Mother-infant separation and the nature of inter-individual relationships: experiments with rhesus monkeys

Abstract

During the late fifties the extent to which a period of separation from the mother figure could have adverse effects on the development of a human child was a matter of some dispute. While some psychiatrists and paediatricians held that the consequences could be severe (see for example, Bowlby 1951, 1958; Ainsworth 1962), their views were based largely on clinical and retrospective evidence, and conflicted with established medical and social practice. Since controlled experiments with human subjects were out of the question on ethical grounds, we decided to see what progress could be made with rhesus monkeys. It was apparent from the start that the consequences of a separation experience could not be studied in isolation - it was, for instance, necessary for us to do some initial work on processes of intraspecific communication in rhesus monkeys, and on how the mother-infant relationship develops. Some of this work was reviewed previously (Hinde & Spencer-Booth 1968). As the work progressed it became apparent that ( a ) the consequences of a separation experience vary with the nature of the mother-infant relationship, and ( b ) that the nature of the mother-infant relationship varies with the social situation. Furthermore, a number of conceptual issues arose in the course of the work, such as precisely what one means by a ‘relationship’, and how the important but somewhat intangible ‘natures’ or ‘qualities’ of relationships could be assessed and compared in a hard-headed manner. The aim of this paper is not to review the current state of the evidence bearing on any one of these problems, but rather to demonstrate, from the work of one laboratory, how the various problems are inter-related.