Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Psychology Podcast with doctor Scott
Speaker 1: Barry Kaufman, where we give you insights into the mind, brain, behavior,
Speaker 1: and creativity. Each episode will feature a new guest who
Speaker 1: will stimulate your mind and give you a greater understanding
Speaker 1: of yourself, others, and the world we live in. Hopefully
Speaker 1: we'll also provide a glimpse into human possibility. Thanks for
Speaker 1: listening and enjoy the podcast. Now. I'm really excited to
Speaker 1: have Chris Frehley on the show today. Chris the professor
Speaker 1: of the University of Illinois Department of Psychology. In two
Speaker 1: thousand and seven, he received the American Psychological Association's Distinguished
Speaker 1: Scientific Award for early career contribution to psychology in the
Speaker 1: area of individual differences. Chris's research involves the study of
Speaker 1: attachment processes in close relationship, personality dynamics, and development and
Speaker 1: research methods. He's also broadly interested issues at the interface
Speaker 1: of social cognition, development, evolution, and psychodynamics. Thanks so much
Speaker 1: for chatteling me today. Hi, Thanks for having me Scott.
Speaker 1: What are you not interested in? I'm interested in everything,
Speaker 1: but I'm completely inapt in most things, so it all
Speaker 1: kind of balances out well. Well, I'd love to hear
Speaker 1: what the emergence of cognition, development, evolution and psychodynamics is. Well,
Speaker 1: the fastest thing about that is that's what attachment theory
Speaker 1: is all about, essentially. So attachment theory is this really
Speaker 1: deep and a relatively old theory now about how humans
Speaker 1: develop close relationships and why they need to develop those
Speaker 1: relationships and the applications they have for lifesban development. So
Speaker 1: the founder of the theory, John Bolby, was a British
Speaker 1: psychoanalyst who had kind of was this had self appointed
Speaker 1: himself to be the person who would take the key
Speaker 1: ideas from party and psychoanalytic theory and bring those up
Speaker 1: to date with respect in nineteen fifty science. For him,
Speaker 1: that meant bring integrating psychodynamic theory with the emerging field
Speaker 1: of ethology, the evolutionary study of animal behavior, and sort
Speaker 1: of what was going on in information theory at the time,
Speaker 1: so cybernetic theory and how do you design systems that
Speaker 1: function in intelligent ways that behave as if they have
Speaker 1: purpose as a goals, basic information processing dynamics. So that's
Speaker 1: sort of where it all comes together is in the
Speaker 1: study of attachment and those kinds of issues continue to
Speaker 1: fascinate me, both within and without the study of attachment. Oh,
Speaker 1: me too, me too, and cybernetics has been applied to
Speaker 1: so many areas other than attachment. Boy, you know, been
Speaker 1: applied also to neural functioning and the way that neurons
Speaker 1: communicate each other. Well, but while that's so cool and
Speaker 1: you're right, you're absolutely right, amazing how much legs this
Speaker 1: Bowlby theory has a lot as exactly six legs? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Is that its spider like? Yeah? Yeah, Well, we actually
Speaker 1: have six topics today I want to talk about. So
Speaker 1: it's funny you said six legs to bring it on.
Speaker 1: The first one I want to jump right into is measurement.
Speaker 1: How do we measure attachment styles? Now, Bolby di is
Speaker 1: not the one who came up with the idea of
Speaker 1: attachment styles. That was Ainsworth, right, who then cuts the
Speaker 1: strange situation procedure. Could you describe a little bit about
Speaker 1: the strange situation procedure and what are the major attachment
Speaker 1: styles she discovered? Sure? So, the basic idea with Bowlby's
Speaker 1: theory was he was trying to envision how evolution would
Speaker 1: work to create a behavioral system that would allow young
Speaker 1: precocious infants to survive in an environment where they can't feed,
Speaker 1: protect themselves, keep themselves warm, and so forth. So his
Speaker 1: basic idea was that natural selection had created this motivational
Speaker 1: system that was designed to regulate proximity between a young
Speaker 1: infant and its primary caregiver, usually somebody like a mother
Speaker 1: who's older, wiserly able to provide that kind of protection
Speaker 1: and support. So when he was thinking about the dynam
Speaker 1: of the way this system worked, he was imagining a
Speaker 1: sort of normative process where the child feels anxious or
Speaker 1: upset if the caregiver is too far away or if
Speaker 1: there's a danger present, and behaviorally, what the child does
Speaker 1: when that anxiety arises is engage what he called attachment
Speaker 1: behavior in order to reduce or bring the caregiver nearby.
Speaker 1: So that might involve looking around and sort of relatively
Speaker 1: benign situations to see if the parent is nearby, or
Speaker 1: in more dangerous situations, potentially running over to the caregiver
Speaker 1: and clinging and holding on. So Ainsworth was interested in
Speaker 1: studying those attachment dynamics in the laboratory, so she and
Speaker 1: her students developed this strange situation procedure in which a parent,
Speaker 1: usually the mother, and a twelve month old infant come
Speaker 1: to the lab, and essentially what they do is they
Speaker 1: go through a series of episodes where they are together
Speaker 1: or separated, or there's a stranger present. So the lab
Speaker 1: situation is a lot like a doctor's office, so it's
Speaker 1: kind of innocent, it's kind of sterile. There's things on
Speaker 1: the floor to play with and their doors. So the
Speaker 1: way the procedure unfolds is the parent and the child
Speaker 1: are in the room together. Eventually a stranger comes in
Speaker 1: and this usually creates a little bit of anxiety on
Speaker 1: the defense part. Usually that anxieties resolve pretty easily. That
Speaker 1: chold might look at the mom, the mom signals that
Speaker 1: everything's okay, and the child goes on playing, maybe bringing
Speaker 1: the toy to the stranger. But eventually the mother is
Speaker 1: asked to leap via a little subtle knock on the door.
Speaker 1: So that provides the first separation scene in the strange situation,
Speaker 1: and what researchers do is observe the way the child
Speaker 1: negotiates that separation. It's typically relatively brief, but what's most
Speaker 1: diagnostic in the strange situation is how the child behaves
Speaker 1: upon reunion with the parent. So generally, what Ainsworth observed
Speaker 1: is a pattern of behavior that's very consistent with the
Speaker 1: way in which Allby described the norm net dynamics of
Speaker 1: the attachment system. That is, when the parent was away,
Speaker 1: the child would vocalize as our distress, would run to
Speaker 1: the door, crawl to the door, and try to re
Speaker 1: establish proximity to the caregiver. But importantly, when the mother
Speaker 1: came back, the child might reach up his or her arms,
Speaker 1: sort of signal that they want to be picked up
Speaker 1: and comforted, and they were able to be soothed by
Speaker 1: physical contact with the mother. So Ainsworth called that pattern
Speaker 1: secure attachment because the signal that the child was able
Speaker 1: to regulate his or her emotions relatively effectively in this
Speaker 1: strange situation and was able to use the parent as
Speaker 1: a secure base to explore that environment and to eventually
Speaker 1: be soothed and recover from that stressful situation. But she
Speaker 1: noticed that not all children behave in the secure form.
Speaker 1: So this is where this idea of individual differences attachment
Speaker 1: patterns comes from. So some proportion of these children or
Speaker 1: what she called anxious resistant or sometimes called anxious ambivalent,
Speaker 1: So about fifteen percent to ten percent of the children
Speaker 1: exhibit this pattern where they're extremely distressed by separation, and
Speaker 1: when they're reunited with the caregiver, they want to be
Speaker 1: picked up and held, but they also kind of resist
Speaker 1: that contact. So they might reach their arms up to
Speaker 1: be held, but then when they're picked up, they might
Speaker 1: be arching their back and sort of flopping around, signaling
Speaker 1: that they are kind of pissed off about what has happened.
Speaker 1: Sometimes they might even bat at the parent as if
Speaker 1: they're kind of doing this kind of smacking behavior to
Speaker 1: sort of punish the parent for leaving. The key idea
Speaker 1: with anxious resistant attachment is that the presence of the
Speaker 1: caregiver provides a source of security and comfort, but in
Speaker 1: an incomplete sense. In other words, the child is sufficiently
Speaker 1: angry and upset about the situation that he or she
Speaker 1: is not able to completely restore that emotional equilibrium. The
Speaker 1: other pattern that Aimsworth in her students demarketed is what's
Speaker 1: now called avoidant attachment. So this characterized about twenty percent
Speaker 1: of the infants in the string situation. So avoidant children
Speaker 1: sometimes are distressed by the situation. Sometimes they're not visibly
Speaker 1: distressed by the separation. But importantly, what allows a child
Speaker 1: to be classified as avoidant is during the reunion episode,
Speaker 1: the child behaves as if he or she does not
Speaker 1: need comfort or contact or support. So sometimes these children
Speaker 1: become very engaged in the toys, where clearly in the
Speaker 1: separation episode they are a little distressed, we couldn't focus,
Speaker 1: but now that the mother's back, they're going to focus
Speaker 1: on this toy, as if I don't care that you
Speaker 1: just came back in this room, I don't necessarily need
Speaker 1: you to be here, or they simply don't navigate towards
Speaker 1: the parents, even though the parent might be sort of saying, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm back, everything's great. It's just kind of like bob any,
Speaker 1: let's move on. So that's sort of the origin of
Speaker 1: the idea of attachment patterns. Social psychologists call these attachment styles.
Speaker 1: That term doesn't exist in the developmental literature, but that's
Speaker 1: sort of where the idea of individual differences and attachment
Speaker 1: organization emerged and how it took off. Thanks for doing
Speaker 1: such a great job describing that I want to just
Speaker 1: play you said in my class as having to do it,
Speaker 1: tild it myself. Maybe I'll play it myself too. I
Speaker 1: just got to have coffee here in that rooment. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you can just record it ahead of time and it
Speaker 1: saves your work. Now, what in the world is this?
Speaker 1: No one knows what to do with the disorganized one though,
Speaker 1: because the isart also found the insecure disorganized pattern. Right.
Speaker 1: One of her students, Mary Maine, and her colleagues discovered
Speaker 1: this pattern that was relatively difficult to classify, and the
Speaker 1: developmental literature there's three major attachment patterns, but it was
Speaker 1: always kind of challenging to get one hundred percent of
Speaker 1: kids to fall meekly into its categories. So for a while,
Speaker 1: there is a category called cannot classify that was typically
Speaker 1: used to characterize invents who maybe were in the border
Speaker 1: between let's say, avoidant and anxious behavior. Eventually this came derivativeness,
Speaker 1: came to be known as disorganized or disoriented attachment. And
Speaker 1: what was characteristic of these children was that sometimes they
Speaker 1: exhibited what might be like an approach avoid its conflict
Speaker 1: of sorts. So some of the prototypical cases that stand
Speaker 1: out in my mind is when the children are visibly
Speaker 1: upset by this operation, and when the mother comes in
Speaker 1: the door, they start crawling towards her. And when you're
Speaker 1: coding these things. You're watching this video, you're going, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is going to be great. This is a secure child.
Speaker 1: I can sleep, I can sleep well tonight. And then
Speaker 1: the child just keeps going right down the hallway, right
Speaker 1: past the mother. So this would be an example where
Speaker 1: part you see some attachment behavior, but it's not organized
Speaker 1: in a way that allows it to fulfill the function
Speaker 1: that will be articulated for attachment behavior. It doesn't restore
Speaker 1: proximity between the attachment so suddenly mother returns and the
Speaker 1: child it's like maybe suddenly a robotic stillness emerges. So yeah,
Speaker 1: this pattern has been discussed and debated a lot in
Speaker 1: the development of literature. One of the probably the most
Speaker 1: prominent theories of what it means is that it's indicative
Speaker 1: of an interpersonal history when the child has not been
Speaker 1: able to find that the parent is a reliable source
Speaker 1: of security. Sometimes there are cases of abuse, sometimes there's
Speaker 1: cases of extreme neglect. The idea is that at times
Speaker 1: the attachment figure, potentially ironically could be the source of fear,
Speaker 1: that active is attachment for itself, and that puts the
Speaker 1: child in a difficult situation where he or she needs
Speaker 1: the attachment figure to feel secure. At the same time,
Speaker 1: the attachment figure I see a lot of discussions about
Speaker 1: how it has to do what they use. They say
Speaker 1: the word sensitivity. Does that mean sensitivity to the needs
Speaker 1: of the child, that the child is in distress? Yes,
Speaker 1: So sensitivity in the attachment literature doesn't mean like a
Speaker 1: heightened tendency to experience distress, but a behavior on the
Speaker 1: part of the parent that reveals that the parent is
Speaker 1: in tune with the child's needs. But here she may
Speaker 1: be feeling and responding accordingly. So sometimes that may mean
Speaker 1: keeping your distance, and sometimes it might mean helping the
Speaker 1: child's solve the problem, pro writing comfort that's needed. It's
Speaker 1: a very contextually sensitive construct. Cool. So then a bunch
Speaker 1: of researchers came along and they were like, how can
Speaker 1: we measure this variation? And did they start with looking
Speaker 1: at measuring the variation children before they got to measuring
Speaker 1: it in adults. Yeah. So historically attachment theory emerged as
Speaker 1: a theory of child behavior. But it's curious because Bulby
Speaker 1: himself was he originally was inspired to develop this theory
Speaker 1: partly based on his observations of adolescence. So he was
Speaker 1: working in a home with foster children, some of whom
Speaker 1: had been moved around multiple times over the course of
Speaker 1: their childhood or never their parents died, and some of
Speaker 1: them weren't juvenile delinquents. And one of his observations was
Speaker 1: that these children had, these older children, I should say,
Speaker 1: had a difficult time forming close emotional bonds with others.
Speaker 1: So part of what inspired him to think about these
Speaker 1: issues was actually the study of older children than infants.
Speaker 1: But for the most part of the empirical momentum that
Speaker 1: developed in North America, thinks in part Mary Ainsworth and
Speaker 1: her students, has to do with the assessment of individual
Speaker 1: differences and attachment and infancy and trying to understand what
Speaker 1: the consequences are of secure and insecure attachment for children
Speaker 1: as they develop. It was only much later, like in
Speaker 1: the mid nineteen eighties, that people began to formally study
Speaker 1: individual differences and attachment among adults. So that's kind of
Speaker 1: interesting in its own right because it happened simultaneously in
Speaker 1: two very different research traditions to psychology. So in developmental psychology,
Speaker 1: people began studying, Hey, what is it about the mothers
Speaker 1: and the way they think about attachment issues that predict
Speaker 1: whether their children are going to be secure or insecure
Speaker 1: in the string situation. So Mary Maine and jup Cassidy
Speaker 1: and some of their colleagues got together and they would
Speaker 1: interviewed the mothers about their own attachment and experiences when
Speaker 1: they were growing up, but from the retrospective lenses as
Speaker 1: an adult now. And what they found when they tried
Speaker 1: to match elements of those transcripts from those interviews with
Speaker 1: the children their children's strange situation classification was that mothers
Speaker 1: who were able to describe their own attachment experiences in
Speaker 1: a relatively clear, coherent way were much more likely to
Speaker 1: have children who were classified as secure in the strange
Speaker 1: situation than mothers who were not able to provide a
Speaker 1: coherent narrative of their own experiences. So that was one
Speaker 1: tradition that emerged in North America on how to study
Speaker 1: attachment and adults, and it focuses on the adult attachment interview,
Speaker 1: or what it's sometimes called the AAI, which is a
Speaker 1: way of getting people to tell the stories of their
Speaker 1: own developmental experiences and then coding their ability to do
Speaker 1: so in a clear and compelling way. An important part
Speaker 1: of the AI, by the way, is not that the
Speaker 1: person is saying, oh, yeah, my experiences of my parents
Speaker 1: were great. I hurt my knee, my mother was there
Speaker 1: to calm and comfort me. The important part is the
Speaker 1: coherence with which people tell those stories. So it's quite
Speaker 1: possible for somebody to say, my mother and I didn't
Speaker 1: get along. She was never there for me when I
Speaker 1: needed her. But the person can describe that without getting
Speaker 1: caught up kind of in an anxious way with respect
Speaker 1: to the experiences, and can provide a compelling and convincing
Speaker 1: narrative about what those experiences were like. So it's an
Speaker 1: interesting paradox of sorts that you can be considered secure
Speaker 1: with respect to the AI despite having let's just say,
Speaker 1: a bad attachment history, simply because you can kind of
Speaker 1: describe in own way that's compelling and coherent. Now, at
Speaker 1: the same time, around the mid nineteen eighties, social psychologists
Speaker 1: got wind of attachment theory and they started thinking, oh,
Speaker 1: how can we measure individual differences and attachment. So two
Speaker 1: of the leaders in this tradition were Phil Shaver, who
Speaker 1: was my graduate advisor, and Sending has On It was
Speaker 1: one of his students when they were both at the
Speaker 1: University of Denver. So what they did was they said, Okay,
Speaker 1: let's think about what these different strained situation types would
Speaker 1: look like. Let's say in the context of adult romantic relationships.
Speaker 1: So we might expect, for example, that somebody who is
Speaker 1: relatively secure is going to say things like, ah, I'm
Speaker 1: relatively comfortable opening up to others and being close to
Speaker 1: others and having them depend on me, and I'm able
Speaker 1: to depend on them, whereas people who are more avoidant
Speaker 1: may say things like, well, I'm not comfortable opening up
Speaker 1: to others and I'm not necessarily sure that I need
Speaker 1: others to feel good about myself. So anyhow, the idea
Speaker 1: is that right now we have two different ways of
Speaker 1: thinking about individual differences and attachment and adulthood, and they're
Speaker 1: based on very different measurement traditions and has on. In Shaver,
Speaker 1: the social psychologists adopted classic surveying methods. They basically ask
Speaker 1: people how do you think feel and behave and close
Speaker 1: relationships and ask people to self report on that. Under
Speaker 1: the assumption, which I think is a reasonable one, that
Speaker 1: people have a good sense of whether they feel secure
Speaker 1: or insecure in their relationships, they may not understand the
Speaker 1: deeper processes that make them secure or insecure, that they
Speaker 1: can tell you whether they're feeling anxious or feeling not,
Speaker 1: or whether they're hungry or not. You know, renovational states
Speaker 1: are typically salent to the conscious mind, whereas the developmental
Speaker 1: tradition is sort of a how do you describe your
Speaker 1: early caregiving experiences and do you do hope dirent way.
Speaker 1: So it's interesting because they're very different research traditions, very
Speaker 1: different measurement tools, and they're based on slightly different assumptions
Speaker 1: about what it means to be secure and how to
Speaker 1: assess it. Yeah, so Phil Shafer's research was really influential.
Speaker 1: I could just see though, just a clear difference between
Speaker 1: the way that these adult attachment styles are measured in
Speaker 1: a way, the infinite touchment styles, the infinite attached on it.
Speaker 1: It's all about the object, it's about the coding, it's
Speaker 1: about the systematic you know, watching videotapes. It's not like
Speaker 1: you can do self reports with infants, but with these adults,
Speaker 1: with these adults, you know, these adults, it's crazy adults.
Speaker 1: It's like self report measures seem to predominate. Now do
Speaker 1: they triangulate different? Do they triangulate like self report with
Speaker 1: like partner report. Do there are those correlated with each other? Yeah,
Speaker 1: those are I would say modestly correlated with one another.
Speaker 1: It's not a common research strategy to measure both. But
Speaker 1: there are a lot of researchers like Jeff Simpson University
Speaker 1: of Minnesota who will study attachment in a dietic context,
Speaker 1: So they will have reports from the partner and from
Speaker 1: the self, and sometimes they'll measure the partner's report of
Speaker 1: the other person's attachment. So those things tend to correlate
Speaker 1: relatively moderately, about the same magnitude that you would expect
Speaker 1: if you have other people's reports that big fought personality traits,
Speaker 1: for example. So they triangulate to some degree, but not perfectly,
Speaker 1: probably because everybody has slightly different access to their own
Speaker 1: internal insecurities and whatnot. Cool, what do you think that
Speaker 1: these individual differences in adult attachment style is really getting at? Now,
Speaker 1: there's been a construct there's been various theories that I've
Speaker 1: been thrown around. I know, I'm aware of this Bartholomew typology.
Speaker 1: It seems to be about it's all about like other
Speaker 1: versus self representations. How does that relate to internal working models?
Speaker 1: You know, theory, and then how does all that relate
Speaker 1: to your own motivational account? You have an alternative view,
Speaker 1: so could you go through all three of those and
Speaker 1: maybe so? Oh my gosh, yeah, sure. So the idea
Speaker 1: of internal working models is a fundamental one and attachment theory.
Speaker 1: This is part of where Bulby brought cognitive science into
Speaker 1: this emerging ethological control systems theory view of how the
Speaker 1: mind works. But his idea was that as children go
Speaker 1: through these interactions with their primary caregivers, essentially they're developing
Speaker 1: representational models allow them to forecast what is likely to
Speaker 1: happen in certain situations, that they behave this way or
Speaker 1: if they behave that way. And the foundation of these
Speaker 1: working models is the idea that individuals develop a representation
Speaker 1: of themselves. So this is comparable to something like self
Speaker 1: esteem or self worth. They can view themselves as a
Speaker 1: good person who is deserving of love, deserving of support,
Speaker 1: is competent, et cetera, or somebody who is not a
Speaker 1: good person, somebody who others would not necessarily want to
Speaker 1: love or find unlovable. And at the same time, children
Speaker 1: are also developing representational models of other people. And I
Speaker 1: mean that both specifically like the primary attachment figure, for example,
Speaker 1: it could be generalized to other people in more broadly speaking,
Speaker 1: So other people might be trustworthy, they might be benevolent,
Speaker 1: they might be kind of people you want to spend
Speaker 1: time with and invest in. Or they could be they
Speaker 1: might be the kinds of people who are likely to
Speaker 1: reject you, are the kinds of people who are not
Speaker 1: worth your time, not worth your affection, not worth investing in.
Speaker 1: So the idea that you develop these representations of yourself
Speaker 1: and others is the key idea behind the concept of
Speaker 1: internal working models of attachment. That sort of is the
Speaker 1: foundation of thinking about individual differences and attachment, And it's
Speaker 1: the key idea that Kim Bartholomew imported when she was
Speaker 1: thinking about how to conceptualize individual differences among adults. So
Speaker 1: her basic taxonomy assumes, Hey, what happens if people have
Speaker 1: a positive model of the self and a positive model
Speaker 1: of others. Well, that's the prototype of what we would
Speaker 1: call a secure attachment style. These people are confident that
Speaker 1: they are good people, that they have high self worth
Speaker 1: or they have high self esteem, and they believe that
Speaker 1: others are trustworthy independable too. In some ways, that's the
Speaker 1: I guess you could call it the generic threat that
Speaker 1: cuts across many models of what it means to be
Speaker 1: an optimal person or to be self actualized appropriately, right,
Speaker 1: But you can also have other permutations in this two
Speaker 1: dimensional space. So you have some people who think positively
Speaker 1: of themselves, but they don't think so highly of others.
Speaker 1: So this is what Barthology referred to as a dismissing
Speaker 1: pattern of attachment. These are individuals who have a high
Speaker 1: degree of independence autonomy, and they're reluctant to count on
Speaker 1: others and even dismiss the need to develop close intimate
Speaker 1: relationships with others. She also described what's called fearful attachment,
Speaker 1: and this is more akin to what Hassen and shape
Speaker 1: Or had in mind when they were talking about avoid
Speaker 1: and attachment. But fearful attachment is characterized by having that
Speaker 1: negative model of the self and a negative model of others.
Speaker 1: So you're not comfortable opening up to others and depending
Speaker 1: on them, partly because you feel insecure about yourself and
Speaker 1: that makes you vulnerable. So you withdraw as from relationships
Speaker 1: in a way as a defensive maneuver to protect the
Speaker 1: self a vulnerable self. Whereas The final category, preoccupying attachment
Speaker 1: is characterized by having a positive view of others and
Speaker 1: a negative model of self. So this is characteristic of
Speaker 1: individuals who question their own self worth but are very
Speaker 1: dependent on feedback from others. They want the approval and
Speaker 1: acceptance of others and need that kind of intimacy and closeness.
Speaker 1: So that's the gist of the internal working moment's concept
Speaker 1: and how it plays into Bartholomew's theory of individual differences.
Speaker 1: We have a slight spin on it. It's not designed
Speaker 1: to be an alternative to them. The way it was
Speaker 1: originally framed was very much focused on this idea that
Speaker 1: you have a model of the self and it's kind
Speaker 1: of positive or negative, and you have a model of
Speaker 1: others which is kind of positive or negative. It doesn't
Speaker 1: necessarily capture the motivational flavor that we sometimes think about
Speaker 1: when we're thinking about attachment styles. So all attempted to
Speaker 1: do is just sort of annotate it a little bit
Speaker 1: and say, look, part of what this model of self
Speaker 1: dimension is all about is what we now call attachment anxiety.
Speaker 1: So it's sort of a concern with being abandon or
Speaker 1: being rejected. Do you believe that other people will fundamentally
Speaker 1: be there for you or not. So it kind of
Speaker 1: mixes the self and other a little bit more than
Speaker 1: moret all the new's original model does, in other words,
Speaker 1: to feel anxious about the whereabouts and availability attachment figure
Speaker 1: involves not only necessarily questioning your own self with but
Speaker 1: questioning their availability and responsiveness. So it throws a little
Speaker 1: bit of a motivational lens onto it sort of disregards
Speaker 1: the self other distinction a little bit. In turn, the
Speaker 1: avoidance dimension is something that we conceptualize as having a
Speaker 1: little bit less to do with that sense of safety
Speaker 1: or that sense of anxiety. It's less effective and more
Speaker 1: about how you regulate your motions and response to that
Speaker 1: ticular sense that things are not right. So you might
Speaker 1: turn towards others. So using others as a secure base
Speaker 1: or safe haven would be a secure strategy. And at
Speaker 1: the opposite end of that dimension, which we sometimes call avoidance,
Speaker 1: would be pulling it away from others and withdrawal from
Speaker 1: close relationships. So this quote unquote alternative model talks about
Speaker 1: anxiety and avoidance rather than a model of self model
Speaker 1: of others. But it's not so much an alternative model
Speaker 1: since that these are alternative scientific views that could pet
Speaker 1: against each other and show that one's right and one's wrong.
Speaker 1: It's just layering some motivational and affect of flavoring on
Speaker 1: top of the cognitive representation that Kim Bartholomew articulated. You
Speaker 1: just lost half my audience with that last line. But
Speaker 1: I think that but the other half are like salivating,
Speaker 1: amazingly nerdy this is and I'm one of them. That's
Speaker 1: really cool. I think it's cool and it's super cool. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean you're like, literally the torch has from Bowlby
Speaker 1: to you know, de Barthelmu has been passed on to you. Like,
Speaker 1: you're really like this pre eminent attachment How does it
Speaker 1: feel to be like one of, if not the most
Speaker 1: pre eminent attachment researchers of our generation. I think those
Speaker 1: are fighting words. I think there are many people would disagree.
Speaker 1: I think of myself as somebody who respects the tradition
Speaker 1: and finds that you do audioble up. So maybe I'm
Speaker 1: a bit of a steward when it comes to the
Speaker 1: attachment theory and its history and its legacy. But I
Speaker 1: think there are a lot of people out there who
Speaker 1: contribute to the field who are kind of carrying the
Speaker 1: torch and doing an excellent job at it. That's fair,
Speaker 1: that's fair. It's fair. You're still up there. You don't
Speaker 1: have to agree with me, okay, Yeah, as long as
Speaker 1: my question committee agrees, will be okay, as long as
Speaker 1: you're what you're funding, as long as my promotion committed. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Well,
Speaker 1: I'll write a lot of recommendation if you want me
Speaker 1: to here, So tell me about your discovery that you
Speaker 1: actually think it's two dimensions that better represents the space
Speaker 1: than four. Yeah. So this turns out to be a
Speaker 1: really tricky issue in the theory. So if you think
Speaker 1: about a two dimensional space where you can sort of
Speaker 1: can you kind of see me in that stuff? Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: where your listeners can't. If you just take a two
Speaker 1: dimensional space where those dimensions are crossed, you can easily
Speaker 1: create four types. So that's the basic two by two
Speaker 1: logic that reoptive moves in social psychology. So the trick
Speaker 1: here is that there is to understand that there are
Speaker 1: not four distinct things. So when we talk about attachment
Speaker 1: styles and we talk about let's say the four type
Speaker 1: model of attachment, we don't literally mean that there are
Speaker 1: four distinct things that are mutually exclusive. What we really
Speaker 1: mean is that there's two fundamental distinctions. And because of
Speaker 1: the way math works, maybe the way nature works, that
Speaker 1: allows for a wide array of possibilities of individual differences
Speaker 1: that we sometimes say four because two by two is four.
Speaker 1: So the two dimensional model I think it's been a
Speaker 1: very useful one for research purposes. Now this part might
Speaker 1: lead some people to tune out, but when you're doing
Speaker 1: regression models and things like that, you don't want too
Speaker 1: much multicolinearity. So if you have four things in a
Speaker 1: model that really are just two things, then you're going
Speaker 1: to be breaking something from a data analysis point of
Speaker 1: view or a measurement perspective. I love the two dimensional approach.
Speaker 1: It just it appeals to the part of me that
Speaker 1: loves algorithms and loves Cartesian spaces and coordinate systems. However,
Speaker 1: having said that, whenever I am teaching on attachment or
Speaker 1: trying to explain it to a non technical audience, dimensions
Speaker 1: are the bomb. Nobody loves them. I don't mean the
Speaker 1: good kind of momb, I mean the bad kind of mom.
Speaker 1: So sometimes it's easier to talk about the styles as
Speaker 1: being to discrete categories and some sort of ether that
Speaker 1: exists out there in the emotional void. And that's fine.
Speaker 1: I can live with that. But ultimately I think these
Speaker 1: are two different ways of thinking about the same space,
Speaker 1: and some methods are appropriate I would say, more appropriate
Speaker 1: than others for research purposes, and maybe some ways of
Speaker 1: partitioning at space or more appropriate than others for science
Speaker 1: communication purposes. So you have you mentioned that two are
Speaker 1: so in Bartholo new system they're called model of self
Speaker 1: a model of other, and in this kind of motivational
Speaker 1: system they're called attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance. Those are
Speaker 1: different labels for similar kinds of individual difference variables. So
Speaker 1: where would dismissing type of avoidance fall like? What would
Speaker 1: that be a combination of and what would the other
Speaker 1: kind of avoidance be? Because avoidance can break down into
Speaker 1: two types of avoidance, right, m hm, that's right. So
Speaker 1: people who tend to endorse our avoidance items are saying
Speaker 1: things like I'm not comfortable with opening up to others
Speaker 1: and depending on them. So where dismissing avoidance versus fearful
Speaker 1: avoidance breaks down on that access is with respect and
Speaker 1: how anxious you are about attachment relationships. So a dismissing
Speaker 1: person is not worried that others are going to break
Speaker 1: up with them or won't be there for them when
Speaker 1: they're needed, because I don't need others in the first place.
Speaker 1: So it's a motivational strategy that sort of makes relationships
Speaker 1: secondary and the interest of preserving one's own independence or autonomy.
Speaker 1: So it's low anxiety, high avoidance, Whereas the combination of
Speaker 1: high avoidance with high anxiety is fearful attachment. So it's
Speaker 1: the idea that I'm trying to turn away from relationships,
Speaker 1: not get too close to others, not because I don't
Speaker 1: need others, but because I'm scared I'm going to be hurt. Ultimately,
Speaker 1: I am vulnerable, I feel insecure. I'm not sure if
Speaker 1: others will really be there for me when I need them.
Speaker 1: So as a defensive maneuver, I push close relationships away.
Speaker 1: I don't allow myself to get to it attached to
Speaker 1: others if I can avoid it. So that's the fearful stereotype.
Speaker 1: If you will are the prototype and that two dimensional system,
Speaker 1: it's high attachment anxiety combined with low attachment avoidance. I'm sorry, Well,
Speaker 1: high avoidance combined with high attachment anxiety, gotcha. So going
Speaker 1: back to the dismissing aspect, I find that one, that
Speaker 1: particular one fascinating because there's a stigma against being single.
Speaker 1: I feel like in our society, like it's too easy
Speaker 1: to like pathologize that. We have a label we call
Speaker 1: it insecure attachment. But I mean, could it be there
Speaker 1: people who are just very secure in themselves and very
Speaker 1: independent people and they just don't need that area of
Speaker 1: their life and it's not do you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: It's almost like it's not they're anxious. They're like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know what I could do without it? Like you know,
Speaker 1: there are people who go in clergy. I don't know.
Speaker 1: There are people who make various life choices where they
Speaker 1: decide that they don't need to be attached to anyone, right. Right.
Speaker 1: So the trick here is, how do we just ditinguished
Speaker 1: between let's say, dismissing avoidance and secure attachment, given that
Speaker 1: both of them involves some degree of independence and autonomy, right,
Speaker 1: And I think the key difference between this form of
Speaker 1: autonomy and let's call it secure independence is that secure
Speaker 1: people not only feel competent and autonomous, but they know
Speaker 1: others have their back should they stumble one fall. Sometimes
Speaker 1: we can't get through life challenges alone, so having that
Speaker 1: backup system can be an enormous source of strength, right,
Speaker 1: Whereas the dismissing strategy is essentially an attempt to remove
Speaker 1: that social backup system. So I am going at it alone,
Speaker 1: and I don't need others, and I don't need to
Speaker 1: worry about others being there for me assistingly along the way,
Speaker 1: what have you. So both of those are characterized by autonomy,
Speaker 1: and both of them can lead to competence. You can
Speaker 1: be very successful in your life. So you know, I
Speaker 1: guess it's a choice whether you want to have that
Speaker 1: safety net, that secure base, or that safe haven behind
Speaker 1: you or not. I don't think it's necessarily that you're
Speaker 1: pathological if you elect to live the dismissing lifestyle, right.
Speaker 1: And it's clearly the case that some clinical psychologists will
Speaker 1: try to pathologize you if you make those choices right, right,
Speaker 1: because they're abnormal. Right. But for the most part, when
Speaker 1: we study things like psychological distress or psychopathology, whennot most
Speaker 1: of that variation is predicted by the anxiety dimension rather
Speaker 1: than the avoidance dimension. So essentially secure and dismissing people
Speaker 1: tend to look okay with respect to many things that
Speaker 1: we measure. It is typically the high anxiety that is
Speaker 1: the fearful and preoccupy people who don't. So it's not
Speaker 1: necessarily the case that being dismissing is some sort of
Speaker 1: death sentence or with respect to your emotional well being.
Speaker 1: Now that's still a controversial claim. There are people out
Speaker 1: there who would argue otherwise. I'm looking at this paper
Speaker 1: right now by Sciota, Keltner and on that looked at
Speaker 1: correlations between various positive emotions and these attachment styles, and
Speaker 1: I'm just looking at this table of correlations right now,
Speaker 1: and I just find this fascinating. The dismissing. You don't
Speaker 1: see this if you don't parse it out into the four.
Speaker 1: If you just do the two anxiety and avoidance, you
Speaker 1: find that avoidance is negatively correlated with a lot of
Speaker 1: positive motions, but there are no positive correlations. But if
Speaker 1: you look at you break it up into the four
Speaker 1: and you look at dismissing, you actually find dismissing as
Speaker 1: positively correlated with contentment in life as well as pride
Speaker 1: as well as amusement. I think I thought that was
Speaker 1: cute amusing. You must this whole process of easy. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Well they're like they're like, oh, look at all these
Speaker 1: like attached people. Like I'm much more amused, like just
Speaker 1: living my own life. And it is negative correlated love
Speaker 1: and compassion, but it is positively correlated with contentment, pride,
Speaker 1: and amusement. And you don't see that when you fold
Speaker 1: them into just the two dimensions anxiety and avoidance. So again,
Speaker 1: I am just totally fascinated by there's something special about
Speaker 1: this dismissing aspect, you know what I mean, It's fascinating.
Speaker 1: I've been kind of preoccupied to use the attachment language
Speaker 1: with dismissing attachments since I was in grad school. And
Speaker 1: one of the things we learned in some of our
Speaker 1: early studies is, are you familiar with Dan Wagner's white
Speaker 1: bear phenomenon? The idea absolutely? Okay. So the idea is
Speaker 1: that if you ask people to not think of a
Speaker 1: white bear, they have a much more challenging time doing
Speaker 1: so than if you hadn't asked them to suppress the
Speaker 1: idea in the first place, and that at least in
Speaker 1: the attachment literature, the idea of trying to keep something
Speaker 1: out of your mind, partly because of the psychodynamic origins
Speaker 1: of the theory, is considered a defensive maneuver. So if
Speaker 1: I don't want to think about how that conversation with
Speaker 1: my partner made me feel, the idea is I try
Speaker 1: to put it out of my mind. And if you
Speaker 1: take the Wagner ideas seriously, what they suggest is that
Speaker 1: people should have a very different cult time doing this.
Speaker 1: The idea of trying to put that conversation out of
Speaker 1: your mind should make it more salely, atten should make
Speaker 1: you more upset. And what we found in some of
Speaker 1: these early studies is that people who are relatively dismissing
Speaker 1: didn't experience this kind of rebound. So we would ask
Speaker 1: them to think of a time when they felt upset
Speaker 1: with their partners. Essentially, imagine that your partners at leaving
Speaker 1: you for someone else, and then spend the next bive
Speaker 1: minutes not thinking about it at all. Not only were
Speaker 1: they able to do so, they actually showed diminished skin
Speaker 1: concntents levels relative to control conditions when we measured the electrophysiology.
Speaker 1: So there's something interesting about dismissing attachment where they might
Speaker 1: actually be capable of protecting themselves against some of the
Speaker 1: slings and errors about age's fortune, if we will. But
Speaker 1: at the same time, there's some other studies that suggests
Speaker 1: that this can only go so deep. So Mario makulencerf
Speaker 1: As colleagues in Israel were able to reproduce some of
Speaker 1: these findings, but they showed that if you depleted people's
Speaker 1: cognitive resources, so these cognitive low tasks where you're counting
Speaker 1: numbers backwards by threes and things like that, if you
Speaker 1: undermined a dismissing person's ability to control their emotions or
Speaker 1: their cognitive state, they were less capable of controlling this
Speaker 1: attachment response. So they looked just like everybody else when
Speaker 1: they didn't have the cognitive resources available to them. But
Speaker 1: when they did have the cognitive resources available, they were
Speaker 1: able to sort of behave in a relatively resilient way.
Speaker 1: So it's an interesting psychological pattern, I think, because it
Speaker 1: involves elements of security, involves elements of autonomy, but it
Speaker 1: doesn't involve that sense of connectedness that we typically focus
Speaker 1: on and attachment theory absolutely, and you see this clearly.
Speaker 1: You see if you just compare to secure correlations with
Speaker 1: the dismissing correlations. You see, It's like secure is dismissing
Speaker 1: plus you know, plus what is it at? What else
Speaker 1: does it buy you? Love and compassion? Because so you
Speaker 1: find it, the correlation is stronger. So if I had
Speaker 1: to choose, I'm saying I would choose secure. I'm not
Speaker 1: saying I would choose dismissing over secure. That's not my
Speaker 1: argument because with secure you get joy whereas you don't
Speaker 1: get joy. With dismissing. You get a higher correlation with
Speaker 1: contentment than dismissing. Even though dismissing was correlated with contentment.
Speaker 1: You get a higher correlation with pride. But in addition
Speaker 1: to what you didn't get at all with dismissing, you get,
Speaker 1: or at least what was negative with dismissing is a
Speaker 1: lot of love point four e correlation and point two
Speaker 1: two correlation with compassion. So yeah, I just think that
Speaker 1: argues in favor of this maybe even this just this
Speaker 1: two this two. Now I'm back to the two, the
Speaker 1: two model, because you can say, like, you know, secure
Speaker 1: is just a combination of the two, Like if you're
Speaker 1: very very high in both sorry low on both low
Speaker 1: and anxiety and low and avoidance, then you just are secure. Right. Yeah.
Speaker 1: By the way, I like the way you describe this.
Speaker 1: I just have this image of we're all kind of
Speaker 1: pre birth and we're sitting in this big control room
Speaker 1: and there's we have this little iPad in front of us, right,
Speaker 1: and we have these options. Do you want your life
Speaker 1: to be filled with joy, with love, with contentment, with compassion?
Speaker 1: You get to check off which boxes And I'm imagining
Speaker 1: you young Scott going through this, going I'll take some joy,
Speaker 1: I'll take some compassion. Yeah. And then but then you
Speaker 1: can measure pre needle attachment styles, because the ones who
Speaker 1: are going to be avoidant dismissive are the ones who
Speaker 1: be like, yeah, I'm okay with just contentment. Yeah, get
Speaker 1: me a contentment I can live without. Might be individual differences,
Speaker 1: I'm saying. It might be individual difference in that choice. Right.
Speaker 1: It gets really recursive, doesn't it. Yes, all the way
Speaker 1: down with the turtles anyway. Whoo, okay, so that's great,
Speaker 1: let's move on. Are there things that have been shown
Speaker 1: to change people's attachment style or change infants and the
Speaker 1: effects it has? Wow, Scott, So that's something I don't
Speaker 1: know A whole lot about. Okay, sure, because I don't
Speaker 1: have a clinical bone in my body, I'm too dismissing
Speaker 1: why I can move on to another topic. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: sounds good. So it looks like there's a corresponse between
Speaker 1: parental and infant attachment patterns right now, the question is
Speaker 1: we don't really we haven't used the word the dirty
Speaker 1: word genes yet in this discussion. It does seem like
Speaker 1: Bulby's smart different kind of genes. I'm talking about Bolby,
Speaker 1: you know, talked about he had this theory that it
Speaker 1: was really independent of pre existing personality traits. This really
Speaker 1: had to do with sensitivity of parental and the research
Speaker 1: has kind of bear that out borne that out that
Speaker 1: attachment style seems to be go above beyond just pre
Speaker 1: existing personality patterns. But could it be that there's such
Speaker 1: a strong correspondence between children's genes and adult genes that
Speaker 1: you're seeing like parental attachment stuff ailes kind of developing
Speaker 1: the same thing in their children because of what they're modeling.
Speaker 1: Does that make sense? Does that even make sense? Can
Speaker 1: you state in a slightly different way, perhaps I just
Speaker 1: want to make sure I win well. Children are so
Speaker 1: astute in learning about how the world should be from
Speaker 1: their parents. You know, if their parents through genetics, you know,
Speaker 1: predisposition tend to be a certain attachment style. We know
Speaker 1: there's a there's gene concordance between parents. How much of
Speaker 1: that correlation as a result of similar genes between adult
Speaker 1: and children as opposed to environmental differences? So this is
Speaker 1: a bit of a Pandora's box and attachment theory. Heck, yeah,
Speaker 1: heck yeah, I know. So we can't have a simple
Speaker 1: conversation about this. Are you prepared to have a really complicated,
Speaker 1: noisy conversation? Yeah, oh of course. Okay, So I think
Speaker 1: a fair reading of Goolby, who was writing about these
Speaker 1: issues way before behavior genetics took off, he believed that
Speaker 1: whatever is taking place in those parent child interactions to
Speaker 1: lead some children to, let's say, question the availability and
Speaker 1: responsiveness of their parents, reflected real transactions between parents and
Speaker 1: their children. That is, it reflected real developmental effects, if
Speaker 1: you will. And part of the reason he made that
Speaker 1: argument was he was kind of departing from his object
Speaker 1: relation colleagues who believe that most of psychopathology and childhood
Speaker 1: was due to the fantasy life children rather than real events.
Speaker 1: So He would get frustrated when his advisors said, why
Speaker 1: are you asking about the kid's mom who's dad when
Speaker 1: you should be asking him about what he fantasizes about
Speaker 1: what he's thinking about families and stuff. So his attempt
Speaker 1: us he was trying to understand how it is that
Speaker 1: real experiences shape the way people children think and behave
Speaker 1: in the world. But he believed that all those dynamics,
Speaker 1: those interpersonal relations and transaction were layered on top of
Speaker 1: pre existing temperamental dispositions. So children do differ from one
Speaker 1: another at day zero. You know, some are more fussy
Speaker 1: than others, some are more fearful than others. Right, And
Speaker 1: when we talked about the parental sensitivity earlier, part of
Speaker 1: what I was trying to do is explain that what
Speaker 1: a sensitive parent is doing is being responsive to the
Speaker 1: child's needs in part on the basis of that child's
Speaker 1: temperament dispositions, whatever's going on in the family and the
Speaker 1: life context. That's not the same recipe that's necessarily followed
Speaker 1: for every child. So the way Bowlby thought about this,
Speaker 1: and I would say this fairly similar to the way
Speaker 1: I think about it too, is that you do have
Speaker 1: this preexisting let's call it dispositional variation that makes some
Speaker 1: children different from others, and that may create constraints on
Speaker 1: how it is that as parent child interactions play out.
Speaker 1: But ultimately, whether the child comes to view the parent
Speaker 1: is available and responsive is a function of the history
Speaker 1: of those interactions, which in turn could be a function
Speaker 1: to some extent, of genetic differences between parents or between
Speaker 1: children that are shared between parents and children themselves. So
Speaker 1: this is getting a little lack of doodle, So let
Speaker 1: me just wet just simplify it. There's two distinct ways
Speaker 1: to think about this problem. This is the reason why
Speaker 1: there's debates. If there are genes that are shared between
Speaker 1: parents and children that give rise to let's say, secure attachment,
Speaker 1: then it could very well be the case that secure
Speaker 1: parents beget secure kids not because of the way they
Speaker 1: interact with each other, but simply because they have a
Speaker 1: common genetic disposition. The alternative approach would not say that
Speaker 1: that common genetic disposition or that share genetic dispositions don't exist.
Speaker 1: But on top of that, and maybe because of those
Speaker 1: genetic dispositions, the way parents trut their children is encoded
Speaker 1: by those children and is responsible for the way in
Speaker 1: which children come to construe themselves in their social world,
Speaker 1: so that the correlation between parents and children is not
Speaker 1: only a function of shared genes, but those interactional experiences
Speaker 1: have taken place. So the difference between those two frameworks,
Speaker 1: if we will, is that one assumes that parent child
Speaker 1: interactions matter, or if we're talking about adults, that actual
Speaker 1: conversations we have with our romantic partners, actual conflicts and betrayals,
Speaker 1: those things matter in terms of how we think about
Speaker 1: and trust others, and the other model assumes that those
Speaker 1: things don't matter, that it really is, at the end
Speaker 1: of day, just parents at the same genes as their children,
Speaker 1: and that's how we explain those kinds of parenting effects,
Speaker 1: if you will. I don't think we're quite at the
Speaker 1: point yet where we can say definitively how we should
Speaker 1: be thinking about this based on empirical data, partly because
Speaker 1: there are a whole lot of behavior genetic studies out
Speaker 1: there on attachment. It's kind of a mixed bag. If
Speaker 1: you try to do the strange situation and a twin design,
Speaker 1: imagine putting one twin into the strange situation to be
Speaker 1: separated from mom. Well, the other twin who's waiting in
Speaker 1: the other waiting room is also separated from mom. See
Speaker 1: it's a pragmatically challenging thing to do because it's hard
Speaker 1: to separate twins in a way that conforms to the
Speaker 1: procedure entailed by the strange situation. Well, can we find
Speaker 1: you know, twins that are attached, you know, like they
Speaker 1: haven't been separated. Yeah, yeah, that's the word those. So
Speaker 1: I think you're right, Scott. The solution to this problem
Speaker 1: is to get a large level joint twin. Let's get
Speaker 1: a grant. Let's get a grant to that. I'll submit,
Speaker 1: but you get to do all the work. Well, but
Speaker 1: people have done it, so they've tried it, and what
Speaker 1: you find is that there's not much evidence of harotability
Speaker 1: and attachment patterns and children. Instead, what you get are
Speaker 1: huge environmental effects and some modest shared environmental effects, which
Speaker 1: in the behavior genetic literature is the way of talking
Speaker 1: about whatever's common between the twins that might be shaping
Speaker 1: the attachment patterns. There are four or five studies now
Speaker 1: that have done behavior genetic analysis on self report measures
Speaker 1: of attachment and adults, and those also are a little
Speaker 1: kind of they're kind of a mixed bag in terms
Speaker 1: of the findings, but I think the fairest way to
Speaker 1: summarize it is that there is some evidence of harotability
Speaker 1: for tax related anxiety, maybe close to forty percent, and
Speaker 1: kind of hit or miss for avoidance. So there probably
Speaker 1: are some genetic influences that help shape whether people become
Speaker 1: relatively anxious which respect to attachment issues. But it's probably
Speaker 1: the case, at least according to attachment theory, that whatever
Speaker 1: those differences are, they're correlated with environmental influences that matter.
Speaker 1: So separating those correlated influences is the really tricky empirical problem.
Speaker 1: It's tricky, and I guess the question about when you
Speaker 1: say they matter. They certainly matter in infancy we see
Speaker 1: it's correlated with emotional regulation issues and other problems. But
Speaker 1: the discussion I think it's really tricky is the question
Speaker 1: of continuity. You know, I've looked at these men analyzes
Speaker 1: looking at the relationship between childhood attachment and adult attachment,
Speaker 1: and they're quite small. So I have a lot of
Speaker 1: questions relating to that, the fact that the continuity is
Speaker 1: not as high as people might in the general population think.
Speaker 1: And one is how much. Does Bowlby's theory even rest
Speaker 1: on there being continuity. Yeah, I've always viewed that as
Speaker 1: being sort of the I don't let me see how
Speaker 1: to describe it. It's kind of like the wild card
Speaker 1: and attachment theory because we all make this assumption that
Speaker 1: there's some degree of continuity between childhood and adulthood with
Speaker 1: the respons like to insecurity your patterns of attachment. But
Speaker 1: the theory never specifies a just how much continuity should
Speaker 1: be observed. In other words, there's not a quantitative prediction here.
Speaker 1: And the second part is Bolby's theory involves a paradox,
Speaker 1: if you will, between what I like to call socialization
Speaker 1: effects and selection effects. So the idea of socialization is
Speaker 1: part of what motivates the developmental approach to attachment theory.
Speaker 1: The idea is that the way in which your primary
Speaker 1: care givers relate to you and treat you helps to
Speaker 1: shape who you become, whether you become relatively secure in
Speaker 1: your attachment style or relatively insecure. The selection idea comes
Speaker 1: out of sort of the individual differences or the personality
Speaker 1: way of thinking about things, and the idea is that
Speaker 1: people who are relatively insecure select themselves into situations that
Speaker 1: reinforce their insecurity. Or conversely, if you're reallatively secure person,
Speaker 1: you select yourself or shape your environments in ways that
Speaker 1: are consistent with the working models that you hold. There's
Speaker 1: this great study by Nancy Collins I think it was
Speaker 1: their dissertation and it was published in the late nineties
Speaker 1: showing that in the adult attachment realm, if you ask
Speaker 1: people to okay, imagine Scott that you're going to a
Speaker 1: cocktail party okay, and you have your significant other with
Speaker 1: you while you go to mix a new drink. You
Speaker 1: look across the room and you see that she's talking
Speaker 1: to this strikingly attractive man. Okay. She seems to be
Speaker 1: enjoying herself. Okay, she's experiencing joy and pleasure and these
Speaker 1: things we were talking about earlier, maybe amusement. Amusement. Now,
Speaker 1: how do you think about that? And how would you
Speaker 1: behave how would you attribute his actions and her behaviors?
Speaker 1: And you know, this is a standard situation. If you
Speaker 1: ask you to ask people to say, Okay, how do
Speaker 1: you think about this? Secure people tend to say, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm really glad that she's having a good time. This
Speaker 1: must be an old high school friend, I'm glad that
Speaker 1: they finally had a chance to reconnect. Maybe I'll go
Speaker 1: over there and introduce myself. Whereas people who are relatively insecure,
Speaker 1: it will be like, what what kind of culplaning situation
Speaker 1: is this? Right? This guy's trying to make his move.
Speaker 1: She's into it, right, she's already giving. So the idea
Speaker 1: is that the working models or attachment styles that people
Speaker 1: have can shape the way people construe the social world
Speaker 1: in which they have. It influences the attributions they make
Speaker 1: about the behavior of others and whether people are violating
Speaker 1: their trust or whether people are relatively safe and secure
Speaker 1: individuals to trust him. So you have what's called selection effects,
Speaker 1: where working models shape the social world, and you have
Speaker 1: these socialization effects, where the social world shapes the working
Speaker 1: models people have. So the consequence of these two things
Speaker 1: working in tandem is that it's unclear from a theoretical
Speaker 1: perspective whether there should be a lot of continuity from
Speaker 1: infancy to adulthood. The selection idea implies, yes, there should
Speaker 1: be continuity, right, because if I am relatively secure and
Speaker 1: I'm continuing to interact with others who reward that security
Speaker 1: or who reinforce the views that I have. There's little
Speaker 1: reason for me to change my mind about things. But
Speaker 1: the socialization idea suggests that we should be revising our
Speaker 1: working models in ways that reflect changes in our ongoing worlds.
Speaker 1: And we're not in the same social environment at age
Speaker 1: one that we're at age fifteen. For example, we have friends,
Speaker 1: we have romantic partners, we have parents who may be
Speaker 1: lost jobs or divorced. Lots of things change, and so
Speaker 1: the idea is that working models have to be sensitive
Speaker 1: to those kinds of things as well. So to the
Speaker 1: extent to which you accept that proposition of attachment theory,
Speaker 1: you might not expect much continuity at all, because for
Speaker 1: the theory to be correct, what you need is for
Speaker 1: the working models to reflect it zonegoing experiences. You don't
Speaker 1: need the assumption that there's ongoing experiences themselves. Else should
Speaker 1: be fully continuous across time. Now, having said that, let's
Speaker 1: say a test Rey testability point two ZHO between F
Speaker 1: and C and adulthood is quite in line, which is
Speaker 1: about everything else we study in psychology. So in other words,
Speaker 1: I think from an absolute point of view, you could say, well,
Speaker 1: that's kind of low because that correlation is closer to
Speaker 1: the zero than it is to one, So mathematically it
Speaker 1: seems small. Well, actually, point one point one two is
Speaker 1: what I'm seeing right now and probably the best meta
Speaker 1: analysis on this topic. Which one is the best? The
Speaker 1: completion recent completion of an age eighteen year AI assessment
Speaker 1: of the se c CYD that included over eight hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty participants are ecal point one two. Okay, so
Speaker 1: that's one study. It's not an analysis per se, but
Speaker 1: it's an important one because it's a relatively large sample
Speaker 1: of individuals. The reason meta analysis of these samples found
Speaker 1: are ecal point one four and that's a pink couirt food,
Speaker 1: yes incorporate. Okay, So it is relatively small, but it's
Speaker 1: in it's small in the same way that everything else
Speaker 1: in psychology is small. So if you look at meta
Speaker 1: analyzes of personality and temperament from let's say early childhood
Speaker 1: to adulthood, you also get test retest correlations that are
Speaker 1: between let's say zero at point two wish. If you
Speaker 1: look at cognitive ability, you find, yeah, the correlations are
Speaker 1: a little bit higher there, but kind of like what
Speaker 1: you see in some of these other areas. The overall
Speaker 1: stability tends to be elevated among adults relative to childhood.
Speaker 1: So I think it's a little tricky because what you
Speaker 1: see is a thread of continuity, and the way you
Speaker 1: interpret that, I think depends on what message you ultimately
Speaker 1: want to take away from attachment theory, Right, So one
Speaker 1: way of interpreting that is, huh, that's interesting if I
Speaker 1: want to understand part of why Scott is the way
Speaker 1: he is, the value in reaching back into his past
Speaker 1: and seeing what his early interactions were like, not just
Speaker 1: in childhood, but throughout adolescents and later adulthood as well,
Speaker 1: because attachment theory suggests that there is going to be
Speaker 1: some sort of thread that might allow us to provide
Speaker 1: some sort of better understanding or make some attributions about
Speaker 1: the meaning of why Scott thinks that what he does,
Speaker 1: or what he feels that what he does, or the
Speaker 1: choices he may make. Now, if you're a betting person,
Speaker 1: you're still going to take the bed based on the
Speaker 1: small odds, because correlation at point one, let's say, is
Speaker 1: still going to earn you money over the long run,
Speaker 1: compared to correlation at zero, which would lead you to
Speaker 1: break either. But if you wanted to use attachment theory
Speaker 1: to prophesize what people will be like on the basis
Speaker 1: of early experiences, You're going to have a lot of misses.
Speaker 1: And I would think that's an important thing to understand.
Speaker 1: If the correlation is between point two and point one,
Speaker 1: when everything is said and done, you're going to have
Speaker 1: a lot of peace people who had positive early experiences
Speaker 1: who are now relatively well adjusted from an attachment theory perspective,
Speaker 1: as well as people who were neglected or didn't feel
Speaker 1: like their parents really understood them, who now are not
Speaker 1: well adapted socially or interpersonally. You're going to have a
Speaker 1: lot of people also in those off diagonals, people who
Speaker 1: had let's say, less than optimal childhood experiences but don't
Speaker 1: seem any more software now, as well as people had
Speaker 1: great experiences but just can't seem to find their way
Speaker 1: of life, to find that need to find meaningful in
Speaker 1: their personal relationships. So those off diagonal cases will exist,
Speaker 1: and I think that's a natural consequence of imperfect continuity
Speaker 1: over time. That makes a lot of sense. I am
Speaker 1: thinking about this from the original spirit. The original Boldi
Speaker 1: spirit was very much grounded in evolutionary considerations and if
Speaker 1: you think about it from an evolutionary point of view,
Speaker 1: these are just we're talking about like activation of strategies
Speaker 1: based on environmental contingencies. So it's you know, the gene
Speaker 1: environment interaction is very very strong there, and if we
Speaker 1: throughout our lifespan are constantly recalibrating our gene, you know,
Speaker 1: we have this genomic plasticity based on environmental input. It
Speaker 1: seems just to me to make a lot more sense
Speaker 1: just to approach adult attachment kind of divorce from what
Speaker 1: you were as a kid, but look at your current relationship.
Speaker 1: You can imagine a case where someone had a very
Speaker 1: secure attachment in childhood and then maybe they get an
Speaker 1: abusive relationship and as a result of that, then they
Speaker 1: start to become they go more on the insecure, anxious,
Speaker 1: and even avoidant if they're really severely abused, that might
Speaker 1: be a coping mechanism from an evolutionary strategy perspective, Right,
Speaker 1: does that make sense? Yeah? Absolutely? And so here's I
Speaker 1: think a couple of ways to think about the problem.
Speaker 1: And let me just say I completely agree with everything
Speaker 1: you said here. I think if one's goal is to understand, now,
Speaker 1: why are some adults relatively secure and some are insecure.
Speaker 1: You want, from an attachment theoretical perspective, if you want
Speaker 1: to think about the history of their interpersonal relationships, where
Speaker 1: history begins, let's say, at birth, when you're filling out
Speaker 1: the iPad list of whether you want joy in your
Speaker 1: life or not, or pre birth, all the way to
Speaker 1: one sentence ago. Okay, So that's a big way of
Speaker 1: thinking about interpersonal history, and from that point of view,
Speaker 1: you would want to wait more heavily what has happened
Speaker 1: recently in that person's experience is relative to things that
Speaker 1: happened in the distant past. Okay, the entire history is relevant,
Speaker 1: but you know, this is the way most calibration and
Speaker 1: algorithms and machine learning processes work. It's sort of the
Speaker 1: recent inputs, the recent perturbations, that have the most effect
Speaker 1: on the system, rather than the starting values per se.
Speaker 1: And I think that's true in the context of attachment
Speaker 1: as well. Now, having said that's not always the case
Speaker 1: that we're trying to, either for scientific reasons or humanitarian reasons,
Speaker 1: understand why the person is the way they are right now.
Speaker 1: In terms of maximizing prediction, we're trying to do something
Speaker 1: that's more biographical we're trying to understand that person's history
Speaker 1: at large. So if I'm trying to understand why I'm
Speaker 1: relatively secure, I'm only going to get so far. Even
Speaker 1: if my prediction is correct. By saying whether I was
Speaker 1: in a good mood five minutes ago, right, that would
Speaker 1: be the most boring biography of Chris Frail or Scott
Speaker 1: Coleman that you could ever read. Right. So, part of
Speaker 1: what attachment theory entails is you can think of development
Speaker 1: as an architectural process where you lay a foundation and
Speaker 1: then you begin to build a scaffolding and you begin
Speaker 1: to build a framework. And the way development works is
Speaker 1: you start at that ground level and that kind of
Speaker 1: constrains what you can do from that point forward, but
Speaker 1: it doesn't determine how high the building will ultimately be.
Speaker 1: That's a function of what you continue to do as
Speaker 1: you climb up the scaffolding and continue to construct the structure.
Speaker 1: So those early experiences are relevant for understanding the big picture,
Speaker 1: but the early experiences are laying the foundation for what
Speaker 1: comes next. So those early experiences, as you said, may
Speaker 1: play a role in shaping how secure the young child is,
Speaker 1: and then that young child might bring those experiences to
Speaker 1: pure relationships, and that might bias the individual to have
Speaker 1: more positive and harmonious relationships with others than it would
Speaker 1: if the relatively insecure. But that doesn't mean that the
Speaker 1: kid can end up with a teacher who makes the
Speaker 1: kid feel like a complete loser, completely incompetent questions, certain choices,
Speaker 1: and aptitudes, and you know, these things can spiral out
Speaker 1: of control sometimes, and so you can't expect perfect continuity.
Speaker 1: If you want the big picture from the Goldian perspective,
Speaker 1: you want to be telling the story from the beginning
Speaker 1: under the assumption that things can evolve in ways that
Speaker 1: are not always easy to predict. We can't always tell
Speaker 1: what the future will be by knowing something about the past.
Speaker 1: We know something more than nothing, but we can't predict
Speaker 1: it perfectly. But if you want to tell that big
Speaker 1: story and tell it well that it's make it emotionally
Speaker 1: compelling and descriptively rich, you need the whole history of
Speaker 1: those interactions rather than what just happened the previous relationship
Speaker 1: to the person. Thank you. That really helped add a
Speaker 1: lot of nuance to this. I found this interesting study
Speaker 1: that found attachment security is not especially stable even if
Speaker 1: it's not especially stable across the first two decades of life.
Speaker 1: When discontinuity exists, it can be explained at least partly
Speaker 1: by attachment relevant changes in the caregiving environment. There's a
Speaker 1: study that found, for example, in the SECCYD study, participants
Speaker 1: who remain secure between early childhood and age eighteen, compared
Speaker 1: with those who change from secure to insecure, experience lower
Speaker 1: levels and a greater decline. And in maternal sensitivity, we're
Speaker 1: less likely to be living with their fathers, and their
Speaker 1: mothers reported to large or increase in negative life events
Speaker 1: in the intervening years. So I think that's consistent with
Speaker 1: the perspective I was just telling you about just how
Speaker 1: like throughout our life span, that doesn't just matter how
Speaker 1: sensitive our mothers were or fathers, but also how sensitive
Speaker 1: is our current partner, how sensitive have all of our
Speaker 1: partners been in our adult relationship life. And also I
Speaker 1: think another wrinkle to this from a genetic point of
Speaker 1: view is that it looks like heritability of all psychological
Speaker 1: traits tends to increase as we age. So I don't
Speaker 1: know how much some of these effects you find that
Speaker 1: genetic effects in adolescents than you do in infants, for instance,
Speaker 1: And I don't know how much that as a result
Speaker 1: of kind of a hardening of what was already there
Speaker 1: or crystallizing. So that just adds there's so many nuances
Speaker 1: to all this. I'm not saying I know the answers. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're trying to get a grant to do the behavior
Speaker 1: genetic research calling that topic. One of the issues we
Speaker 1: want to dress is something we haven't talked about yet
Speaker 1: that might be relevant or interesting. Is the distinction between
Speaker 1: being secure or insecure in general versus being secure or
Speaker 1: insecure in the context of a specific relationship. So some people,
Speaker 1: for example, are relatively secure in general. When we administer
Speaker 1: these self report inventories, for example, we typically just ask
Speaker 1: people to think about close relationships generally in their life,
Speaker 1: and some people will be secure, some people will be insecure.
Speaker 1: But even people who are secure might be insecure with
Speaker 1: specific individuals. So they might have, let's say, a very
Speaker 1: hostile relationship with their father, feel very distant from them
Speaker 1: and angry, but have a very healthy relationship with the
Speaker 1: romantic partner. Now there's a thread throughout this. To use
Speaker 1: the word thread again, So people who tend to be
Speaker 1: secure in one domain also tend to be secure in
Speaker 1: other domains as well, So there's some degree of general
Speaker 1: attachment that sort of colors every relationship that we're in.
Speaker 1: There's also uniqueness. So I think that's a really interesting
Speaker 1: question when you start thinking about behavior genetic perspective. Namely,
Speaker 1: if you have, let's say, relatively secure relationship with your spouse,
Speaker 1: but maybe a relatively insecure relationship with your parents, it
Speaker 1: seems that the only way to really explain that, and
Speaker 1: it's still fallible, is that has something to do with
Speaker 1: the history of relationship you've had with that spouse, something
Speaker 1: about it must be better than the relationship you have
Speaker 1: with your parents. But this strong genetic perspective would suggest
Speaker 1: that I don't think you could make sense of that
Speaker 1: distinction in the first place from a strong genetic perspective
Speaker 1: unless you are willing to make the assumption that there
Speaker 1: are specific genes for attachment with your parents, and specific
Speaker 1: genes for attachment and friendships, and specific genes with attachment
Speaker 1: to God, and specific genes for attachmental men. Are there
Speaker 1: differences in mothers and fathers and the impact of sensitivity.
Speaker 1: So what you find is if you do the strange
Speaker 1: situation for example, with mothers and fathers, you get a
Speaker 1: relatively weak association there. Children who are secure with mom
Speaker 1: also tend to be secure with dad. Okay, but in
Speaker 1: a correlation metric that's about a correlation of point one
Speaker 1: point two, so it's certainly not terministics. Well, I guess what.
Speaker 1: Let me just get right to the evolutionary question I'm
Speaker 1: asking you, are do you see stronger of differentiations in
Speaker 1: the strange situation with the mother than the father, because
Speaker 1: you could see that genes could be sculpted in ways
Speaker 1: for whatever kind of over evolutionary time, whatever gender caregiver
Speaker 1: was more there for you. And I don't know if
Speaker 1: I mean I'm just making this up, but maybe you
Speaker 1: know over everych time, where the males were out hunting,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know where the females staying home.
Speaker 1: More so, what could genes have been sculpted to be
Speaker 1: more reactive to a female voice for instance? You know,
Speaker 1: that's an interesting idea. And I don't know if what
Speaker 1: you proposed about the way individual differences break out in
Speaker 1: a strength situation works in the way you predicted it.
Speaker 1: In otherwords, I'm not disagree, you're disaffirming it. I have
Speaker 1: no idea. I'm ignorant on that point, but I think
Speaker 1: the general argument and attachment theory is that that would
Speaker 1: be unlikely. There was this interesting paper by Lisa Diamond
Speaker 1: and the two thousands where she was trying to she
Speaker 1: was trying to make the case that there's an important
Speaker 1: distinction to be made between sexual desire and attachment, which
Speaker 1: is an interesting idea in the attachment field because we
Speaker 1: tend to think of a romantic law as being an
Speaker 1: attachment process, and from that point of view, love this
Speaker 1: sort of a combination of sexual desire and attachment and
Speaker 1: caregiving as well. Sort of it's the apple phenomenon of
Speaker 1: the configuration of those three motivational systems. But it's interesting
Speaker 1: because most people have a sexual preference for same gendered
Speaker 1: or other gendered individuals. Having a preference is stronger in
Speaker 1: our society than being agnostic with respect to gender person
Speaker 1: you desire. So the argument Lisa Diamond makes is that
Speaker 1: that's not true with attachment, and because those two systems
Speaker 1: sometimes get conflated in our psychological experience, will become when
Speaker 1: we're becoming attached to some way, we become preoccupied with
Speaker 1: them or curious about their whereabouts, we wonder how they
Speaker 1: feel about us, And that sense of infatuation is very
Speaker 1: similar to what you experience with sexual desire as well.
Speaker 1: So sometimes people per argument is that it's not always
Speaker 1: easy to keep those things distinct, and parents might get
Speaker 1: upset with their children. WHOA, you know what's going on
Speaker 1: with you? You're spending all this time with us a person?
Speaker 1: Are you gay? Things like that, and children don't understand
Speaker 1: what the question is all about. Ultimately, but her basic
Speaker 1: argument is that whatever the motivational systems are that underlie
Speaker 1: sex may be gender oriented. In other words, there might
Speaker 1: be a propensity for some people to seek out the
Speaker 1: same sex individuals versus opsite sex individuals, but that is
Speaker 1: not true of the attachment system. It is specifically gender neutral,
Speaker 1: and in fact, one of the fun I don't know
Speaker 1: if fun is the right word for this, but one
Speaker 1: of the curious things about attachment is it partly because
Speaker 1: of its ethological heritage. Part of what inspirable was Conrad
Speaker 1: Lorenz's studies of them in printing and geese for example,
Speaker 1: are you familiar with these? Oh? Yes? So the idea
Speaker 1: is that the young geese are born, and the ideas
Speaker 1: that they're kind of programmed to in print or attach
Speaker 1: it on the first moving object they see. Now, under
Speaker 1: normal circumstances, that should be the mother, right, But you
Speaker 1: can create these interesting experimental situations where it's a football instead,
Speaker 1: or it's Conrad Lorenz himself and suddenly the geese are
Speaker 1: following Conrad Lren's around that he's their parent or their
Speaker 1: attachment figure. So the idea is that the attachment system
Speaker 1: isn't necessarily looking for a mother, It isn't necessarily looking
Speaker 1: for something with a feminine weighte soll no protect them.
Speaker 1: According to Bowlby, it's looking for somebody who's stronger or wiser.
Speaker 1: But I think you met that metaphorically. I don't think
Speaker 1: he considered the mind to be looking for wisdom at
Speaker 1: age one, yeah, or something like that. We still can't
Speaker 1: solve that problem at age forty five, so yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 1: So it's looking for something that's there essentially, and more
Speaker 1: often than not that is going to be a biological parent,
Speaker 1: and it shouldn't matter whether it's a male or female.
Speaker 1: So from that aversion of perspective that you articulated, I
Speaker 1: don't know if the system's smart enough. If you will
Speaker 1: to make that distinction. It might not be I think
Speaker 1: it's open to more testing. But no, this idea though
Speaker 1: that you are I think this is you're really onto
Speaker 1: something here, you know, looking at security in different domeans.
Speaker 1: But we're not talking about demeans outside. We're not talking
Speaker 1: about other demeans, Like what about your work or your
Speaker 1: like take a broader perspective on security. How do these
Speaker 1: you know, like can you feel unlovable but still have
Speaker 1: a high self esteem for your math ability? For instance?
Speaker 1: You know, like, how can we take your scale? What
Speaker 1: if we started adding in other life domeans? Then how
Speaker 1: would it all correlate with each other? So my guess,
Speaker 1: based on some of the things we've done is that
Speaker 1: you would find some modest positive co variation here. That is,
Speaker 1: people who are relatively secure in their close relationships are
Speaker 1: also going to be relatively secure in the ways in
Speaker 1: which they think about other domains in their life, including
Speaker 1: let's say they're satisfaction with their jobs, the extent to
Speaker 1: which they view themselves as competent and talented and leisure
Speaker 1: domains that they enjoy and appreciate, or those who are
Speaker 1: insecure may question their ability to accomplish some tasks that
Speaker 1: are completely non relational, not interpersonal at all. Now, most
Speaker 1: of the research on attachment hasn't looked necessarily whether people
Speaker 1: who are secure in general, let's say, are also secure
Speaker 1: with respect to their jobs. But what you do find
Speaker 1: is that how securely attached you are is related to
Speaker 1: all kinds of crazy things in life. So it is
Speaker 1: related to things like job satisfaction, It is related to
Speaker 1: how well you cooperate with others, it's related to the
Speaker 1: alliance you built with your therapist. So the bottom li
Speaker 1: ise that it sort of bleeds over into all kinds
Speaker 1: that can make absolutely I mean, you could see how
Speaker 1: someone who can go through the same exact insecure attachment
Speaker 1: processeds to their work, like if their writing isn't going
Speaker 1: well initially saying oh I'm a failure or I'm on
Speaker 1: the equivalent of unlovable and work is I have no talent. Yeah,
Speaker 1: thanks for describing my morning, but I didn't mean to
Speaker 1: bring that up, do you know what I mean? Like,
Speaker 1: the same principles can apply to non physical human entities. Well,
Speaker 1: that turns out to be one of my favorite miniature topics,
Speaker 1: if you will. And attachment theory, which is attachment to
Speaker 1: non human entities. So that Lee Kirkpatrick is an evolutionary
Speaker 1: psychologist who studied attachment a lot earlier in his career,
Speaker 1: and one of the art ements he made in early
Speaker 1: on was that people, especially in Christian religions, have conceptualized
Speaker 1: God as an attachment figure, and that you can be
Speaker 1: securely attached to God, for example, or insecurely attached to God.
Speaker 1: And you have this famous ram song about losing your religion,
Speaker 1: which is kind of this realization that the relationship doesn't
Speaker 1: mean what you thought it meant, in this sense of
Speaker 1: feeling betrayed by an attachment object and trying to find
Speaker 1: your way without that secure base. So I think the
Speaker 1: basic principles, as you said, cannot be applied to many
Speaker 1: different areas. And you know, on the one hand, that's
Speaker 1: great because I could spend all day thing about how
Speaker 1: attachment is mental guise of things such as how tidy
Speaker 1: my closet is or is not. But on the other hand,
Speaker 1: it also raises the specter of if it explains too much,
Speaker 1: does it really explain anything. So this is a common
Speaker 1: problem we have to deal with in psychology sometimes when
Speaker 1: we strive to come up with relatively inclusive models. It's
Speaker 1: unclear whether we've reinvented the wheel or whether we're just
Speaker 1: sort of over exerting ourselves in some ways. First of all,
Speaker 1: great point, but I just am thinking, I want to
Speaker 1: do a study to see the correlation between how your
Speaker 1: relationship you have with your mother and how securely attached
Speaker 1: you are to God. So Lee kor Patrick has done
Speaker 1: those stuffies, Oh what's the correlation the magnitude of correlationships
Speaker 1: because this is back when everybody was doing types of attachment.
Speaker 1: But generally people who are secure with their parents are
Speaker 1: sort of retrospectively reflecting on it now also tend to
Speaker 1: be secure in the relationship with God. So he was
Speaker 1: the reason he cared about this idea in part was
Speaker 1: there were different ways of thinking about how the developmental
Speaker 1: processes could work. So on the one hand, it could
Speaker 1: be the case that people turn to God when they
Speaker 1: have a deficit in their human interpersonal relationships. So it
Speaker 1: could be the case that if you're in if you're
Speaker 1: insecure in your relationship with your parents, maybe try to
Speaker 1: have those needs met and reship with God, so you
Speaker 1: might end up with insecure parental relationships. Predicting some like
Speaker 1: secure relationships with God. But it's really more of an
Speaker 1: assimilation phenomenon. In other words, people who are I guess
Speaker 1: you could say, empowered by the secure relationships with they
Speaker 1: have with their parents also imview that security and the
Speaker 1: relationship with the God or vice versa. If you're insecure
Speaker 1: in the relationship with your parents, that God the Father
Speaker 1: is necessarily a reliable one. That is so fascinating. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: I had to run to a date right now. It's
Speaker 1: going to be a secure date, I hope. So I
Speaker 1: want to thank you from the bottom of my heart
Speaker 1: for being so generous with your time and talking through
Speaker 1: all these issues with me. It was a true honor
Speaker 1: to be able to talk to you today. This was
Speaker 1: super fun. Thank you for inviting me to do this.
Speaker 1: Get thank you. Thank you so much for listening to
Speaker 1: The Psychology Podcast with doctor Scott Barry Call. I hope
Speaker 1: you found this episode just as thought provoking as I did.
Speaker 1: If something you heard today stimulated you in some way,
Speaker 1: I encourage you to join in the discussion at the
Speaker 1: Psychology podcast dot com. That's the Psychology Podcast dot com.