An Overview
EVOLUTION AND THE BONDING PROCESS
Life is about DNA and cell replication, and the evolution of increasingly complex life forms which are the result of billions of mutations over aeons of time. The evolution and success of any particular specie depends on the procreation and safe rearing of sufficient offspring to continue the line. With increase in size and complexity, more investment of nourishment and time are needed for lengthier gestation of the offspring, and for parenting after birth.
The most significant evolutionary change in humans was the increase in brain size, which meant that fully grown heads were too large for full-term birthing and infants were not mature enough at birth to survive without a prolonged period of parenting. This meant that the main necessity for evolutionary continuity was for all the members of the ’tribe’ to cooperate in sharing the tasks and responsibilities for ensuring the nurturance and safety of all the offspring – and of each other. It was to this end that various neural structures and chemical processes were laid down which ensured sociability and allowed for enhanced communication, through language, abstract thought and imagination, and which have come to be termed Bonding and Culture.
(In evolutionary terms, the neurolgical forerunners to Bonding, that keep immature offspring close to the mother for protection for increasingly prolonged periods of time, are ‘imprinting’ (e.g.ducks), and ‘attachment’ (e.g.apes))
Outline of The Bonding Process
The Bonding Process arises from extremely complex neuro-chemical systems within the more primitive parts of the brain. It is incorporated into the autonomic nervous system and endocrine system, which monitors and controls the physiological processes of the body, and it is an extension of it, in that it monitors and motivates psycho-social behaviour. The physiological process is fully functional at birth, but the psycho-social process has to be initiated by maternal behaviour as soon as the baby is born.
At birth, the infant ‘learns’ (by the facilitating of laid down neural pathways), that attention from the mother feels good. This feel-good factor, which is elicited by approving and nurturing behaviour from the mother, is registered in the monitoring system and becomes ‘needs’ for approval of, and acceptance by everyone else (hereafter termed ‘Social Needs) that afford the greatest pleasure when they are met, and generate anxiety if they are not met. Once imprinted these needs are the main motivators of human behaviour throughout life. As the child grows within the community, the process incorporates all other members of his community, and he learns what he has to do in order to ‘be sociable’ and gain pleasurable feelings in company, and avoid the distress of disapproval and rejection. This ensures that for the rest of each individuals life, they are fundamentally motivated to be altruistic and cooperative, in order to gain the greatest pleasures in life, and to avoid the worst pains.
Therefore, in evolutionary terms, altruism and cooperation as a socialising mechanism, takes over from ‘survival of the fittest’ individuals, to become ’the survival of the fittest tribes or communities’ for successful continuity of the species.
There is a complex genetic reflex strategy that is designed to maintain the integrity and function of the community. One aspect of it enables all the individuals to recognise other members, who through illness, deformity or failure to cooperate, do not contribute to the communities’ total well-being. As in the rest of nature, they will be removed. In modern times this is not acceptable, but the reflex is still present as stigma, and although killing is not allowed, negative feelings are still engendered and people have to make conscious efforts to overcome them and behave with acceptance. It is one of the marks of civilisation that this can happen.
On the other hand, the reflex aspect within each individual is constantly monitoring the extent to which their personal Social Needs are being met. If they are not, it is because they are not contributing or cooperating sufficiently, and anxiety is generated. This leads to a pattern of behaviour that is expressed in a manner that is called ‘attention seeking’ or ‘difficult’. When this is noticed by the other members, it triggers their rejecting refelex response to the threats to group cohesion.
This would have been an essential strategy for the cohesion and ultimate safety of the hunter-gather tribes, but it causes much distress and difficulty in modern society. (See the paper on Bonding and psycho-pathology)
Communication and Cultural activities.
The necessity for the community to co-operate in ensuring the safety and nourishment of mothers and their babies, and for the passing on of the gene pool to future generations, requires many complex neuro-chemical processes, in the cortex of the brain, that will enable communication and enhance social cohesion.
Language and speech are fundamental to communal existence, and alongside these, the capacity for conceptual thinking and imagination allow for singing, dancing, story-telling, painting, sculpting and playing. These serve two main purposes, in that language and narrative conserve the accumulated wisdom that ensures survival, and the sharing of the cultural activities enhance the pleasure and the essential cohesion of the members of the tribe. Through daily living and over time, experience leads these two threads intermingle to generate safe and rewarding patterns of behaviour in the relationships with each other, and in the relationship with the world around.
It is possible that in good times the reassurance and pleasure of mutual support, and in the bad times the relief of overcoming difficulties, can lead to an emotional experience for all the members, that is greater than that felt as an individual. This could be the root of what has come to be termed spirituality. Alongside this there are the practical rewards of the behaviours that result from the imprinted altruism and cooperation for ensuring survival. These are now the behaviours that are termed ‘moral’.
In the beginning, some ??two million years ago, human life evolved on this planet and was lived in self-sufficient nomadic tribes. As numbers increased the tribes proliferated and spread across the world, but the numbers in any one tribe remained constant. By our standards life was hard, but with the Bonding Process as the engine of their egalitarian communities, they thrived through many millenia, living lives of contentment, humour and joy. Some ??ten thousand years ago, possibly because the planet became more fertile, the nomadic tribes were able to find sufficient sustenance in given areas, and were able to develop farming methods and establish settled communities.
With easier living there was a large increase the numbers of people, which generated spare time. This allowed for thinking and experimentation and and the development of tools and artifacts, with the result that they produced an excess of food and, eventually, surplus goods. It is generally recognised, that from that time onwards, many socially destructive behaviours emerged, such as greed, envy and pride, that continue to defy human remedy.
“My guess, is that the reason for this, is because the Bonding Process is only fully effective in ‘small group’ situations, where every member knows and is known by all the others. The genetic drive to conform and cooperate eliminates any deviancy or selfishness in such a situation, but with easier living and the distractions provided by increased intelligence, the powerful ‘boundries’ of the ‘small group’ can soon be circumvented without the punishment of rejection.
It is tempting to suggest that with the increase in numbers, spare time and goods and escaping the friendly but coercive ‘eyes’ of the community, a vacuum was generated that came to be filled by experimental ways of behaving which became ‘self’ rewarding’. These have since been labelled as the ‘sins’ of pride, greed, envy etc. and gaining wealth, status and fame have, in large part, become acceptable motivators of our social behavior. However, these ‘rewards’ do not meet the Bonding Social Needs, which are still being monitored and generate anxiety if not met. It is, for example, recognised that being wealthy in the absence of having a loving family, belonging to rewarding social groups and sharing the money, does not bring contentment. What does happen is that ego-centric ‘wants’ do afford some pleasure, but they do not meet Social Needs, and if these are not fully met through the person’s social life, then ‘wants’ become the motivators and more and more are needed and become addictive.
It is also tempting to suggest that it is these essentially selfish behaviours that are leading to the pollution, waste and depletion of resources (minerals and oil, food and water), climate warming, over-population and conflict that threaten to make the planet unfit for human habitation.“
If this should be the case, then research would need to focus on changing human behaviour in the direction of finding contentment in sufficiency and eschewing growth, profit and competition, and encouraging population control, for starters.
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(last edited November 2011)