With her tender caresses, the loving mother can cast a spell of protection over her young child that lasts for decades. In the long-lasting protection conferred by a mother's love, Dr. Mohammadreza Hojat of Jefferson Medical College sees confirmation of the attachment theory of psychology, which emphasizes the importance of mother-child bonding.
Analyzing psyco-social ata collected from 928 medical students, Hojat identifies a clear link between "perceived satisfaction with the mother in childhood" and later psychological well-being. A series of statistical tests reveal that having recollection of the mother as available and devoted predicted less loneliness, less depression, less anxiety, higher self-esteem and more resiliency in dealing with life events."
In contrast, those students who had "the lowest perceived satisfaction" with their childhood relations with their mothers not only scored higher on "the anxiety
scale" than students with better memories of their childhood ties to their mothers, but also "obtained the lowest scores on the self-esteem and peer-relationships measures." These results, insists Hojat, are "not trivial,” since "the statistical power was relatively high for all significant findings, except for the anxiety scale.''