Abstract
The emotional relationship which exists between parent and child is a unique and enduring affiliative system (Bowlby, 1958). From the parental side, the ontogeny of this system has presented some prominent issues in developmental research during the past decade. Two major themes have emerged. The first theme is the idea that the infant provides the stimulus which elicits and sustains parental love (Bell & Harper, 1977; Bowlby, 1958; Brazelton, 1973; Leiderman, 1980); the second, is the idea of rapid emotional bonding by the parents in the immediate postpartum period (for a critique of this concept see Chapter 8, this volume). This chapter will look more specifically at these themes by examining one major stimulus component, the eyes of the infant as they effect the parents’ behavior during this postpartum period.
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Butterfield, P.M., Emde, R.N., Svejda, M., Naiman, S. (1982). Silver Nitrate and the Eyes of the Newborn. In: Emde, R.N., Harmon, R.J. (eds) The Development of Attachment and Affiliative Systems. Topics in Developmental Psychobiology. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-4076-8_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-4076-8_9
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