The Evolution of Character: Birth to 18 Years : A Longitudinal Study

This is a third report of a research endeavor that began in 1963, funded by the National Institute of Mental Health. It was originally intended to learn about vicissitudes of oral phase experience among normal infants, following from a pioneer pilot study described by the principal investigator in Patterns of Mothering in 1956. Direct observations and films (distributed by the Extension Media Center, University of California Berkeley, CA 94704) of mother-infant interactions at intervals during the infants' first year of life, in 131 cases, indicated that types of maternal behavior, distinguished statistically and clinically, were stable through the infants' first year. Significant relations, although not hypothesized, were found between types of maternal behavior and qualities of infant development, and were described in Anxiety and Ego Formation, by Sylvia Brody and her late husband, Sidney Axelrad, in 1970.
A follow-up study of 121 of the children by means of psychological tests, direct observations, and films of mother-child interactions in the children's ages two to seven was funded by the William T. Grant Foundation. Significant relations were found between the children's psychological maturity and both parents' behavior with and attitudes toward them. These findings and 10 clinical studies of father-child relations were described by the same authors in Mothers, Fathers, and Children, in 1978. Unique data, derived from systematic analyses of the children's responses to the Children's Apperception Test stories at age seven, not previously published, are included in this volume.
A search for the subjects at their age 18 found 91 available for further study. They received a battery of diagnostic examinations by clinical psychologists and were interviewed by the principal investigator. Four independent variables, maternal adequacy in the infant's first year, and the subject's IQ, socio-economic status, and sex, were correlated with 39 dependent clinical variables. Maternal adequacy and IQ were found to be the ones significantly related to the clinical variables at age 18. The hypothesis regarding significant relations between the quality of experience in the first year of life and the quality of ego, superego, and character formation near the end of adolescence was supported in the large majority of cases. Unusual in this account are the clinical studies of the 13 subjects whose development did not support the hypothesis, with discussion of the plausible reasons for their "exceptional" outcome. Added information about them up to age 22 and beyond gives further support to the clinical presentations.
The history of one female subject from birth to early adulthood is given in moderate detail, and that of two male subjects of similar socioeconomic status and similar IQs in childhood, over the same time span, are given in extensive detail.
Theoretical chapters deal with the definition of character, relations among the anxieties that arise in infancy and childhood, and early contributions to ego and superego formation. Character is understood to evolve from preoedipal, oedipal, and postoedipal conflicts and experiences.