The Myth of Maternal Instinct
the concept of maternal instinct holds that nurturing behaviors of mothers towards their children are determined by biological factors and are largely insensitive to environmental or experiential effects. the concept of maternal instinct has influenced the study of caregiving (Shields, 1984), Charles Darwin and the late 19th-century scientists who accepted the maternal instinct notion have shaped subsequent research on the topic. notions of instinctive nurturing can be traced to assumption belonging to the 19th century, which accepted both women's intellectual inferiority and their emotional reactions to the young. scientific thought of that time held that women could not be as intellectually developed as men because their energies were required to go toward reproduction and caregiving. Nature had suited them to focus on immediate situations rather than abstract ones (Hence Their Intellectual inferiority) and to be more perceptive and emotional (hence their attraction to small and helpless beings).