Maternal Negativity and Child Maltreatment

doi:10.1017/9781009030564.018

Chapter 16 - Maternal Negativity and Child Maltreatment

How Evolutionary Perspectives Contribute to a Layered and Compassionate Understanding

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 September 2022

Daniela F. Sieff

Edited by

Riadh Abed and

Paul St John-Smith

Show author details

Riadh Abed: Affiliation:
Mental Health Tribunals, Ministry of Justice, UK
Paul St John-Smith: Affiliation:
Hertfordshire Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust, UK

Book contents

Get access

Summary

In Western culture, both the lay public and mental health professionals tend to believe that mothers evolved to love all of their children instinctually and unconditionally. In contrast, any mother who feels ambivalence or hostility towards her child is typically seen as unnatural, and a mother who maltreats her child is seen as behaving pathologically. This chapter draws on evolutionary research to challenge this widespread view of motherhood. In particular, it describes how raising children has required mothers to negotiate a series of complex, precarious and layered trade-offs, and it argues that maternal negativity and child maltreatment can arise from this. The goal of this chapter is to foster a more evolutionarily valid, nuanced and compassionate understanding of motherhood. Such an understanding has the potential to contribute to clinical work with faltering mothers as well as to programmes focused on preventing maternal maltreatment of children.

Keywords

child abuse child maltreatment child neglect evolutionary psychiatry evolutionary trade-offs infanticide maternal hostility maternal maltreatment maternal negativity

Information

Type: Chapter
Information: Evolutionary Psychiatry
Current Perspectives on Evolution and Mental Health
, pp. 244 - 259
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009030564.018 [Opens in a new window]
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Book purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Abu-Saad, K. and Fraser, D. 2010. Maternal nutrition and birth outcomes. Epidemiologic Reviews, 32, 5–25.CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

Alami, S., Von Rueden, C., Seabright, E., Kraft, T. S., Blackwell, A. D., Stieglitz, J., Kaplan, H. and Gurven, M. 2020. Mother’s social status is associated with child health in a horticulturalist population. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 287, 20192783.Google Scholar

Apicella, C. L. and Silk, J. B. 2019. The evolution of human cooperation. Current Biology, 29, R447–R450.Google Scholar

Assink, M., Spruit, A., Schuts, M., Lindauer, R., Van Der Put, C. E. and Stams, G. J. M. 2018. The intergenerational transmission of child maltreatment: a three-level meta-analysis. Child Abuse and Neglect, 84, 131–145.Google Scholar

Atari, M. 2020. Culture of honor. In: Zeigler-Hill, V. and Shackelford, T. K., (eds.), Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences. Cham: Springer International Publishing, pp. 977–981.CrossRef Google Scholar

Baek, S. U., Lim, S. S., Kim, J. and Yoon, J. H. 2019. How does economic inequality affect infanticide rates? An analysis of 15 years of death records and representative economic data. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 16, 3679.Google Scholar

Bakermans-Kranenburg, M. J., Van Ijzendoorn, M. H. and Kroonenberg, P. M. 2004. Differences in attachment security between African-American and white children: ethnicity or socio-economic status? Infant Behavior and Development, 27, 417–433.CrossRef Google Scholar

Barrett, L., Dunbar, R. and Lycett, J. 2002. Human Evolutionary Psychology. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar

Black, R. E., Allen, L. H., Bhutta, Z. A., Caulfield, L. E., De Onis, M., Ezzati, M., Mathers, C. and Rivera, J. 2008. Maternal and child undernutrition: global and regional exposures and health consequences. Lancet, 371, 243–260.Google Scholar

Boehm, C. 2012. Moral Origins: The Evolution of Virtue, Altruism and Shame. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar

Bowlby, E. J. M. 1969/1997. Attachment and Loss: Attachment. London: Pimlico.Google Scholar

Boyd, R. and Richerson, P. J. 2009. Culture and the evolution of human cooperation. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 364, 3281–3288.Google Scholar

Bradshaw, J. 1988. Healing the Shame That Binds You. Deerfield Beach, FL: Health Communications, Inc.Google Scholar

Bridges, R. S. (ed.) 2008. Neurobiology of the Parental Brain. Amsterdam: Elsevier.Google Scholar

Brown, L. S. 2011. Nutritional requirements during pregnancy. In: Sharlin, J., and Edelstein, S. (eds.), Essentials of Life Cycle Nutrition. Ontario: Jones and Bartlett Publishers, pp. 1–24.Google Scholar

Chamberlain, G. 2017. Why climate change is creating a new generation of child brides. The Observer, 26 November.Google Scholar

Coleman-Jensen, A., Rabbitt, M. P., Gregory, C. A. and Anita Singh, A. 2018. Household Food Security in the United States in 2017. Washington, DC: United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.Google Scholar

Crookston, B. T., Dearden, K. A., Alder, S. C., Porucznik, C. A., Stanford, J. B., Merrill, R. M., Dickerson, T. T. and Penny, M. E. 2011. Impact of early and concurrent stunting on cognition. Maternal & Child Nutrition, 7, 397–409.Google Scholar

Cuartas, J., Weissman, D. G., Sheridan, M. A., Lengua, L. and Mclaughlin, K. A. 2021. Corporal punishment and elevated neural response to threat in children. Child Development, 92, 821–832.Google Scholar

De Vries, M. W. 1987. Cry babies, culture and catastrophe: infant temperament among the Masai. In: Scheper-Hughes, N. (ed.), Child Survival: Anthropological Perspectives on the Treatment and Maltreatment of Children. Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publishing Company, pp. 165–185.CrossRef Google Scholar

Denham, A. R. 2017. Spirit Children: Illness, Poverty, and Infanticide in Northern Ghana. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar

Dettwyler, K. A. 1994. Dancing Skeletons: Life and Death in West Africa. Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press.Google Scholar

Dion, J., Paquette, G., Tremblay, K.-N., Collin-VÉZina, D. and Chabot, M. 2018. Child maltreatment among children with intellectual disability in the Canadian Incidence Study. American Journal on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, 123, 176–188.Google Scholar

Drixler, F. 2013. Mabiki: Infanticide and Population Growth in Eastern Japan, 1660–1950. Berkley: University of California Press.Google Scholar

Gabler, S. and Voland, E. 1994. Fitness of twinning. Human Biology, 66, 699–713.Google Scholar PubMed

Gurven, M. and Kaplan, H. 2007. Longevity among hunter‐gatherers: a cross‐cultural examination. Population and Development Review, 33, 321–365.CrossRef Google Scholar

Hawkes, K., O’Connell, J. F. and Blurton Jones, N. 1989. Hardworking Hadza grandmothers. In: Standen, V. and Foley, R. A. (eds.), Comparative Socioecology: The Behavioural Ecology of Humans and Other Mammals. London: Blackwell Scientific Publications, pp. 361–366.Google Scholar

Helfrecht, C. and Meehan, C. L. 2016. Sibling effects on nutritional status: Intersections of cooperation and competition across development. American Journal of Human Biology, 28, 159–170.CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

Henrich, J. 2015. The Secret of Our Success: How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar

Henrich, J., Heine, S. J. and Norenzayan, A. 2010. The weirdest people in the world? Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 33, 61–83.Google Scholar

Hill, K. and Hurtado, A. M. 1996. Ache Life History: The Ecology and Demography of a Foraging People. New York: Aldine de Gruyter.Google Scholar

Hoppitt, W. and Laland, K. N. 2013. Social Learning: An Introduction to Mechanisms, Methods, and Models. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar

House of Commons 2019. Hunger, Food Insecurity and Malnutrition in the UK. Florence: UNICEF Office of Research.Google Scholar

Howell, N. 1979. Demography of the Dobe !Kung. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar

Hrdy, S. B. 1999. Mother Nature: Natural Selection and the Female of the Species. London: Chatto & Windus.Google Scholar

Hrdy, S. B. 2009. Mothers and Others: The Evolutionary Origins of Mutual Understanding. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.Google Scholar

Kaufman, G. 1992. Shame: The Power of Caring. Rochester, VA: Schenkman Books, Inc.Google Scholar

Kilday, A.-M. 2013. A History of Infanticide in Britain c 1600 to the Present. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar

Laland, K. N. 2017. Darwin’s Unfinished Symphony: How Culture Made the Human Mind. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar

Lancy, D. F. 1996. Playing on Mother-Ground: Cultural Routines for Children’s Development. New York: Guilford Press.Google Scholar

Lancy, D. F. 2015. The Anthropology of Childhood: Cherubs, Chattel, Changelings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar

Lanius, R. A., Vermetten, E. and Pain, C. 2010. The Impact of Early Life Trauma on Health and Disease: The Hidden Epidemic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar

Levine, R., Dixon, S., Levine, S., Richman, A., Liederman, P. H., Keefer, C. H. and Brazelton, T. B. 1996. Child Care and Culture: Lessons from Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar

Lloyd, J. B. and Sieff, D. F. 2015. Return from exile: beyond self-alienation, shame and addiction to reconnect with ourselves. In: Sieff, D. F. (ed.), Understanding and Healing Emotional Trauma: Conversations with Pioneering Clinicians and Researchers. London: Routledge, pp. 25–45.Google Scholar

Madigan, S., Cyr, C., Eirich, R., Fearon, R. M. P., Ly, A., Rash, C., Poole, J. C. and Alink, L. R. A. 2019. Testing the cycle of maltreatment hypothesis: meta-analytic evidence of the intergenerational transmission of child maltreatment. Developmental Psychopathology, 31, 23–51.CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

Mann, J. 1992. Nurturance or negligence: maternal psychology and behavioral preference among preterm twins In: Barkow, J. H., Cosmides, L. and Tooby, J. (eds.), The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and the Generation of Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 367–390.Google Scholar

Mcdonnell, C. G., Boan, A. D., Bradley, C. C., Seay, K. D., Charles, J. M. and Carpenter, L. A. 2019. Child maltreatment in autism spectrum disorder and intellectual disability: results from a population-based sample. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 60, 576–584.Google Scholar

Mckerracher, L. J., Nepomnaschy, P., Altman, R. M., Sellen, D. and Collard, M. 2020. Breastfeeding duration and the social learning of infant feeding knowledge in two Maya communities. Human Nature, 31, 43–67.CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

Murphy, N. 2011. Maltreatment of children with disabilities: the breaking point. Journal of Child Neurology, 26, 1054–1056.Google Scholar

Myers, S. and Johns, S. E. 2017. Trade-offs in mother–infant bonding: a life history perspective on maternal emotional investments during infancy (poster). Presented at: 5th Annual Toulouse Economics and Biology Workshop: The Evolution and Economics of the Family. Toulouse: Institute of Advanced Studies, 1–2 June.Google Scholar

Nesse, R. M. 2019. Good Reasons for Bad Feelings: Insights from the Frontier of Evolutionary Psychiatry. London: Penguin.Google Scholar

Nisbett, R. E. and Cohen, D. 1996. Culture of Honor: The Psychology of Violence in the South. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar

Nowak, A., Gelfand, M. J., Borkowski, W., Cohen, D. and Hernandez, I. 2016. The evolutionary basis of honor cultures. Psychological Science, 27, 12–24.CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

Numan, M. and Insel, T. R. 2006. The Neurobiology of Parental Behavior. Berlin: Springer Science+Business Media.Google Scholar

Olds, D. L., Sadler, L. and Kitzman, H. 2007. Programs for parents of infants and toddlers: recent evidence from randomized trials. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 48, 355–391.Google Scholar

Parker, R. 1995. Mother Love/Mother Hate: The Power of Maternal Ambivalence. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar

Parker, R. 2012. Shame and maternal ambivalence. In: Mariotti, P. (ed.), The Maternal Lineage: Identification, Desire and Transgenerational Issues. London: Routledge, pp. 85–112.Google Scholar

Pereira, A., Handa, S. and Holmqvist, G. 2017. Prevelance and Correlates of Food Insecurity among Children across the Globe. Innocenti Working Papers. Florence: UNICEF Office of Research.Google Scholar

Porter, T. and Gavin, H. 2010. Infanticide and neonaticide: a review of 40 years of research literature on incidence and causes. Trauma, Violence, & Abuse, 11, 99–112.Google Scholar

Potts, R. 2013. Hominin evolution in settings of strong environmental variability. Quaternary Science Reviews, 73, 1–13.Google Scholar

Reijman, S., Bakermans-Kranenburg, M. J., Hiraoka, R., Crouch, J. L., Milner, J. S., Alink, L. R. A. and Van Ijzendoorn, M. H. 2016. Baseline functioning and stress reactivity in maltreating parents and at-risk adults: review and meta-analyses of autonomic nervous system studies. Child Maltreatment, 21, 327–342.Google Scholar

Scheper-Hughes, N. 1992. Death without Weeping: The Violence of Everyday Life in Brazil. Berkley: University of California Press.CrossRef Google Scholar

SchiefenhÖVel, W. 1989. Reproduction and sex-ratio manipulation through preferential female infanticide among the Eipo, in the highlands of west New Guinea. In: Rasa, A. E., Vogel, C. and Voland, E. (eds.), Sociobiology of Sexual and Reproductive Strategies. London: Chapman and Hall, pp. 170–193.Google Scholar

Sear, R. and Mace, R. 2008. Who keeps children alive? A review of the effects of kin on child survival. Evolution and Human Behavior, 29, 1–18.Google Scholar

Sellen, D. W. 2006. Lactation, complementary feeding, and human life history. In: Hawkes, K. and Paine, R. R. (eds.), The Evolution of Human Life History. Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research Press, pp. 155–196.Google Scholar

Sieff, D. F. 1990. Explaining biased sex ratios in human populations: a critique of recent studies. Current Anthropology, 31, 25–48.Google Scholar

Sieff, D. F. 2015. Understanding and Healing Emotional Trauma: Conversations with Pioneering Clinicians and Researchers. London: Routledge.Google Scholar

Sieff, D. F. 2019. The Death Mother as nature’s shadow: infanticide, abandonment and the collective unconscious. Psychological Perspectives, 62, 15–34.Google Scholar

Sieff, D. F. 2020. Trauma-worlds and their transformation: moving beyond a life built around fear, dissociation and shame [video]. YouTube. Retrieved from www.youtube.com/watch?v=QE48YTU9Ss8 Google Scholar

Spieker, S. J. and Bensley, L. 1994. Roles of living arrangements and grandmother social support in adolescent mothering and infant attachment. Developmental Psychology, 30, 102–111.Google Scholar

Stevenson-Hinde, J. 2011. Culture and socioemotional development, with a focus on fearfulness and attachment. In: Chen, X. and Rubin, K. H. (eds.), Socioemotional Development in Cultural Context. New York: Guilford Press, pp. 11–28.Google Scholar

Terahima, H. and Hewlett, B. S. (eds.) 2016. Social Learning and Innovation in Contemporary Hunter-Gatherers: Evolutionary and Ethnographic Perspectives. Berlin: Springer.Google Scholar

Tracy, M., Salo, M. and Appleton, A. A. 2018. The mitigating effects of maternal social support and paternal involvement on the intergenerational transmission of violence. Child Abuse and Neglect, 78, 46–59.CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

Tucker, C. J. and Finkelhor, D. 2017. The state of interventions for sibling conflict and aggression: a systematic review. Trauma, Violence, & Abuse, 18, 396–406.Google Scholar

Van Ijzendoorn, M. H., Bakermans-Kranenburg, M. J., Coughlan, B. and Reijman, S. 2020. Annual research review: umbrella synthesis of meta-analyses on child maltreatment antecedents and interventions: differential susceptibility perspective on risk and resilience. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 61, 272–290.Google Scholar

Volk, A. A. and Atkinson, J. A. 2013. Infant and child death in the human environment of evolutionary adaptation. Evolution and Human Behavior, 34, 182–192.CrossRef Google Scholar

WHO. 2020. Child maltreatment. World Health Organization. Retrieved from www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/child-maltreatment Google Scholar

Willführ, K. P. and Gagnon, A. 2013. Are stepparents always evil? Parental death, remarriage, and child survival in demographically saturated Krummhörn (1720–1859) and expanding Québec (1670–1750). Biodemography and Social Biology, 59, 191–211.Google Scholar

Woodman, M. and Sieff, D. F. 2009. Confronting Death Mother – an interview with Marion Woodman. Spring, 81, 177–199.Google Scholar

Yengoyan, A. A. 1981. Infanticide and birth order: an empirical analysis of preferential female infanticide among Australian Aboriginal populations. Anthropology UCLA, 7, 255–273.Google Scholar

Accessibility standard: Unknown

Why this information is here

This section outlines the accessibility features of this content - including support for screen readers, full keyboard navigation and high-contrast display options. This may not be relevant for you.

Accessibility Information

Accessibility compliance for the HTML of this chapter is currently unknown and may be updated in the future.