John Bowlby and ethology: An annotated interview with Robert Hinde

Abstract

From the 1950s, John Bowlby, one of the founders of attachment theory, was in personal and scientific contact with leading European scientists in the field of ethology (e.g., Niko Tinbergen, Konrad Lorenz, and especially Robert Hinde). In constructing his new theory on the nature of the bond between children and their caregivers, Bowlby profited highly from their new approach to (animal) behavior. Hinde and Tinbergen in their turn were influenced and inspired by Bowlby's new thinking. On the basis of extensive interviews with Bowlby's colleague and lifelong friend Robert Hinde and on the basis of archival materials, both the relationship between John Bowlby and Robert Hinde and the cross-fertilization of ethology and attachment theory are described.

Keywords:

• Attachment theory
• ethology
• animal behavior
• history

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to Robert A. Hinde, Joan Stevenson-Hinde, and an anonymous reviewer for their insightful comments on earlier drafts of this article.

Notes

1 American zoologist Charles Otis Whitman used imprinting for cross-breeding different species of pigeons. Dutch zoo man Frits Portielje had witnessed imprinting in in the South American Bittern [Botaurus pinnatus]. However, Lorenz coined the concept, emphasized its theoretical importance, and thus became its “discoverer” (Burkhardt, 2005).

2 AMWL stands for Archives and Manuscripts, Wellcome Library for the History and Understanding of Medicine, 183 Euston Road, London NW1 2BE, UK. The letters PP/BOW stand for Personal Papers Bowlby.

3 Hinde's impression that it was he who suggested to use the terms environmentally stable and environmentally labile finds additional confirmation in a much earlier letter to Bowlby: “I think you are right in attributing the terms ‘environmentally stable and labile’ as applied to behaviour to me (…), [though] they were used earlier in other contexts by Smallhausen” (Hinde in a letter to Bowlby, September 6, 1965; AMWL: PP/BOW/K.4/15).

4 Hinde mentions a change of title of the book in a letter to Bowlby, October 27, 1965; AMWL: PP/BOW/B.3/18.

5 Bowlby states that Ainsworth “must have known a bit about it [ethology] before she left [for Uganda in 1954], because I was getting enthusiastic about it in 1951 and 1952 when she was here [at the Tavistock Clinic]; she must have shown quite a lot of interest in it (…) I remember having quite prolonged debates on paper (…) and that's how she became ethologically oriented” (Smuts, 1977).