PubMed · 4248084
The source did not provide an abstract. Follow the original record for more information.
Explore connections, maps & timelines
R G Mitchell. 1970. Better adoption practice.. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-8749.1970.tb01953.x
Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.
KEEP EXPLORING
Adjustment outcomes of 224 transracial and inracial adoptees were investigated using data collected over 17 years. Findings reveal an association between adoptees' outcomes and their race, gender, and adoptive family structure. Placement history was not significant. Implications for policy and practice are discussed, as are future directions for research.
The authors examined whether being adopted or semi-adopted (born of artificial insemination with donor sperm and genetically linked to the mother but not to the social father) is a stigmatizing attribute affecting evaluations made of a child, and whether the gender of the rater moderates the effects of adoptive status on evaluations of children. Participants included 129 undergraduate students from the United States who were presented with written scenarios describing a child's adoptive status. They were asked to evaluate the child on a number of attributes. Results showed that adoptive status did not affect evaluations of children, although rater gender moderated the effects of adoptive status.
The author considers that the Oedipus of Sophocles' drama, who kills his biological father and marries his biological mother, is an illustration of the failure to work through the complex named after him. She draws attention to the contrast between the obscurity that surrounds the hero's adoptive parents and the notoriety of their biological counterparts arguing that the former are equally important in the universal oedipal fantasy. In her view the fact that Oedipus has two sets of parents--abandoning and adopting respectively--is significant in that the resulting dichotomisation of the parental imago enables him seemingly to avoid a conflict of ambivalence in relation to a single object. The author further contends that the plague of Thebes represents the symptomatic return of repressed or disavowed aggression. Three clinical examples reveal the parental imago's division to be an unconscious defence against oedipal anxieties and the sense of solitude vis-à-vis the intimacy of the parental couple. The working through of the Oedipus complex is stated to require the synthesis of love and hate and of the abandoning and adoptive aspects of the parents whereby the formerly sadistic superego becomes protective. The author also argues that a useful distinction can be made between splitting and dichotomisation.