An infant will not form intimate relationships with anyone if no one forms intimate relationships with him or her. In the first eighteen months of life, autoerotic activity, in the form of genital play, has been shown to be an indicator of whether or not the infant is having adequate affectional encounters with others. If the infant-mother encounters are positive and at a maximum, infants engage in autoerotic activities occasionally when by themselves. Among children reared in families, Spitz found that sixteen out of seventeen infants manifested genital play within the first year, at ages which were on the average two months earlier than those of infants cared for in nurseries. If intimate encounters were inadequate, rocking—rhythmic movements back and forth or from side to side commonly in a sitting position and commonly involving head banging —results. When personal encounters are normal, genital play results. If the encounters between mother and infant were “optimal” in the first year of life, genital play was present in all cases, and general development surpassed that of the average infant in all respects. If the encounters between mother and infant were problematic, genital play was much rarer, and other activities tended to replace it. Finally, when infant-mother encounters were absent, genital play was completely missing. These findings support the assumption that during the first year of life, autoerotic activities vary with the nature of the relationship between the infant and those with whom it has intimate, affectional encounters.
Prescott hypothesizes that it is reasonable to assume that affectional deprivation can have neurobiological consequences produced by the absence of physical touching. Neurostructural, neurochemical, and neuroelectrical measurements document abnormal development and functions of the sensory system resulting from sensory deprivation during the formative periods. Infants deprived of touch—holding, caressing, fondling-exhibit more than their share of violent-aggressive behavior and social-emotional disorders in later years.
Prescott and McKay reason that human societies characterized by enrichment or impoverishment of the stimulation that comes from touching during the formative years of development would produce predominantly peaceful or violent adult behavior. In an ingenious though at best partial test of the hypotheses, Prescott and McKay examined published data on forty-nine societies. It was assumed that high, physical, intimate affection would presage permissive and tolerant sexual behavior in adulthood, and that low, physical, intimate affection would produce punitive and repressive sexual behavior in adulthood. The data, however, did not indicate a significant relationship between early infant affection and later permissive sexuality.
Prescott and McKay returned to the data and asked if it could be possible that deprivation of affection imposed during the later formative period (denial of the right to premarital intercourse, for example) contributed to high adult violence despite the presence of high infant affection. In an examination of seven societies that did not provide a high level of infant affection and yet had a record of low adult violence, all freely permitted premarital sexual behavior. Prescott and McKay suggest that the effects of early affectional deprivation might be compensated for by adolescent affectional permissiveness. According to Prescott and McKay, premarital sexual relations may constitute an effective prophylactic against later destructive and violent interpersonal behavior. When both early (infant) and later (adolescent) affectional permissiveness or the lack of it were considered together, it was possible to predict accurately adult interpersonal behavior in forty-seven of the forty-nine societies studied. Prescott and McKay conclude that this data validates the effects of affectional enrichment or deprivation on human behavior. The data also indicate that a two-stage developmental theory of affectional stimulation, the first in infancy and the second in adolescence, is necessary to account accurately for the development and expression of peaceful or destructive-violent interpersonal behavior in adulthood.
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