Deprivation of Attachment
The deprivation of attachment In this 1980s Romanian orphanage (during the autocratic rule of Nicolae Ceauşescu), the 250 children between ages one and five outnumbered caregivers 15 to 1.
If secure attachment nurtures social competence, what happens when circumstances prevent a child’s forming any attachments? In all of psychology, there is no sadder research literature. Babies locked away at home under conditions of abuse or extreme neglect are often withdrawn, frightened, even speechless. The same is true of those raised in institutions without the stimulation and attention of a regular caregiver, as was tragically illustrated during the 1970s and 1980s in Romania. Having decided that economic growth for his impoverished country required more human capital, Nicolae Ceaus¸escu, Romania’s Communist dictator, outlawed contraception, forbade abortion, and taxed families with fewer than five children. The birthrate skyrocketed. But unable to afford the children they had been coerced into having, many families had to leave them at government-run orphanages with untrained and overworked staff. Child-to-caregiver ratios often were 15 to 1, so the children were deprived of healthy attachments with at least one adult.
When tested after Ceaus¸escu’s 1989 execution, these socially deprived children had lower intelligence scores, reduced brain development, abnormal stress responses, and quadruple the rate of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) found in children assigned to quality foster care settings (Bick et al., 2015; Kennedy et al., 2016; McLaughlin et al., 2015; Nelson et al., 2014). Dozens of other studies across 19 countries have confirmed that orphaned children tend to fare better on later intelligence tests if raised in family homes. This is especially so for those placed at an early age (van IJzendoorn et al., 2008).
Most children growing up under adversity (such as the surviving children of the Holocaust and victims of childhood sexual abuse) are resilient; they withstand the trauma and become well-adjusted adults (Clancy, 2010; Helmreich, 1992; Masten, 2001). And hardship short of trauma often boosts mental toughness (Seery, 2011). Moreover, while enduring the hardship of growing up poor puts children at risk for some social pathologies, growing up rich puts them at risk for other problems. Affluent children are at elevated risk for substance abuse, eating disorders, anxiety, and depression (Lund & Dearing, 2012; Luthar et al., 2013). So when you face adversity, consider the possible silver lining. Your coping may strengthen your resilience—your tendency to bounce back and go on to lead a better life.
But many who experience enduring abuse don’t bounce back so readily. The Harlows’ monkeys raised in total isolation, without even an artificial mother, bore lifelong scars. As adults, when placed with other monkeys their age, they either cowered in fright or lashed out in aggression. When they reached sexual maturity, most were incapable of mating. If artificially impregnated, females often were neglectful, abusive, even murderous toward their first-born. Another primate experiment confirmed the abuse-breeds-abuse phenomenon: 9 of 16 female monkeys who had been abused by their mothers became abusive parents, as did no female raised by a nonabusive mother (Maestripieri, 2005).
“ What is learned in the cradle, lasts to the grave.”
French proverb
In humans, too, the unloved may become the unloving. Most abusive parents—and many condemned murderers—have reported being neglected or battered as children (Kempe & Kempe, 1978; Lewis et al., 1988). Some 30 percent of people who have been abused later abuse their children—a rate lower than that found in the primate study, but four times the U.S. national rate of child abuse (Dumont et al., 2007; Kaufman & Zigler, 1987).
Although most abused children do not later become violent criminals or abusive parents, extreme early trauma may nevertheless leave footprints on the brain (Romens et al., 2015; Teicher & Samson, 2016). Like battle-stressed soldiers, abused children’s brains respond to angry faces with heightened activity in threat-detecting areas (McCrory et al., 2011). In conflict-plagued homes, even sleeping infants’ brains show heightened reactivity to hearing angry speech (Graham et al., 2013). As adults, these children exhibit stronger startle responses (Jovanovic et al., 2009). If repeatedly threatened and attacked while young, normally placid golden hamsters grow up to be cowards when caged with same-sized hamsters, or bullies when caged with weaker ones (Ferris, 1996). Such animals show changes in the brain chemical serotonin, which calms aggressive impulses. A similarly sluggish serotonin response has been found in abused children who become aggressive teens and adults. By sensitizing the stress response system, early stress can permanently heighten reactions to later stress and increase stress-related disease (Fagundes & Way, 2014; van Zuiden et al., 2012; Wei et al., 2012). Child abuse, as we noted in Unit III, can also leave epigenetic marks—chemical tags—that can alter normal gene expression.
“ Stress can set off a ripple of hormonal changes that permanently wire a child’s brain to cope with a malevolent world.”
Abuse researcher Martin Teicher (2002)
Such findings help explain why young children who have survived severe or prolonged physical abuse, childhood sexual abuse, bullying, or wartime atrocities are at increased risk for health problems, psychological disorders, substance abuse, and criminality (Lereya et al., 2015; Trickett et al., 2011; Whitelock et al., 2013; Wolke et al., 2013). In one national study of 43,093 adults, 8 percent reported experiencing physical abuse at least fairly often before age 18 (Sugaya et al., 2012). Among these, 84 percent had experienced at least one psychiatric disorder. Moreover, the greater the abuse, the greater the odds of anxiety, depresion, substance use disorder, and attempted suicide. Abuse victims are at considerable risk for depression if they carry a gene variation that spurs stress-hormone production (Bradley et al., 2008). As we will see again and again, behavior and emotion arise from a particular environment interacting with particular genes.
Adults also suffer when attachment bonds are severed. Whether through death or separation, a break produces a predictable sequence. Agitated preoccupation with the lost partner is followed by deep sadness and, eventually, the beginnings of emotional detachment and a return to normal living (Hazan & Shaver, 1994). Newly separated couples who have long ago ceased feeling affection are sometimes surprised at their desire to be near the former partner. Detaching is a process, not an event.