The Emotion Machine

We like to think that a child’s play is unconstrained—but when children appear to feel joyous and free, this may merely hide from their minds their purposefulness; you can see this more clearly when you attempt to drag them away from their chosen tasks. For they are exploring their worlds to see what’s there, making explanations of what those things are, and imagining what else could be; exploring, explaining and learning are among a child’s most purposeful urges and goals. The playfulness of childhood is the most demanding teacher we have. Never again in those children’s lives will anything drive them to work so hard.

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§2-7. Attachments of Infants and Animals

“We want to make a machine that will be proud of us.”

—Danny Hillis, 1983

The young child Carol loves to explore, but also likes to stay near to her mother—so whenever the distance between them grows, she quickly moves herself closer. But should she discover that she is alone, she’ll shortly cry out and look for her mum. That same behavior will also appear even when her mother is near, if there’s any cause for fear or alarm—such as the approach of a stranger.

Naturally, this dependency stems from our infantile helplessness: no human infant would long survive if it could escape from parental care. Of course, this doesn’t happen because young infants cannot move much by themselves—but this comes with the disadvantage that, in those first few months, our infants also can’t follow their mothers. Fortunately we usually come to no harm from this because we evolve a second bond that goes in the other direction: Carol’s mother is almost always aware (to different extents at various times) of what is happening to her daughter—and her full attention is quickly engaged at the slightest suspicion that something is wrong.

Clearly, each infant’s survival depends on bonding to persons concerned with their welfare. So in older times it was often assumed that children would attach themselves to the persons who gave them physical care, and this is why most psychologists called such a person a ‘Caregiver’—instead of using some word like ‘Imprimer’. But more systematic research on attachment suggested that this theory was wrong:

John Bowlby: “That an infant can become attached to others of the same age, or only a little older, makes it plain that attachment behavior can develop and be directed towards [persons who have] done nothing to meet the infant’s physiological needs.”[15]

Then what factors do determine the persons to whom our children will become attached? First, Bowlby recognized that physical nurture could play an important role, because it provides occasions for children to learn to like to be with particular other persons. But eventually he concluded that usually, these were more important factors:[16]

The speed with which the person responds, and

The intensity of that interaction.”

This will usually include the child’s parents—but could also include other children, which suggests that parents should take special care to examine their offspring’s companions and friends—and, especially, the ones that are most attentive to them. And when one is choosing a child’s school, one might examine not only the staff and curriculum, but also the goals that its pupils pursue.

What happens when a child is deprived of Imprimers? It appears that an Imprimer’s absence produces a special variety of fear, and a powerful impulse to find that Imprimer.

John Bowlby: “Whenever a young child … is separated from her mother unwillingly he shows distress; and should he also be placed in a strange environment and cared for by a succession of strange people such distress is likely to be intense. The way he behaves follows a typical sequence. At first he protests vigorously and tries by all the means available to him to recover his mother. Later he seems to despair of recovering her but nonetheless remains preoccupied with her and vigilant for her return. Later still he seems to lose his interest in his mother and to become emotionally detached from her.”

Bowlby goes on to describe what happens when the mother comes back:

“Nevertheless, provided the period of separation is not too prolonged, a child does not remain detached indefinitely. Sooner or later after being reunited with his mother his attachment to her emerges afresh. Thenceforward, for days or weeks, and sometimes for much longer, he insists on staying close to her. Furthermore, whenever he suspects he will lose her again he exhibits acute anxiety.”[17]

We see similar attachment behavior in our various primate relatives—such as chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans—as well as in our more distant cousins, the monkeys. We should also note Harry Harlow’s discovery that, given no other alternative, a monkey will become attached to an object that has no behavior at all, but does have some ‘comforting’ characteristics. This would seem to confirm Bowlby’s view that attachment does not stem from ‘physiological needs’—unless we amend this to include the infant’s need for what Harlow calls comfort contact.[18]

John Bowlby: “The very detailed observations made by Jane Goodall of chimpanzees in the Gombe Stream Reserve in central Africa show not only that anxious and distressed behavior on being separated, as reported of animals in captivity, occurs also in the wild but that distress at separation continues throughout chimpanzee childhood. … Not until young are four and a half years of age are any of them seen traveling not in the company of mother, and then only rarely.”

— [John Bowlby, p. 59 Separation.]

When the mother and child have more distance between them, they maintain their connection with a special ‘hoo’ whimper to which the other promptly responds—as Jane Goodall herself reports:

“When the infant ... begins to move from its mother, it invariably utters this sound if it gets into any difficulty and cannot quickly return to her. Until the infant’s locomotion patterns are fairly well developed the mother normally responds by going to fetch it at once. The same sound is used by the mother when she reaches to remove her infant from some potentially dangerous situation or even, on occasion, as she gestures it to cling on when she is ready to go. The ‘hoo’ whimper therefore serves as a fairly specific signal in re-establishing mother-infant contact.”[19]

What happens in other animals? Early in the 1930s Konrad Lorenz observed that a recently hatched chicken, duck, or goose will become “attached” to the first large moving object it sees, and will subsequently follow that object around. He called this “imprinting” because it occurs with such remarkable speed and permanence. Here are some of his observations.[20]

The chick quickly starts to follow the moving object.

Imprinting begins soon after hatching.