How Romantic Attachment Works

this is a film about the science of attachment more precisely a film about yees jackdaws a scientist called Konrad Lorenz and your love life Konrad Lorenz who was born in 1903 and died in 1989 was an Austrian ornithologist and zoologist who spent most of his adult life in marshes and wetlands studying the behavior of greylag geese and jackdaws what particularly interested him was how these birds seemed to develop an attachment to their mother from within a few minutes of their birth following dutifully behind her and obeying her guidance in matters of sheltering and feeding his observations led him to develop what is known as the principle of imprinting a theory about the way in which new defocus birds that is birds that leave their nests just after hatching grow to develop an instinctive and rapid bond with maternal figures but what Lorenz discovered in his research was that contrary to centuries of thinking birds like greylag geese and jackdaws do not necessarily develop an attachment to their real mother they develop an attachment to the first moving object that they lay eyes on within hours of hatching they aren't able to discriminate in any sophisticated way about who they form an attachment to it might be a kindly maternal bird but it could also be an indifferent farmer or a random piece of agricultural machinery rather cruelly but illuminating Leigh Lorenz showed that a young bird can depending on the experiment develop an extremely powerful attachment to a scientist in wellington boots a bicycle a tire a garden hose or a mannequin Lawrence's most famous book the companion in the environment of birds published in 1935 talked exclusively of winged creatures but it was seized upon by psychologists reflecting on human behavior and used to shed light on a particularly painful phenomenon of our love lives our tendency to seek out and trot obediently behind other humans who may not all things considered be in any substantial way fitting or appropriate for us just like young birds young humans develop powerful attachments to the adults who are closest to them in their early years yet also rather like birds they are unable to discriminate very well between caregivers they latch on to who is around not what their deeper nature would ideally call for they can at the most extreme develop attachments to people who don't deserve their love at all who are as it were as relevant to their needs as a bicycle is to a goose an infant might not actually become attached to a tire but they might in a comparable process grow powerfully impressed by someone who neglects them emotionally who belittles them who makes them feel ashamed and visits considerable cruelty upon them far worse this early imprinting then has the power to govern the sort of lovers who these people once they're grown find themselves growing attached to in turn with some of the same sort of almost laughable impression ability evinced by baby jackdaws trotting behind a scientist in a lab coat a human who's been imprinted with unhelpful ideas about who should give them care and nurture may spend decades devoting themselves to the most inappropriate and callous figures it seems via Lawrence's work that our biological makeup privileges attachment to anyone over attachment to someone able to fulfill our needs we are sometimes puzzled by how frequently we find ourselves in love with people whom we know at a rational level are not going to be too good for us but who mirror the disturbing patterns of our attachments from early childhood the process may seem deeply dispiriting but Lawrence's work opens up an avenue of compassion we may be a great deal more sophisticated than birds in our mental processes but when it comes to whom we are drawn to we're prey to some of the same mechanical illogicality as they it can take years and a lot of work to realize that we are imprinted to follow fools and ingrates when we trot without question behind a person who treats us coldly or plays with our mind we shouldn't merely hate ourselves we should reflect on how much this unfulfilling adult mirrors an early attachment figure who indirectly mocked who we were before we had a chance to understand ourselves and what we deserved it is no insult to recognize that we are sometimes in intimate areas of our lives as helpless before the workings of imprinting as a goose and yet as always it is by realizing our servitude that we have a chance to break free from it we are not compelled to follow incessantly behind someone unworthy of our love we are as young birds are not free to take off and seek out someone better able to deliver in an adult form the generous and life-enhancing love that we should have known from the first to learn more about love try a book on how to find love which explains why we have the types we do and how our early experiences shape how and whom we love

Channel: The School of Life

Views: 504,238

Rating: 4.9523301 out of 5

Keywords: the school of life, schooloflife, education, relationships, alain de botton, philosophy, talk, self, improvement, big questions, love, wellness, mindfullness, psychology, how, to, hack, romatic attachment, the science of love, how romantic attachment works, romantic attachment styles, romantic attachment theories, romantic attitude, YT-RELATIONSHIPS, Konrad Lorenz, ornithology

Id: b9UUnorP-8U

Length: 5min 59sec (359 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 01 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/thatrussianbird]

It is interesting and slightly pessimistic in Alain De Botton's style 😊 I prefer to believe in reprogramming the Attachement styles 😊