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Ethological Contributions to the Study of Human Motherhood

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The Different Faces of Motherhood

Part of the book series: Perspectives in Developmental Psychology ((PDPS))

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Abstract

Over the past few years, with the rise of sociobiology, it has become common for the popular press to give the impression that scientists have agreed that human motherhood has an innate biologically controlled basis. This conclusion is ostensibly based on work by ethologists and sociobiologists and supposedly generally accepted by psychologists. There is a further impression given that mothering as it was carried out in the mythical traditional 1950s home is known to be the best kind of mothering, best because it is most natural, most akin to mothering styles seen in other animals. There is a strong implication that variation from this natural biologically determined model will lead to disaster and damaged children—a feeling that people who fight Mother Nature on motherhood are asking for trouble. In fact, however, examination of the now extensive literature on the theory and practice of animal motherhood does not lead one to any of these conclusions. Further, using the criteria that ethologists and sociobiologists most commonly require, these “generally accepted” conclusions are easily shown to be false. Since public policy decisions (e.g., lack of governmental support of nonmaternal child care) have been based on those misconceptions, this issue is of more than academic interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology and Women’s Studies Program, State University of New York, Stony Brook, New York, 11794, USA

    Sarah Hall Sternglanz

  2. Department of Psychology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah, 84112, USA

    Alison Nash

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  1. Sarah Hall Sternglanz
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  2. Alison Nash
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. State University of New York, Stony Brook, New York, USA

    Beverly Birns

  2. Institute of Psychiatry, London, England

    Dale F. Hay

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Sternglanz, S.H., Nash, A. (1988). Ethological Contributions to the Study of Human Motherhood. In: Birns, B., Hay, D.F. (eds) The Different Faces of Motherhood. Perspectives in Developmental Psychology. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-2109-3_2

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