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'''{{FULLPAGENAME}}''', {{BS}}, {{MS}}, {{PhD}}, ({{LifeData|birth=1934-01-212|death=2025-08-08|death3place=|deathcountry=USA} }}), is was an American developmental psychologist, whose research focused on the origins of violence, particularly as it relates to a lack of mother-child bonding.<ref name=WP>{{URLwikipedia|James_W._Prescott|James W. Prescott|2022-11-02}}</ref>
Prescott was a health scientist administrator at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), one of the Institutes of the US [[National Institutes of Health]] (NIH) from 1966 to 1980. He created and directed the Developmental Behavioral Biology Program at the NICHD where he initiated NICHD-supported research programs to study the relationship between mother-child bonding and the development of social abilities in adult life. Inspired by Harry Harlow's famous experiments on rhesus monkeys, which established a link between neurotic behavior and isolation from a care-giving mother, Prescott further proposed that a key component to development comes from the somesthetic processes (body touch) and vestibular-cerebellar processes (body movement) induced by mother-child interactions, and that deprivation of this stimulation causes brain abnormalities. By analogy to the neurotic behavior in monkeys, he suggested that these developmental abnormalities are a major cause of adult violence amongst humans.<ref name=WP/>
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{{PUB}}* {{REFjournal |last=Prescott |init=JW |author-link=James W. Prescott |url=http://www.violence.de/prescott/bulletin/article.html |title=Body Pleasure and the Origins of Violence |journal=Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists |date=1975-11 |volume= |issue= |pages=10-20 |accessdate=2022-11-02}}* {{REFjournal |last=Prescott |init=JW |author-link=James W. Prescott |url=http://www.violence.de/prescott/letters/Sixteen_Principles.pdf |title=Sixteen Principles For Personal, Family and Global Peace |journal=The Truth Seeker |date=March 1989 |volume= |issue= |pages= |format=PDF |accessdate=2022-11-02}}* {{REFjournal |last=Precott |init=JW |author-link=James W. Prescott |url=http://www.cirp.org/library/psych/prescott2/ |title=Genital pain vs. genital pleasure: why the one and not the other? |journal=The Truth Seeker |date=1989-07 |volume=1 |issue=3 |pages=14-21 |accessdate=2022-11-10}}* {{REFjournal |last=Prescott |first= |init=JW |author-link=James W. Prescott |last2=Milos |first2= |init2=MF |author2-link=Marilyn Fayre Milos |last3=Denniston |first3= |init3=GC |author3-link=George C. Denniston |etal=no |title=Circumcision: human rights and ethical medical practice |trans-title= |language= |journal=Humanist |location= |date=1999-05 |volume=59 |issue=3 |pages=45-6 |url= |archived= |quote= |pubmedID=1462705 |pubmedCID= |DOI= |doi= |accessdate=2025-07-05}}==Death==James W. Prescott, a pioneering researcher whose work on the effects of early childhood experiences on human development forever altered our understanding of health and well-being, passed away on August 8, 2025, at the age of 91.<ref>{{REFjournal |last=Narvaez |init=Darcia |author-link=Darcia Narvaez |url=https://kindredmedia.org/2025/08/remembering-james-w-prescott-early-childhood-development-pioneer-and-scientist/ |title=Remembering James W. Prescott, Early Childhood Development Pioneer and Scientist |journal=Kindred |date=2025-08-11 |volume= |issue= |pages= |accessdate=2025-08-24}}</ref>{{SEEALSO}}* [[United States of America]]
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* {{REFjournal |last=deMause |first=Lloyd |init= |author-link= |etal=no |title=Restaging Fetal Traumas in War and Social Violence |journal=Pre- and Perinatal Psychology Journal |location= |date=1996 |volume=23 |issue=4 |pages=344-92 |url=http://www.mattes.de/buecher/praenatale_psychologie/PP_PDF/PP_08_2_deMause.pdf |archived= |quote= |pubmedID=11609155 |pubmedCID= |DOI= |accessdate=2020-10-09}}
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[[Category:Psychologist]]
[[Category:Author]][[Category:Deceased]]
[[Category:USA]]