Welcome to part II of a three-part series on the subjects of moral (attachment) dumbfounding and moral modules. We left off part I with a reading of a moral narrative used by Dr. Haidt in his research. Please refer back to part I if you need to refresh your memory concerning this moral narrative. OK, what do you think? Haidt’s research found an interesting pattern. As the interviewer (one of Haidt’s graduate students) asked study participants about the moral narrative presented in part I, participants “seemed to be flailing around, throwing out reason after reason [why it was wrong for the brother and sister to have sex], and rarely changing their minds…” (quoting Haidt). In other words, as the interviewer gave a reasonable or rational explanation for each moral challenge (i.e., there is no chance of pregnancy, they are old enough to consent, etc.) offered up by the participant, rather than being reasonably or rationally convinced, many participants became more flustered and, well, dumbfounded. Here’s a couple of examples of the back and forth dialog that took place between participant and interviewer (again, from Haidt’s book in compressed form; I-interviewer, P-participant):
I – What’s wrong with incest, would you say?
P – If the girl did get pregnant, the kids become deformed.
I – But they used a condom and birth control pills. So, there’s no way they’re going to have a kid.
P – OK, um … well … let’s see, let me think about this. Um—how old were they?
I – They were college age, around 20 or so [meaning that they could legally give consent].
P – It’s not, um—I don’t think it’s accepted. That’s pretty much it.
The point that both psychology researchers Haidt and Pinker make in their respective work is that even after the interviewer has effectively removed all of the apparently irrational reasons for why an act should not occur (which the interviewer above is trying to do during the interview), the intuitive, innate biologically mediated moral modules are still activated. In other words, once conscious societal objections are removed, unconscious biological objections remain, which tends to argue against a postmodern or Blank Slate position (which, as I talk about in part I, denies innate, biologically-mediated behavioral systems). This agrees with cognitive scientist George Lakoff’s idea that we use body-based frames or models—not facts—to think with. Here are the core body-based (largely unconscious) intuition modules that Pinker points to along with their (largely conscious) cognitive extensions:
- spatial intuition or cognition ==> understanding of mathematical relationships through the use of graphs, also used to navigate the world using a network of mental maps
- engineering intuition or cognition ==> understanding anatomy and physiology (organs are understood as gadgets with functions)
- physics intuition or cognition ==> understanding of chemistry and biology (stuff, including living stuff, is made out of tiny, bouncy, sticky objects)
- theory of mind or psychology intuition or cognition ==> understanding that people are animated beings motivated by minds: nonphysical entities we cannot see or touch but that are as real to us as bodies and objects
- language intuition or cognition ==> understanding how to share ideas from our mental logic
- economics intuition or cognition ==> understanding how we exchange goods and favors
- number intuition or cognition ==> understanding about quantities and amounts
- probability intuition or cognition ==> understanding about the likelihood of uncertain events
- mental database intuition and cognition ==> used to represent or model ideas and to infer new ideas from old ones
- fear intuition or cognition ==> used to assess for danger or harm in the environment
- disgust intuition or cognition ==> used to assess for contamination or disease in the environment
Students of Bowlby’s theory of attachment will recognize that the majority of the above core body-based intuitions play a role in attachment functioning and relationships, such as spatial cognition, theory of mind, language (which is why the AAI can be used to assess for attachment patterns in adults), economics, probability, mental database or model, fear, and disgust. I’m getting ahead of myself but I would suggest that the AAI is designed to trigger and assess for interactions between the core intuitions of language and fear. As I will suggest below, it is quite possible that, depending on attachment functioning and relationships, people may move around not only within the various core intuitions but also within the various moral modules (a shifting process not directly assessed for but certainly observed during an AAI interview).
In Haidt’s moral narrative, I would suggest that it is the fear and disgust modules that have been largely triggered and remain active even after reasonable and rational explanations have been given. Allow me to quote Pinker at length as he gives us the “bottom line” concerning the above biologically mediated intuitions:
These ways of knowing [which agrees with educator Howard Gardner’s idea of multiple intelligences] and core intuitions are suitable for the lifestyle of small groups of illiterate, stateless people who live off the land, survive by their wits, and depend on what they can carry. Our ancestors left this lifestyle for a settled existence only a few millennia ago, too recently for evolution to have done much, if anything, to our brains. Conspicuous by their absence are faculties suited to the stunning new understanding of the world wrought by science and technology. For many domains of knowledge, the mind could not have evolved dedicated machinery, the brain and genome show no hints of specialization, and people show no spontaneous intuitive understanding either in the crib or afterward. They include modern physics, cosmology, genetics, evolution, neuroscience, embryology, economics, and mathematics.
It’s not just that we have to go to school or read books to learn these subjects. It’s that we have no mental tools to grasp them intuitively [my emphasis]. We depend on analogies that press an old mental faculty into service, or on jerry-built mental contraptions that wire bits and pieces of other faculties. Understanding in these domains is likely to be uneven, shallow, and contaminated by primitive intuitions.
The above agrees with the position that neurobiologist Antonio Damasio presents in his 2010 book Self Comes to Mind. Damasio argues that conscious brain has to enlist the help of unconscious brain with its store of and access to core intuitions. In other words, conscious brain must work with unconscious brain so that the unconscious core intuitions can be of service to the conscious brain, and vice versa (often framed as a rider of consciousness learning to ride the elephant of unconscious processes—see the book Switch by Chip and Dan Heath for an example). As Pinker puts it in The Blank Slate,
children may be innately motivated to make friends, acquire status, hone motor skills, and explore the physical world, but they are not necessarily motivated to adapt their cognitive faculties to unnatural tasks like formal mathematics. A family, peer group, and culture that ascribe high status to school achievement may be needed to give a child the motive to persevere toward effortful feats of learning [e.g., bridging the unconscious to the conscious a la Damasio] whose rewards are apparent only over the long term.
What’s the old saying: “How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice.” I hate to say it but social media is great at facilitating some of the core intuitions like making friends and acquiring status. It does, however, fall short with respect to core intuitions such as honing motor skills (although Internet gamers may argue otherwise) and exploring the physical world. Where social media really fails our kids is in the area of developing a “culture that ascribe[s] high status to school achievement” so that a child feels motivated “to persevere toward effortful feats of learning whose rewards are apparent only over the long term” (quoting Pinker again). Notice what is inherent in this statement: delaying gratification through development of the executive functions (which I have blogged about extensively). In my opinion, the executive functions (EF) are key to enlisting the core intuitions or ways of knowing in the service of current cognitive demands. Taking Freud’s lead, it was Bowlby who suggested that attachment relationships are the royal road (or royal roadblock) toward bridging largely unconscious innate behavioral systems—care, sex, attachment, etc.—to conscious cognitive systems. This bridge goes by the name “psychology.” Sadly, as social commentator Nicholas Carr points out in his 2010 book entitled The Shallows—What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains (which I have blogged about), extensive Internet use (especially via social media) carries with it the very real potential to adversely affect EF development (and, by extension, the bridging effects of attachment). I hate to say it but social media may ultimately imprison us within the walls of the core intuitions, which, ironically, is exactly what postmodernists wish to avoid, that is, any contact at all with biologically mediated, innate behavioral systems (again, care, sex, attachment, etc.).
Let me end part II by providing you with a copy of an email message I sent to Dr. Haidt wherein I suggest a study designed to look at moral module themes as revealed by the AAI. It is in this email that I talk a bit more about attachment dumbfounding and its possible connection to moral dumbfounding. Dr. Haidt was kind enough to respond and told me that his plate was full in large part because of his recent move from UVA (where Mary Ainsworth did a lot of her attachment research) to a position at NYU Stern School of Business. Maybe some other enterprising researcher out there would like to pick up on this idea (hint, hint).
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Dr. Haidt, after reading your book The Righteous Mind, the idea for a correlational study popped into my head. I’m both a psychotherapist and philanthropist, although I don’t work directly with clients anymore. Back when I was still working with clients (mostly adolescents) I went through the two-week training for the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI). The AAI is the gold standard research instrument for studying attachment patterns in adults (although it has clinical applications as well). (For toddlers, the standard assessment instrument is the Strange Situation Assessment (SSA) developed by Bowlby’s longtime collaborator Mary Ainsworth, who used to teach at UVA by the way.) Believe it or not, the AAI can reveal what I am calling “attachment dumbfounding.” So, when you talked about how your studies revealed “moral dumbfounding,” a light went off: “I wonder if the two can be correlated in some way?”
That’s the essence of the project. If you have a bit more time, I have included below a description of how the AAI reveals what I am calling attachment dumfounding. And I should mention that we made a grant to UVA probably three or four years ago to support an attachment study by Robert Marvin (who co-created the Circle of Security protocol). Bob studied under Mary Ainsworth. I’m not sure if Bob is still at UVA, but my guess is that there is still Bowlbian attachment research taking place at UVA.
By way of background information, there was this small burst of interest in Bowlbian attachment theory bridged to politics and moral systems back in 1996, but very little since. We have survived on those “fumes” for a long time now. Your book The Righteous Mind has filled the tank a bit for sure. Thanks. George Lakoff’s 1996 book Moral Politics (which you briefly mention), Peter Marris’ 1996 book The Politics of Uncertainty—Attachment in Private and Public Life, and a 1996 edited volume (essentially conference proceedings) entitled The Politics of Attachment—Towards a Secure Society, comprise this small burst. (I wrote executive summaries—heavily biased mind you—of the last two books if you (or a grad student) are at all interested.)
The AAI (designed by Mary Main and her husband Erik Hesse, both at UC Berkeley) is designed to trigger the attachment behavioral system by asking questions like, “Who raised you as a young child,” and, “Who did you go to when you were six years old and you were hurt.” Once the attachment behavioral system is triggered, the interviewer asks the interviewee to provide five words that describe the early attachment relationship with an early primary attachment figure. People will come up with words like loving, supportive, loyal, dedicated, trusting, etc. See how these descriptor words could be associated with your moral modules. Next, the interviewee is asked to “tell a story” giving evidence for each word (a la Grice’s Maxims of Conversation). In other words, the interviewer will ask, “Tell me a story that illustrates why you describe this early care relationship as trusting?” OK, here’s where it gets interesting. Some will provide concrete examples of when an attachment figure acted in trustworthy ways, such as, “I remember when I was nervous that my mom would not remember to pick me up after school, but there she was right on time.” But others will only speak using ideal images such as, “Well my father was like all other fathers, very loyal and trustworthy.” This, in my opinion, gets to your idea that the choices we make with respect to individual needs may be different from those we make when faced with the needs of a group. Some early attachment relationships probably allowed children to openly and flexibly bridge selfish needs to “groupish” needs (thus developing Freudian ego strength). But some early attachment relationships squelch self in favor of the group or social ideals. And what you see with these narratives is a fair amount of anger over the self being ignored in favor of the group or social ideals. The sad cases are when the interviewee becomes completely dumbfounded and cannot bridge self to group in any functional way. They will literally stop talking as the unconscious or core intuitions take complete control, not unlike the moral dumbfounding you talk about. I think the two could be correlated: how early attachment dumbfounding could lead to moral dumbfounding later in life. As an aside, it may be that early attachment anger as revealed by the AAI may be used to push a person in the direction of moral modules that are more group oriented such as Authority/subversion or Sanctity/degradation. A simple study would be to go back and code AAI descriptor words with respect to your moral modules and see if there is any correlational connection between attachment pattern and moral module as revealed by the descriptor words like loving, supportive, loyal, dedicated, trusting, etc.
The above books I mention intuitively connect Bowlbian attachment theory to systems of political and moral meaning-making. In my opinion, it would be nice to make the connection scientifically (even if it’s only at the correlational level). And it may be that you or a grad student could do this statistically on data sets that already exist. There’s tons of AAI data out there considering that it has been used since the 1980s to measure attachment patterns in adults. (And, yes, there is a very robust connection between the AAI and the SSA). If you (or a grad student) would like to read up on the AAI, there’s a great popular description in Dan Siegel’s 1999 book The Developing Mind. For a technical description of the AAI, grab a copy of The Handbook of Attachment (second ed.) and read chapter 25 by Erik Hesse.
One thing that occurs to me is that there may be a bias in the AAI in that it only asks about early care relationships. As a result, it is designed to only trigger one moral module—Care/harm—but I’m sure others are being triggered. In other words, the AAI presupposes a liberal view of a care monism if you will. But many of the attachment relationship description words people use are from multiple moral modules like honor and duty. Maybe this possible moral module bias could be looked at. Otherwise a tool like the AAI is saying that early on, there is only the Care/harm moral module at work, and that it’s the most important one throughout the lifespan. Simply, the other moral modules may in fact act as confounding variables within AAI studies. To my knowledge, I’m not sure the AAI assessment design takes these moral modules into account, however, my intuition tells me that they could be.
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Do we have any takers? Consider the above blog post to be an informal RFP (request for proposal). Part III will look at the practical application of looking at such topics as moral dumbfounding and moral modules.
