Several days ago, I commented critically on a forthcoming Warner Brothers movie, "Orphan". This movie tells the story of a superficially charming and friendly adopted girl who secretly menaces her adoptive family. I pointed out that popular myths stress the idea that adopted children are likely to be "crazy" and even dangerous. As I discussed in my book "Child Development: Myths & Misunderstandings" (Sage, 2009), there is little scientific support for these beliefs.
I received an interesting comment on a point I did not examine in the earlier post. A reader suggested that the genetic factors that contribute to mental illness or antisocial behavior would have a special connection to adoption. For example, a mother with genetic characteristics influencing emotional stability could pass those characteristics on to her baby, and the mother's own instability could make it more likely that her baby went into foster care or was adopted. A father with similar genetic make-up would also give his genetic material to the baby, and because of his violent or irresponsible behavior might also make it more likely that the child was reared by a different family. Thus, the probability of genetically-influenced mental illness could be greater among adopted than among non-adopted children.
The reader concluded that this would explain the phenomenon, and indeed it is a plausible explanation. However, the essential question remains: Is there such a phenomenon as a significantly higher level of antisocial behavior among adopted children? Particularly, is there a pattern like that shown in the movie, where pleasant social behavior prevails outside the adoptive family, but terrifying antisocial behavior is directed toward familiar caregivers? If there is no phenomenon, it is irrelevant to discuss a plausible explanation we could give for such a phenomenon, if it existed.
With respect to the first question, much of our current information about the development of both early-adopted and late-adopted children comes from the extensive work of Michael Rutter and his large research group. These investigators began their work more than 10 years ago, when adoption to the West from Romanian orphanages was first permitted. The children from these orphanages were notoriously neglected in the institutions. Their parentage was no less likely than any other group's to include genetic factors influencing mental illness or antisocial behavior. Many had been exposed prenatally to alcohol, drugs, and disease. We can hardly imagine a group with more initial strikes against them. Many of them were developmentally delayed in physical and cognitive ways. Yet, the research group concluded, most did very well and caught up developmentally within a few years after they were adopted. (For more information, see Rutter, M. [2002]. Nature, nurture, and development: From evangelism through science toward policy and practice. Child Development, Vol. 73, pp. 1-21; also, Sharma, A., McGue, M., & Benson, P. [1998]. The psychological adjustment of United States adoptive adolescents and their non-adopted siblings. Child Development, Vol. 69, pp. 791-802.)
Adoption seems to be a very effective developmental intervention for children who have gotten off to a bad start. This makes sense with respect to the effect of genetic factors, as the phenotype or developed characteristics of the individual are generally shaped by the interaction of genetic and environmental causes, and very rarely by genetic influences alone.
The second issue we need to deal with has to do with the pattern of behavior shown in "Orphan"---- a pattern in which desirable social behavior toward outsiders contrasts with viciously antisocial behavior with the adoptive family. There does seem to be something faintly familiar about this if it occurs at a very mild level; most parents have probably noticed that their children "behave better" with neighbor adults or more distant relatives and save their tantrums for Mom and Dad. But that common occurrence should not seduce us into thinking that there is necessarily a similar phenomenon at a more intense level. In fact, no accepted diagnostic approach describes a category in which the child is sociable and well-behaved outside the family and dangerously antisocial within it. However, there are popularized materials that claim to recognize such a pattern as a kind of "attachment disorder" not known or understood by conventional psychologists.
However plausible may be the genetic explanation offered by my reader, it seems to be an explanation without a phenomenon, for neither the behavior pattern itself nor its preponderance among adopted children appears to be supported by the facts.
"Orphan" may make an excellent scary movie for summer customers. I have no problem with it as such. My concern is that this presentation, like certain made-for-TV movies, will convince viewers that a myth is true, and prejudice them in many ways against adopted children and grown-up adoptees. Curiously, when I was writing "Child Development: Myths & Misunderstandings", I almost left out the essay on beliefs about adopted children-- saying to myself, "Surely nobody thinks that any more!" But it seems they do think that, and with the release of "Orphan" they may be reinforced in their errors.
