adapted to respond to cues from young children. Similarly, infants are particularly sensitive to and Fespond selectively to behaviors from people. The data suggest that attachment to others is more characteristic of females than males in infancy and in adulthood. The implications derived from the evolution- ary perspective are that people may have both an ability to parent and a need to parent. The adoption of a widespread antinatal policy ‘advocating childlessness as a preferred lifestyle might prove psycholog- ically costly and detrimental to the well-being of a people. When the editors of this issue invited me to write a paper about physiological or genetic origins of parenting behavior, I wisely recommended other authors. Those I recommended te- sponded equally wisely and declined. It might be instructive for me to describe the difficulties involved in writing this paper and state why I did write ‘We seem to be in a period of extremism where the pendulum of recommended life-styles swings widely toward extremes of radical postures and bypasses reformist modification. Not two- child families but childless families are becoming increasingly fashionable. There is no disputing the fact that taking care of children is difficult, nor do I believe that the old woman in the shoe was really very happy (if only she had had a moment to think about it), but I do believe that parents experience their children as their most real existential focus and the most profound, most permanent human commitment. What would the conse- quences be if large numbers of people gave up this existential anchor? I find that beneath many rational arguments one comes, finally, to a belief. It might be best if I stated my belief outright. Ido think that when something is characteristic of human societies, consistent across time and place and degrees of complexity, then 3940 JUDITH M. BARDWICK that characteristic or institution has not evolved by luck or happenstance but instead reflects some basic quality of the human species. All human societies assume parental love and nurturance. Is the capacity to respond to children part of our genetic heritage, similar, let us say, to our ability to learn language? Does the capacity to love reflect the need to love? ‘One can marshal evidence about the adult capacity to respond to children and children’s capacity to provoke response. We do not have studies of childlessness that permit an assessment of evolutionary need because studies of childless people are necessar- ily studies of those who are voluntarily or involuntarily deviating from a powerful norm. For the same reason we cannot know whether caring for other people's children or writing books or cultivating plants or raising cats are sufficient substitute gratifi- cations. No experimenter has done to people what Daniel Lehrman did with birds or Harry Harlow with monkeys. There can be no experimental group arbitrarily assigned to a lifetime of child- lessness and carefully matched with groups assigned, to having 1,2, 4 or 8 children. In order to test the possibility of a species need to reproduce and to nurture, one would need a populati adhering to a norm of childlessness, where alternate creati were encouraged and where there was neither anxiety nor gt about being childless. ‘The evidence for the species capacity to nurture young children seems clear and it seems to me possible that that capacity reflects need. If there is such a need, it has never been frustrated ‘on any large scale in human history. Among those who are in positions to advise I urge caution before we help to swing the pendulum of public policy from child-centered to child-less. ‘Tu EvoLurion oF INFANT-PARENT ATTACHMENT Love,all kinds of love, isa mechanism or variable of almost unbelievable power (Harlow, 1971]. ‘What is the most humanly significant biological denominator common to all human beings and to all human groups? It occurred to me that this might be the concern of parents for their very young. This ‘parental concern hasa longbiological heritage and isabsolutely essential for survival of most species [Fremont-Smith, 1960]. It would be a mistake to leap to the conclusion that because human immaturity makes possible high flexibility in later adjustment, anyth is possible for the species. Human traits were selected for their survival value over a four-five-million-year period [Bruner, 1972]EVOLUTION AND PARENTING 41 ‘The need of an infant and child for sustaining nurturance is obvious. A great deal of work has gone into the documentation of the benefit to children of stable sources of love and of the tragic results inflicted upon those children who are deprived of it. Strikingly little attention has been paid to the needs of the adults who parent and the waysin which nurturance of children may gratify fundamental psychological needs. The issue of the importance of children to parents, or the possible uniqueness of parenting as a source of major gratification (as well as frustra- tion), has become an important social issue as population pressures encourage people not to have children and as the women’s movement encourages commitment to career success and discour- ages traditional maternal investment. Before we encourage an antinatal posture—as distinguished from a policy limiting family size—it seems to me that it is necessary to consider the question of the nature and the origin of the parent-child bond and see whether the implications that might be drawn from the fragmen- tary data available could cause us to hesitate in promoting childlessness for a large segment of the population. In psychology, evolution usually refers to the evolution or development of some characteristic in individuals. That is not what is meant here: In this paper I am asking whether evolution has affected the genetic structure of our species so as to make parental behavior a prototypical characteristic of the majority of physically and psychologically healthy adults, especially women. Most of us are more comfortable with a concept of human motivation in which the determining factors are far removed from evolutionary development. We prefer a learning perspective because it enables us to believe that human beings are so extraor- dinarily flexible that any change in behaviors or goals that we can imagine is achievable. And we also have a tendency to simplify, to think in either-or categories: Either behavior is the result of instinctual) factors or it is the consequence of instinctual) experience. That supposition, that simplification, is fundamentally wrong. Current evolutionary thinking is interactionist. Evolution has resulted in organization, and evolutionary theory is concerned with understanding the structural form and adaptive function of behavior (Freedman, Loring, & Martin, 1967), Characteristics are not given—they evolve, they develop. Organ- isms develop internal structure with which they interact and are influenced by and influence their environment. Internal structure42 JUDITH M. BARDWICK also developsand therefore changes. The outcome of development depends on the genotype and on the sequence of environments that that organism has encountered (Dobzhansky, 1956). There isno behavior which is uninfluenced by the environment in which ithas evolved and no behavior is uninfluenced by the characteristics of the experiencing organism. Tn man, learning is a well developed capacity and thus is in the nature of this species that genetic tendencies are in- terdependent in their development with learning, but that is not to say that learning overrides evolutionary tendencies. One can think of behaviors on a continuum from behaviors relatively uninfluenced by environmental variations to those behaviors which are more labile and are potently influenced by environmental variations (Hinde, 1966). Behaviors which are relatively free from environmental input still develop and thus are not totally free from learning. Similarly, those behaviors which are clearly learned are learned by an organism with species characteristics and are therefore also influenced by the genetic code. We know that individual people can be very unlike. Beneath this overt diversity one may ask in what ways, in what contents, does the human species develop behaviors that are intrinsically ‘universal for the species because they are part of its evolutionary heritage? By taking an evolutionary perspective will one find universal human tendencies underlying the detail of individual and cultural differences? And if such tendencies are found will that alter one’s judgment as to the human need for these experiences? Behaviors which are always institutionalized in some form in all cultures and which always recur as behaviors with which cultures have to deal can be thought of as characteristic of the species and therefore as having some hereditary, that is, genetic basis (Diamond, 1965), When diverse societies construct Consistent environmental realities, it is in response to consistent human need. In this context parenthood “is a manifestation of ‘natural man’ and, as such, is governed by the laws of biologic processes that are universal [Anthony & Benedek, 1970] ‘The importance of cultural factors, variation among individu- als in how important children are, and differences in how cultures care for children cannot be disputed. Variation is obvious; univer- sals, if there are any, are harder to discern. Are there proclivities ‘common to our species in which infants seem particularly equipped to trigger nurturant responses in those caring for the child? Is there an individual or a species or a phylogenetic development in which those who nurture infants are most likely to be especiallyEVOLUTION AND PARENTING 43 sensitive to the cues from the infant? Does this interaction of communication occur most of the time even in cultures which are not child-centered, even with individuals basically inexperi- enced with infants? Tam not suggesting a “mothering instinct.” That is not a useful concept. “Instinct” implies that something is a given, is recalcitrant to modification and thus to learning. Because learning, is characteristic of our species there are probably no human behaviors that are uninfluenced by experience or learning. More importantly, the concept of instinct is wholistic; what one needs to do is analyze in detail. Taking care of infants involves retrieval, attachment, nurturance, body contact, nursing, burping, holding, rocking, walking, smiling, talking, singing, protecting, stimulating, encouraging, and reassuring. Different people will have different combinations of behaviors and different styles. But it is also true that the biological mother will create bonds with her child as she responds to the biologically given response of the child's cry or sucking response, and the infant will bind to the mother's body (Mead, 1962). Unlike ethological studies, human research has focused less on the evolution of the parental capacity to respond than on the infant's capacity to respond, express, and provoke attachment behavior by the mother. One’ central idea is that the process of forming attachments involves the continuous actualization of capacities that are phylogenetically derived, the evolution of capacities that are inborn (Freedman, 1968). Actualization of these characteristics occurs throughout the life span but attention has been focused on infants because species characteristics are seen ‘more easily before major learning has been possible. An important idea of this ethological approach to the study of human behavior is that behavioral systems which are characteristic of a species have a biological function which aids in the survival of that species, and have, through natural selection, become part of the genetic code of that species. Thus the attachment behavior of the infant, to its mother is seen as having a biological function of its own independent of other behavioral systems, although systems interact and influence each other. In short, attachment behavior by the infant or retrieval behavior by the mother are not derivatives of other motives, have biological functions of their own, and have a primary role in human nature (Ainsworth, 1969). Bowlby (1969) describes attachment behavior as instinctive, ‘but what is inherited is not instinctive behavior. What one inherits is the capacity to develop a behavioral system. The nature and44 JUDITH M. BARDWICK the form of the developed behavioral system will bea joint function of the inherent capacity to develop and the particular environment in which development takes place. The genetic characteristics of an infant will bias it to behave in ways which were of advantage in the survival of the species in the environment in which that evolutionary adaptation occurred (Ainsworth, 1969). Similarly, underlying individual learning in specific cultures there is a bias for mothers to behave reciprocally—a species bias which is modi- ied by learning in any individual mother. This implies that the behavioral system is normal to that species and will occur so long as the development of the individual has been normal. The bias toward mutual binding is adaptive to the survival of that species so long as the environment is not significantly deviant from the environment in which the behavioral system evolved. ‘The evolutionary or ethological approach postulates a struc- tured organism—that is, an organism structured from the begin- ning to be particularly sensitive to certain inputs, to particular classes of stimuli rather than others. In the case of attachment behavior both infant and mother would be equipped to be particularly sensitive to certain stimuli from each other (Ainsworth, 1969). This is adaptive to survival of the infant insofar as it is a universal experience for the mother to be present. From this point of view human attachment can be seen in its evolutionary context as comparable to attachment behavior in other species, although human attachment will be more complex and flexible because that too is a characteristic of the human species. I do not want to anthropomorphize nature. “Nature” does not sit upon some celestial throne and direct evolution, But reproduction, protection of the young, and preservation of indi- viduals are behaviors which have evolved as central in evolution. Can one make a case for the idea that beneath overt behavior and obvious effects of socialization, beneath traditional life styles and conflicted modern ones there is a human—especially a maternal—preparation of the organism such that it will respond swiftly and empathically to cues from infants and children? While styles of child rearing differ across societies and between classes within any one society, while some cultures are child centered and others are not, while some women are psychotic after giving birth and some may beat their children and even kill them, still, I can believe that there is a biological readiness, a human predisposition to respond with love and protection to infants and young children. And I also believe that there is a human predis- position for the infant to love and to seek love and protection. IfEVOLUTION AND PARENTING 45 the data demonstrate that infants are predisposed to elicit loving behaviors from adults and that adults are similarly predisposed to respond with love and protection, then it is possible that these capacities also reflect needs. Certainly in the case of children, children not only are capable of eliciting nurturing behavior, they need those responses in order to develop normally. Animat Stopes In the history of evolution higher species have transformed the equipment of those that preceded them in the evolutionary chain, adding to it, but never completely discarding the old (Pribram, 1960). One way to understand human behavior is to recognize whatever fundamental mammalian pattern there may be and then explore the ways in which parts of the pattern have been altered (Beach, 1949). How much can one generalize from animal studies? How much can one generalize from one species to another? Harlow, Gluck, and Suomi (1972) report that among primates there is enormous interspecies consistency in the behav- iors of maternal love and infant love of the mother. Peer love develops later, is based upon play, and shows less interspecies generality. Among primates, paternal love develops even later and there is low interspecies generality. Among primates the tie that is enduring is that of the mother and her infant. The interest of other members of the group in the infant varies considerably among primate species but the interest of the mother is constant. Kaufman (1970) cites several studies attesting to the intensity of the relationship. Langur mothers threaten, chase, or even slap males who accidentally frighten their infants; some primate mothers have been known to retrieve, protect, and carry the bodies of their dead infants until only skin and skeleton remain; chimpanzee mothers who finally abandoned their dead infants have been reported to look intently at other infants for several days. Studies of monkeys and apes show clearly that the relation- ship of mothers to infants is intense and enduring. When one finds significant, intense, consistent behaviors among the primates, ones lead to hypothesize that there will normally be a comparably intense relationship between a human mother and her infant. Harlow (1971) believes that there are at least five kinds of interactive, interpersonal love and that they develop in a sequence although there is always overlap. The first of the affectional systems is maternal love, the love of the mother for her child; the second46 JUDITH M. BARDWICK system is infant love, which is the love the infant has for its mother. ‘As with any other behavior or capacity which develops, later stages depend on earlier ones; each form of love relationship prepares the individual for the one that follows. The failure of any of the love behavior systems to develop normally deprives the individual of the necessary foundation for the development of subsequent complex affectional relationships. The possibility of variability because behaviors develop and are significantly influenced by experience is not only a source of strength to a species, it is also a source of individual fragility. Those who were not normally loved seem incapable of loving. I generalize from Harlow’s primates to people—it should not surprise us to find that there are people incapable of loving even their own infants. We are not discussing some human idea about an infant or some fantasy or anticipation about what an infant is like; we are discussing the capacity of an adult to love, perceive, and respond to behaviors by a real baby, especially one’s own. Each and every infant evokes in the normal monkey mother three stages of mother love. The first phase is that of care and comfort, the second a stage of maternal ambivalence, and the third a phase of relative separation. These three stages of infant- mother love are not discrete but merge into each other. Harlow (1971) reports that the initial appearance of the infant releases feelings of love in almost all monkey mothers, and this is clear as one sees the mother spontaneously approach and cradle the infant. For the first month the mother gently cradles the infant monkey, with the result that there is a maximum amount of contact comfort which is apparently comforting to the mother as well as the infant. The response in monkeys and probably in people is not to the idea of the baby but to the real infant. ‘Human Srupres oF INFaNT-PARENT INTERACTIONS Newborn infants are neither cabbages nor blank slates. In- stead, shortly after birth they actively seek stimuli especially from people. From the beginning infants seem to be structured so as to perceive selectively; they are able to make responses that elicit nurturing behavior from adults. Infants are far more helpless at birth than are the other primates, whose brains are at least half grown at birth, Infants are born with a brain that is only one-fourth of its final size (Kaufman, 1970). The prolonged helplessness of the infant means that if it is to survive someoneEVOLUTION AND PARENTING 47 must be ready to provide prolonged care. The final sequence of mutual binding behaviors between the mother and the infant are what Bowlby (1969) calls attachment and retrieval. Why would evolution have selected for these behaviors so that these behavioral systems became part of the biological equipment of the species? What advantage is conferred upon individuals who have that equipment so that they are more likely to survive and reproduce than will individuals who do not have that equipment? Bowlby (1969) acknowledges that one of the results of the binding is that the infant is in close proximity with the mother and can more easily learn. But attachment behavior persists into adulthood after learning is achieved, is especially persistent in females, and is elicited particularly when the organism is frightened. This suggests, to Bowlby, that the essential biological function of attachment and retrieval is that the mother will be more likely to protect the child from a predator. Predation is a universal danger, and one would expect a fairly consistent evolutionary mode of coping among the universe of animal species that have survived. Moreover, such evolutionary development should be more characteristic of those species where infants are least able to protect themselves. The form of the behavior will, of course, vary by species and in infants and children it will be significantly influenced by learning. This means that similarities in form of the behaviors will be greatest near birth, with divergence increasing with age. Bowlby (1969) describes five behavioral systems which con- tribute to the infant's attachment to the mother. These systems are part of the biological equipment of the infant, and while they are originally independent they become integrated between 9 and 18 months so that the child tends to be in proximity to the mother. The five systems are sucking, clinging, following, crying, and smiling, These are behaviors that elicit responses. Who are the responses directed to? In the beginning to no one, but from birth, or very soon after, every senspfy system is working. During the first few weeks the infant cannot discriminate one person from another but begins to behave in particular, charac- teristic ways to people. When someone is near, the infant turns its head, tracks with its eyes, grasps, smiles, reaches, and stops crying when it hears a voice or sees a face. The infant’s behavioral systems are biased so that stimuli that come to it from human beings are more likely to be discriminated and responded to (Ainsworth, 1969). This is mutually reinforcing to the infant and its caretakers.48 JUDITH M. BARDWICK Bowlby believes that the infant has a bias toward mono- tropy—that is to attaching to one figure, usually the mother. He also suggests that the mother is the person most likely to be biased toward responding to her own infant, not only for psychological reasons but also because her hormonal state after the birth of the child predisposes her to be especially sensitive to stimuli from the infant. The first response the newborn makes is to cry. The young of mammals and birds characteristically cry, which stimulates caretaking behavior from the parents (Freedman et al., 1967). Within a few hours after birth, babies will stop crying when they are held and carried. Freedman points out how the cessation of crying dovetails beautifully with the anxiety the parents feel until the infant is soothed. Smiling and babbling occur when the baby is awake and content, and they evoke quite different behaviors from the mother than does crying (Wolff, 1963, 1969; Ambrose, 1960). Unlike crying, neither smiling nor babbiing influence the mother’s behav- ior much before four weeks. Smiling is universally present in ‘man and it always serves as a positive greeting or as a sign of appeasement (Freedman et al., 1967). The first infant smiles are reflexive and occur when the baby is sleeping, usually after having been fed. Wolff (1963) reports that even at this stage smiles can be elicited by rocking the infant or by a voice. Within the first few weeks of life a visually evoked smile is possible, especially when the eyes of the infant and adult meet. Bowlby describes what happens when the baby smiles and babbles: The mother smiles back, talks to the child, pats it, picks it up. “In all this each partner seems to be expressing joy in the other's presence and the effect is certainly one of prolonging their social interaction [1969].” Bowlby calls this “maternal loving behavior.” Ambrose (1960) believes that the baby’s first real social smile has an extraordinary effect which makes the mother feel that the infant is responsive specifically to her and makes her, from then on, more responsive to the baby. ‘Thus smiling, perhaps babbling, and crying are behavior systems that are integral to the organism, that develop in selective focus, and that have the effect of binding the attention and love of the mother to the baby. Infants are able to discriminate between stimuli and will respond differently to different stimuli. Some stimuli are sought, some avoided; some calm and some alarm. The parents’ response to the infant's behaviors means that the infant exerts an activeEVOLUTION AND PARENTING 49 influence over the environment, increasing some stimuli and reducing others. Bowlby (1969) believes that genetic biases increase the probability of social interaction, that is, the frequency of stimuli that the baby gets from people. Specifically, there is evidence that there is an infant bias, a preference to look at certain patterns, especially the pattern of the human face. Fantz (1965, 1966) showed infants stimuli that were solid and flat, colored and uncolored, patterned and plain. As early as 48 hours after birth, infants preferred patterned over plain colors and gave special preference to a drawing of a face. Hetzer and Tudor-Hart (1927) did similar research but with sounds. From the first days infants seemed displeased by oud noises and pleased by soft ones. When infants were three ‘weeks old, the human voice, especially a woman's, evoked sucking and gurgling and other signs of pleasure. When the voice stopped the baby started to cry. A few weeks after face to face smiling occurs, the baby coos at the adult who is looking 4t the infant, and the adult reportedly feels an irresistible urge to respond (Freedman et al., 1967). Ainsworth (1969) believes that the joy the adult feels is as much an evolved mechanism as is the laughter of the baby. Social attachment has evolved as an adaptive characteristic among humans, and specific evolved biases or mechanisms lead to interactions which are reinforcing and which lead to further social interactions. The evolved mechanisms include the desire to be physically close, mutual smiling, cooing, laughing, playing, watching, and protection of the young when they cry or are fearful (Freedman et al., 1967). The bias, the selectivity of responses that the infant makes, increases the speed with which human, interpersonal stimuli are perceived and learned. This has the effect of speeding up the possibility of attachment behavior by the infant and of eliciting retrieval behavior from the parent. The infant's selective response tothe parent, the clear preference for the presence of the parent, and the decisive responsiveness to the parent will summate and increase the probability of a mutually rewarding, mutually binding, reciprocal relationship. “Rewarding, binding and reciprocal,” do not, it seems to me, adequately convey the intensity of emotion experienced by the parent, nor its quality—which seems more primitive or central or fundamental than learned. From anthro- pology and psychoanalysis, Balint (1949) was led to the idea of a mutual instinctual need for communication between mother and child. The evolutionary perspective would agree.50 JUDITH M. BARDWICK T have always found it particularly fortunate that the physical configuration of puppies and goslings and kittens and chicks and babies is adorable—to be adored. Love for the infant develops and is helped by the sparkly-eyed, big-eyed form of the baby, by the baby's initiative in seeking the mother and responding to her, and by the potentiality for mothering within the adult. For both monkeys and human beings, the mother’s love seems to be created by the infant's response to her caretaking. For ¢ week or 10 days after birth, monkey mothers respond with indiscriminate affection to any infant, After that, only their own infants satisfy them. Feelings specific to her own infant apparently develop only after at least a week of interaction. A similar developmental process appears to take place with some human mothers who feel only impersonal affection until the infant is some 4-6 weeks old. At that age the baby can begin to fixate visually, make eye contacts, and smile, Individual differences will dictate that some human mothers love their infants at sight and others may take up to three months before their love is sufficiently strong that the absence of the infant isa very unpleasant experience (Robson & Moss, 1971). Healthy normal mothers need not love their infants when the child is in utero or immediately after it is born; it is only necessary that they have the sensitive, open, unbounded capacity to be able to respond and interact. Then the maternal-infant bond develops. When any system is developmental it is always possible that it will not develop. The inherent strength and fragility of any system which is not automatically given is that it has the possibility for flexibility, adaptiveness, and complexity, and also the possibility of a maladaptive turn, Attachment and ‘retrieval, or the love between the infant and the parent, may not develop. But the species characteristics, the disposition of human infants to respond to human stimuli and the maternal disposition to respond in turn, make it more probable or usual that mutual attachment will occur. Asattachment must develop in order for the infant to develop normally, the bonds must also loosen so that that infant becomes achild and experiments with coping by itself. Harlow’s observations of monkeys sound very like the human process. In the beginning, for the first 3 months or so, the monkey mother does not punish. Rejections, threats, and punishments peak at about the fifth month and then decline. The frequency of maternal rejection is a joint function of the baby's activities and the mother’s response. That is,as attachment isalso initiated in part by the baby, so is separation.EVOLUTION AND PARENTING 51 ‘The most important mechanisms in the monkey for detaching from the mother are the infant's curiosity, activity, needs to manipulate and explore the environment, and, later, the child's needs for play with agemates. That sounds exactly like the detachment of human children. ‘Underlying the child’s ability to separate is the security which has evolved in the prior, strong attachment phase. Emotionally secure, the child’s maturation enables it to get to those more distant things that provoke curiosity. The more mature child separates physically, venturing further from what is familiar and safe. Exploring of course can be scarey, and up until roughly the age of three, frightened children flee to protecting adults, recreating attachment. 1 believe that our evolutionary heritage includes not only the capacity to develop mutual attachment and binding but also the capacity to detach, to relinquish bonds, to make responses that encourage differentiation between child and adult. In terms of evolutionary adaptiveness, advantage would have accrued when children were sustained during their vulnerable prolonged imma- turity and slowly, gently, but firmly detached during a long childhood. The long-term effects of the bonds of attachment would mean that even after differentiation or separation the mature individual would be protected because the individual would always be an individual-within-a-group. Srupris or Sex DirFERENCES ‘The literature on attachment discusses infant-mother relation- ships rather than infant-other binding, I find myself resisting the idea of exclusivity. In my experience infants attach, love, and seek succorance from other people (and blankets and cuddly toys) who are responsive to the infant and are around often enough to be significant in the life of the child. On the basis of sheer frequency, in most families, the mother will be the person to whom the infant turns. This implies that if the father, or anyone else, had a major part of the caretaking responsibility, then the infant would be equally likely to attach to them. That may not betrue. There are data suggesting that the potential for responding to infants may be greater or more characteristic of females than males. I recognize and acknowledge the wide dispersion of chara‘ teristics within either sex and the significant overlap of traits between both sexes. Actually, when we talk about people, we52 JUDITH M. BARDWICK experience difficulty specifying what are critical biologically-based differences between the sexes. Many important characteristics like intelligence show no sex differences, while other characteristics do differ by sex. Can we conceptualize those sex differences that do show up in some evolutionarily meaningful way? I suggest that the major sex differences reflect differences in the reproduc- tive tasks. The tasks of infant nurturance and family or group protection have, as far as one imagines, been the overwhelming responsibility of one sex rather than the other for so long that it seems reasonable to surmise that evolution would have selected for the capacity to achieve those responsibilities. We are asking whether there is a significant and fundamental sex difference in characteristics that will make for a better fit between specific requirements of the reproductive role and the personality charac- teristics of the individual who fills the role. Might it be true that while humans are predisposed to respond to infants, that, that may be more true of girls and women than of boys and men? Phylogenetically, the father is less crucial for the infant's survival than is the mother. Among primates, Harlow (1971) and Harlow et al. (1972) tell us, the father’s role is variable, unlike the invariant attachment between the mother and infant. There are species differences and, in some primate groups under certain conditions, males may act maternally toward infants; but, most frequently, adult males take a more active role with older male children. Harlow believes that the paternal affectional system has few innate biological origins, did not evolve to serve an essential biological function, and is based overwhelmingly on experience. If we generalize from animal data—and thus far in our discussion there has been great similarity—the paternal relationship in man would be expected to show greater cultural variation than the maternal relationship. While paternal ties may be intense and ‘many fathers enjoy loving their children, the evolutionary direction seems to allow for a less intense, less certain, and more variable paternal than maternal relationship, at least during the child's early years. It is more probable that the child will form attachments to the mother than to any other person because of frequency of contact and because females seem generally to be more receptive to infants. Children will attach to those responsive to them, of whatever sex or age; and characteristics within females, especially adults, will make it more likely that the initial, major attachment will be to an adult female.EVOLUTION AND PARENTING 53 ‘There are sex differences that directly relate to motherhood and these differences are seen in monkeys as well as children, The greater tendency of girls to respond to babies was paralleled in an experiment by Chamove, Harlow, and Mitchell (1967). Preadolescent male and female macaque monkeys who had not been raised by real monkey mothers and who had never seen infants younger than themselves were shown rhesus infants. When shown the baby, the females cuddled and caressed them while the males were threatening and aggressive. Differencesin maternal predisposition were clearly evident before the hormonal changes of puberty. Humans and monkeys are different, but humans, like mon- keys, have evolved sexual behavior patterns through evolution. One’ input into the development of sex differences involves the hormonal effect upon the central nervous system prenatally. Later developmental unfolding as well as learning are superimposed fon a nervous system in which some response potentials differ by sex. People learn and are flexible, but we might say that the sexes are predisposed to be sensitive to or receptive to learning certain classes of information more than others (Diamond, 1965). That is, there is reason to believe that from birth on the nervous systems of females and males are differently responsive to some kinds of stimuli, In addition to sharing sensitivities and needs which are characteristic both of their species and their age, infants, seem differentially equipped from birth to respond to stimuli and develop characteristics leading either to interpersonal sensi- tivity or to aggression. This is not to say that either sex could not learn sensitivities and behaviors more typical of the other but that, in the normal course of events, more individuals of ‘one sex would tend to develop characteristics thought of as typical of that sex. Fantz’s (1965, 1966) studies of infants and Lewis and Kagan’s (1965) and Lewis, Kagan, and Kalafat’s (1966) study of six month old babies showed that girls had a clear preference for looking at faces while boys showed no such preference. Goodenough (1931) "This suggests to me that a widespread temperament reversal in a society, fone in which men were expected to be nurturant and women to be dominant and aggressive, would not only be rare, it would require extreme socialization pressure and would be experienced as stressful by individuals; this is quite different, however, from the socialization model characteristic of our society, in which both sexes are nurturant and aggressive but to different extents and at different phases in their lives,54 JUDITH M. BARDWICK found that as early as seven months, boys show more aggression and anger than girls, Freedman (1970) found that in the first year females show more affiliativeness, they do more reflexive smiling, are more “cuddly,” make more frequent friendly gestures, and prefer social to nonsocial stimuli more than boys. Along with a greater preference for social stimuli girls also seem to ‘be more disposed to make social responses. Kagan (1969) observed that girls vocalized more to faces than to forms at 24 weeks, while boys vocalized equally to both. Girls are more skillful than boys in perceptual and verbal fluency in early childhood and for girls, vocal verbal skills are more salient (McCall, Hogarty, & Hurlburt, 1972). In short, girl infants seem less restless, more attuned to perceive other people, and more disposed to respond to people by cuddling, smiling, and “talking.” Maccoby (cited in Solomon, 1973) reports that the most consistent sex difference is the greater aggressiveness of boys over many different forms of aggressive behavior in every culture studied. In addition, boys are more resistant to directions while girls comply, and boys are more competitive. This triad of characteristics—aggression, competition, and resistance—would seem to be related to a greater potential for aggression, dominance, and independence. These characteristics, Maccoby believes, are determined more by sex hormones than by rewards and punish- ments. It would therefore seem that some sex differences are present in infancy, they seem to be related to the reproductive tasks characteristic of either sex, they are very like sex differences found in many primates, and they are differences which cultures have characteristically institutionalized and maximized. Boys are more negativistic, aggressive, rivalrous, and active than girls. Girlsare more verbal, affectionate, social, and responsive to people. The evolution of personality and behavior will rest upon the inseparable intertwining of a biological organism which is also a culture-creating animal. How would our theories about the determinants of human behavior change if we were to begin from an evolutionary and Anyone who has observed mothers—of any species—protecting their young is aware that the female can be very aggressive indeed, Harlow (1971) Feports that while species protection is a prime obligation of the adult male land aggression matures less rapidly in females, when the female is mature, both sexes are capable of similar aggressionEVOLUTION AND PARENTING 55 biological perspective rather than a social-learning one? Tiger (1970) suggests that “we are a species boasting considerable male-female differences which extend and ramify more widely through our human societies than many of our theories of socialization, organization, and action in general would have us recognize and predict.” There is always the danger of half-truths (and therefore half-lies) when perspective is limited. In a synergy of biological and cultural development, the female more than the male is likely to develop nurturant, subjective, and sensitive qualities and to be better able to make swift, accurate, and sensitive appraisals of others and to make responses to others. More boys than girls develop so as to cope with the external and dangerous world of things, and more girls than boys develop so as to cope with the internal and the interpersonal. As these qualities develop they are influenced by the internal genetic-endocrine environment and the external culture-value environment. HorMones AND MATERNAL BEHAVIOR One of the important internal factors influencing the proba- bility of any particular behavior, and one which has received considerable attention, is the presence of sex hormones. Endocrine studies in human beings have concentrated upon sexual rather than maternal behavior. I know of no psychobiological studies of preganancy, birth, nursing, and later maternal behaviors similar to those of menstrual cycle phases (Bardwick, 1974). As far as I know, no one has, for example, looked for correlations between peak estrogen levels during pregnancy and feelings of high self-esteem, or measured increasing levels of progesterone and feelings of nurturance, or hypothesized that those with si postpartum depression within a few days after birth had similar depressions premenstrually when endocrine levels fall swiftly. And, unlike the area of sex, apparently no one has attempted to increase or decrease maternal feelings by changing endocrine levels in people. Maternal behavior has been induced in the rabbit, mouse, and hamster and, less reliably, in the rat. Terkel and Rosenblatt (1968) discovered that a factor present in the blood of rats within 48 hours after birth when the rats were displaying good maternal behavior could be given to virgin rats and it swiftly facilitated maternal behavior in the virgin rats. Reports by Moltz, Lubin, Leon, and Numan (1970), and by Zarrow, Gandelman, and Denenberg (1971) and Zarrow, Denenberg, and Sachs (1972)56 JUDITH M. BARDWICK, indicate that untreated virgin rats will retrieve infants if they are exposed to them for 5-7 days. Animals treated with the sex hormones estradiol (a form of estrogen), progesterone, and prolactin were responsive to the pups in as short a time as 1.4 days after receiving the hormones. The capacity for maternal behavior was present without the additional endocrines. The endocrines seemed to activate or speed up the activation of a behavioral system which was potentially there in the first place. Is there any process in women which is at all comparable? Benedek (1970a) believes that study of the menstrual-sexual cycle in women “has revealed the psychobiologic tendencies which in monthly periodicity express a genuine quality of female sexua- lity, the instinctual motivation of motherhood.” In people, it is lactation rather than mothering which is under direct hormonal stimulation. Benedek says that mothering is a complex learned behavior, but the quality of motherliness has a partial origin in the endocrine cycle of the menstrual cycle. ‘Benedek (1970b) has found that in the preovulatory half of the menstrual cycle, as levels of estrogen increase, the dominant emotions are active, directed toward others, and heterosexual. With ovulation the dominant tendency changes and the direction of psychological processes is turned inward. Benedek characterizes the phase of the cycle after ovulation and before menstruation as receptive, narcissistic, introverted, and retentive. These em tional manifestations of a receptive tendency and a narcissistic retentive quality are, according to Benedek, the psychological correlates of a biological need for motherhood. For 4-6 days after ovulation, first in dreams and fantasies and later in behavior, as the lining of the uterus prepares for implantation, there is anintensified receptive-retentive quality which is the psychological preparation for pregnancy. Benedek notes the appearance of cither the wish to receive and retain or, for those fearful of pregnancy, the defense against that wish. Thus Benedek is led to the conclusion that the psychobiology of pregnancy can be best understood as an intensification of the postovulatory phase of the menstrual cycle when both estrogen and progesterone levels are peaking.® *Benedek’s observations and interpretations are amenable to testing. My research (Bardwick, 1974) is partially supportive insofar as I have also found a peak of integration around ovulation. Women who are using oral contraceptives, women during pregnancy and after birth, and women who are nursing of who are postmenopausal are all significantly different fromEVOLUTION AND PARENTING 37 The interaction of physiological systems makes it most unlikely that any single endocrine or other substance will be found that will cause or be uniquely associated with maternal behavior. It seems likely that in behaviors which are critical to a species there will be a redundancy of causes or mechanisms or eliciting schema, that is, alternate routes by which critical behavioral systems can develop. For example, nursing a child is not only maternally gratifying, itis also sexually gratifying (Newton, 1972); this doubly pleasurable aspect serves in most cultures, to assure that most infants are nursed. Itis fair to hypothesize not only that there can be a monthly rehearsal of the integration necessary for the psychobiologic task of pregnancy and maternal care, but that acting maternally may significantly ater the relevant physiological as well as psychological underpinnings of maternity. As the psychobiology of pregnancy may intensify all of the potential capacity for acting maternally so that there is an increased readiness to respond to the stimuli from the real infant with mothering behavior, so might the result of that psychobiologic preparation be an increased frequency of maternal behaviors resulting in an increase in the endocrine and other physiological processes that cause or accompany maternal behaviors. I am suggesting that acting nurturantly increases the physiological states accompanying that behavior and, in turn, increases the probability of that behavior or affect, especially if the relevant stimulus is in the environment and if the behavior was reinforcing. (And, it is sadly true, by the same logic, acting anxiously or aggressively in the maternal situation will increase the probability of those behaviors too.) Homan (Precnancy) Morives anp Arrrrupes ‘A case has been made for the biological adaptiveness of a binding capacity by the infant and of a psychobiological capacity for response in the mother. We have observed that in some respects human beings seem like many of the other primates, but in some respects they are different. The inherent human capacity to know and to learn, to create culture and socialize, means that all human behaviors are always bound in development with learned values. Far more frequently than for Harlow’s deviantly reared laboratory ‘each other endocrinologically, and are also significant different from women during normal menstrual cycies. The possibility of critical comparisons tested ‘experimentally is clear.58 JUDITH M, BARDWICK monkeys, people are ambivalent, anxious about, fearful of, and resentful toward pregnancy and children. Erikson (1964) and Benedek (1970b) talk of the vital inner potential, but Jessner (1966) has written that “in female experience an “inner space’ is at the center of despair even as it is at the very center of potential fulfillment.” Some women experience the fetus with ambivalence fluctuating between rage and bliss (Jessner, Weigert, & Foy, 1970). Modern American culture increases parental ambivalence. Interms of the priorities of the culture, the achievements rewarded and the social institutions supported, in terms of the direction of social change toward limited population growth and the applause given to significant competitive achievement by women, and in terms of what we do not do or reward or support, we are in many respects an antinatal culture. A culture which is not pronatal inevitably increases negative feelings about parental responsibilities and thus increases the probability of inadequate binding by parents in spite of any genotypic tendencies. We are also faced with the possibility that as population limitation becomes a cultural goal, more and more people will be encouraged not to reproduce themselves. Is this cultural goal in significant disaccord with some core evolutionary primate need? Is that especially true for women? There does seem to be an inherent tendency for human beings to respond to infants and children and that responsivity is more obvious than the need to reproduce. An innate tendency to reproduce will not be like organic needs to eat or sleep or defecate but will be more “human,” that is, socialized, learned, value-laden, more embedded in cognitive and emotional experi- ences, choices, and judgments. A human need to reproduce will also be human not feminine, although it may well be more salient for women than men. Parenthood is vulnerable to stress. As Harlow’s disturbed monkeys could neither reproduce nor effectively nurture, that seems true for people too. It is as though to some extent one of nature's fail-safe mechanisms is infertility in those who are not psychologically healthy enough to nurture. The development, of the capacity to nurture the young seems to be a more frequent and more likely development than the inability to nurture—so long as the individual has developed in a way not too deviant, to0 pathological for the species. Thus the potential or predisposi- tion to reproduce and to parent seems a normative human development but, responsive to stress, it may not be part of theEVOLUTION AND PARENTING 59 behavioral reportoire of disturbed individuals, groups, or cultures. ‘The capacity to respond sensitively to cues from infants and children and to one’s own internal responses of pleasure or worry as one interacts with the child seems to be a significant and fundamental human potential, especially in women. As there are no human instincts fixed and immutable, there is a wide range of this responsivity. Parenthood may be a part of the human need to create and be experienced as the essence of generativity. Is it possible that these needs are gratifiable in different forms of creativity? I think that those who are parents would say no, that the creation of a child is more basic, nonintellectual, funda- mental. Does this imply that those who ‘have the most children are the healthiest? No. Parenthood is a bond that lasts so long as the individuals live and is not restricted to the youth of one's, children. Ethological studies of parent's attachment have emphasized the binding relationship and have paid less attention to separation. That is a distortion that is important because the human as well as primate capacities are not only to respond to the attachment needs of the infant and child but also to the independence needs of that child. It is obvious that the child must separate and dilute the relationship in order to mature as an adult. Because the relationship between child and parent is reciprocal, evolution has also selected for parents who can both initiate and respond to separation cues from their children. Thus the capacity to bind and embrace the infant as well as the capacity to separate, punish, and judge are species characteristics and part of an inherent bias. This means that concepts of parenting, and especially maternity, as forever nurturing are not consistent with evolution- ary evidence nor with the need of the child to mature. Part of our evolutionary capacity is also to withdraw from the intense parental relationship characteristic of the child's earliest years. Healthy adults create healthy children through attachment and through separation. ‘The women’s liberation movement and the population explo- sion are encouraging a transition in maternal values. Those who are experiencing the transition, who can neither accept the traditional role nor wholeheartedly reject it for an alternate life-style, will be those who are most anxious and stressed. Changes in the social system which are predicated upon new values call for new roles as well as new goals, new ways of organizing one’s life, Parenthood has been the most accessible means available to the majority of humanity to express their existential needs60 JUDITH M. BARDWICK, for creativity and generativity. We shall be hard pressed to find ‘a substitute. Policymakers should be wary of assuming that other human activities can substitute for parenthood for the majority of people. The consistent evolutionary direction as one ascends the phylogenetic scale is toward mutual binding and sensitivity between child and parents. While we cannot know it with any certainty since there has never been a culture where parenthood was limited to a few, one could surmise that our evolutionary heritage includes not only the ability to parent but the need to parent—especially for women. When I think of parenting, espe- cially when children are young, I find the rational, verbal, human aspect less profound than the emotional, nonverbal mammalian aspect. Sometimes I think that parental ambivalence is restricted to human beings but parental joy is acultural and intrinsically ‘mammalian. 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