If you have spent time reading my posts over the years then you know that I often rail against the decline of public intellectualism here in the U.S. During my rants I often point to the 2001 book by Richard Posner entitled Public Intellectuals: A Study of Decline. Not long ago a geology colleague of mine suggested that astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson is a great public intellectual who regularly promotes all things science. I immediately started watching his YouTube videos. One in particular really caught my attention. It featured evolutionary anthropologist Herman Pontzer and his new book entitled Adaptable: How Your Unique Body Really Works and Why Our Biology Unites Us. I bought Pontzer’s book and read it with great interest. What really caught my attention was Pontzer’s mention of a book by Marilyn Brookwood entitled The Orphans of Davenport: Eugenics. the Great Depression, and the War over Children’s Intelligence. Along with Pontzer’s book I purchased a copy of Orphans of Davenport. I’ve been studying what Allan Schore calls classical attachment theory for well over twenty years now. Orphans of Davenport blew my mind. In essence it is the story that chronicles the development of attachment theory here in the U.S. back in the 1930s. Yes, attachment theory here in the U.S. at a time when Bowlby was still cutting his teeth. For anyone interested in the history of thinking around attachment, this is a must read book. Had it not been for this one YouTube video, there is no way I would have found out about this amazing story of attachment research here in the U.S. back in the 1930s.
What is more amazing about this attachment-related story is that it takes place against a backdrop of the eugenics movement and that movement’s wholehearted embrace of IQ (intelligence quotient) testing. It’s also a story of a small group of clinicians and researchers working at Davenport Home, Iowa’s principal state-run orphanage, who bravely dared to challenge the hegemony of the eugenics movement that ravaged the U.S. back in the 1930 and into the 40s. As Brookwood points out, it was this rabid embrace of eugenics here in the U.S. that contributed greatly to the eugenics thinking of the Nazi movement in Germany of the same timeframe. The Orphans of Davenport could be made into a movie given all of the drama and political intrigue including how Alfred Binet’s IQ test was brought to the U.S., reconfigured as the Stanford-Binet IQ Test, and used for eugenics purposes. As Brokkwood puts it, “A pioneer in the testing field [in the U.S.], Lewis Terman, of Stanford University, called IQ tests ‘a beacon of light of the eugenics movement.’ ” Many of us hear labels like moron, imbecile and idiot and shudder. But did you know that these were actual diagnostic labels that were used to classify results gleaned from the Stanford-Binet.[2] That’s how those labels entered our lexicon. As a counseling student I studied the Stanford-Binet. I was never told of its auspicious beginnings or that it was used in the service of eugenics. Frankly, I’m a bit stunned. And the Stanford-Binet is still used today.
The eugenics scene back in the 1930s was relatively simple. Eugenicists believe that IQ was fixed at birth and could not be changed. As a result of this belief—one that ultimately was shown to be false by the Davenport researchers—those who tested below normal were often sent to institutions like Davenport or worse, they were institutionalized and, in the case of girls and women, sterilized. As Brookwood observes, “By the end of the 1920s, nearly all states had passed laws permitting the involuntary sterilization of those with low intelligence, most of them poor, most of them women.” So, how exactly did the Davenport researchers upturn the eugenics applecart? They noticed a very interesting pattern: young orphans who tested poorly on IQ tests and then were sent to institutions for “morons and imbeciles” subsequently showed improvement in their IQ scores. This observation flew in the face of eugenics dogma: “[A]ll human traits were biologically determined and inherited and that problematic traits, such as alcoholism, criminality, a tendency toward poverty, epilepsy, insanity, and promiscuity, among others, resulted from a person’s low intelligence,” quoting Brookwood. But by what mechanism or influence was IQ, thought to be immutable, being changed? Yes, you guessed it: safe and secure attachment. Here’s the rest of the story as Paul Harvey used to say.
According to Pontzer’s read of Brookwood’s book, two psychologists at Davenport—Marie Skodak and Harold Skeels—doubted that IQ was determined at birth. This doubt was fueled by an observation Skodak and Skeels regularly made: “[N]early all the children lucky enough to be adopted into loving families scored in the normal or even ‘superior’ range for intelligence, in sharp contrast to their unlucky peers who had stayed in the orphanage,” quoting Pontzer. He continues,
The breakthrough came when Skodak and Skeels placed a group of infants from Davenport in the care of an institution for women with exceptionally low IQs. Initially done to ease overcrowding at Davenport, the first two children placed at the women’s facility flourished. Both had behavioral delays and IQ scores below 50 when initially tested as infants at Davenport, indicating severe mental deficiency that would require lifelong institutional care. After just eight months at the women’s facility their score had nearly doubled, and they behaved like typical toddlers in every way.
Again, what is going on here? Here’s Pontzer’s bottom line: “The main difference for these children was a supportive and caring environment, where each had individualized attention from adults who loved them.” Even though these women had exceptionally low IQ scores, they were able to provide stable and consistent care and love to these young orphans. Their love, their secure attachment, allowed these orphans to develop and thrive sparing them from a life spent in a stultifying institution. They are heroes in my opinion.
Brookwood draws a parallel between the Davenport research and the research that was done with orphans who were housed at orphanages in Romania during the 24 year rule of Nicolae Ceausescu that ended in 1989 when he was executed by Romanian soldiers. Charlie Zeanah (who I have talked about in earlier posts) conducted extensive work with the Romanian orphans, work that ultimately led to the formation of the “disorganized” attachment category. Brookwood even brings in the work of Rene Spitz and John Bowlby. Spitz was a researcher who worked in the U.S. and developed the idea of “hospitalism,” a condition that affected children left at hospitals for long periods of time cutoff from their parents. As Brookwood points out, “Spitz confirmed the Iowan’s discoveries.” Bowlby met with Spitz as he prepared to write his WHO supported article published in 1952 entitled Maternal Care and Mental Health.
I’ve only given you a thumbnail sketch of this amazing piece of attachment research history. For the full story grab a copy of Brookwood’s book. I think it’s a good lesson to go back and experience what it was like to conduct psychological research during this period of the eugenics movement here in the U.S. This was the period when genetic determinism ran amok. The Davenport researchers battled against this juggernaut using only scientific evidence as their main weapon. And they were attacked at every turn. As I pointed out in my book Bowlby’s Battle, Bowlby likewise engaged in similar battles. Suffice it say that scientific thought can be very dogmatic. I can honestly say that I am very impressed by the battle waged by the Davenport researchers. And I am glad to now know about the amazing contribution they made to the world of attachment theory, contributions that took place here in the U.S. Again, this story could be made into a movie not unlike the movie Oppenheimer. Although, I’m not sure the U.S. is ready to confront this dark period of eugenics, forced sterilizations, and the use of IQ tests to condemn infants, children, and adults to lives spent in institutions.
Notes:
[1] – Here’s the link to this YouTube video.
[2] – Quoting Brookwood: “Those who scored from 50 to 69 [on IQ tests] were called ‘morons,’ from 20 to 49, ‘imbeciles,’ and those with scores below 20 were known as ‘idiots.’ ”
