In my post of September 9th, 2011, I make the following claim:
Theories (and theorists) are held by conceptual frameworks.
By way of a review, here are some of the better-known Western conceptual frameworks over time (use the Contact Us link above to request the references I used to compile this list):
- Traditional-Sapient Revolution (circa 38,710 B.C.)—Tradition and myth formed the core of this revolution.
- Living-Agricultural Revolution (circa 8,157 B.C.)—Awareness of life as a continuing process of birth, development and death, with a dependence of one species upon another (aka “legends & tales”).
- Authoritarian-Religious Revolution (circa 519 B.C.)—A conviction that there must be some directed design of the forces guiding nature and the destiny of man (aka “myths & religions”).
- Holistic-Artistic Revolution (circa 1391 A.D.)—A bifurcation with one strand seeking artistic expression in philosophy, poetry, painting and sculpture, and the other strand seeking empirical technological procedures and machines (aka “Christianity & Islam”).
- Scientific-Exploitive Revolution (circa 1868 A.D.)—Focus on the “Scientific Method” where insights are then transformed into technological devices or procedures for exploiting nature for the benefit of man (aka “formulae & rules”).
- Communication-Electronic Revolution (circa 1988 A.D.)—Personal contact among the members of such a much enlarged communication network proves particularly ineffective. Thus a new perspective of life as an information exchange network results.
- Compassionate-Systems Revolution (circa 2018 A.D.)—Awareness of, and participation in, the realization of values held by others which characterizes the compassionate perspective. This perspective also includes an awareness that many individuals will experience extreme difficulty in developing and altering their roles and value sets in accordance with the demands of an overall system which is changing and becoming more complex.
If you focus in on just the theory or theorist, you then take your eye off the prize: the conceptual framework that holds the theory and the revolution it represents. As a quick example, Isaac Newton had one foot in the world of empiricism and science, and the other in the world of mysticism and alchemy. But his “handlers” would have none of his leanings toward the conceptual frameworks of mysticism and alchemy. Why? Newton’s handlers had their eye on the prize: the riches that a science (and, thus, industrial) conceptual revolution might bring. School children rarely if ever hear about Newton the mystic or Newton the alchemist.
Today we rarely hear about John Bowlby the ethologist. Heck, today we rarely hear about John Bowlby at all, in any context. But Bowlby very much was held by and was a proponent for at least two central conceptual revolutions: the ethological conceptual revolution and the naturalistic systems revolution (which would roughly go along with the compassionate-systems revolution listed above). But, again, Bowlby alone did not bring about the ethological–naturalistic systems revolution in the same way Newton was not the sole animator behind scientism. So, in the remainder of this post I’d like to briefly talk about a chapter by Roger Hart and Gary Moore entitled The Development of Spatial Cognition: A Review. This chapter appears in the 1973 edited volume Image & Environment—Cognitive Mapping and Spatial Behavior. Here’s an excerpt from my September 9th, 2011, blog post:
Why this chapter? Well, because the story Hart and Morre give us concerning cognitive mapping and spatial behavior reads like the story of Bowlbian attachment theory. And this makes sense when you stop to consider that attachment behavior is in effect spatial behavior. Jean Piaget and Bärbel Inhelder figure prominently in the story of cognitive mapping and spatial behavior. And who did Bowlby hang around with regularly during the 1950s? Yup, Piaget and Inhelder (among many others). As I have pointed out many times before, Bowlby was a part of an ethology and naturalistic systems conceptual revolution. If your field of view only includes Bowlby then you will miss out on the landscape that contains the conceptual revolution being waged by many others, like Piaget, Inhelder, Bertalanffy, Lorenz, Erikson, Mead, etc., and in many other places other than just attachment (like in the areas of cognitive mapping and spatial behavior).
Lets take a peek at the ethological and naturalistic systems revolution through the lens of cognitive mapping and spatial behavior. After all, Bowlby’s theory can be summed up thus:
If all goes well, early safe and secure attachment relationships between mother and infant lead to the formation of open and flexible Inner Working Models or IWMs.
Well, Inner Working Models are in essence cognitive maps or cognitive schemas. So, it would follow that if you wish to know how early attachment relationships went, you’d look at one of the key outcomes: Inner Working Models (e.g., spatial behavior, cognitive maps or cognitive schemas.) (Note: Carr in his book The Shallows talks a lot about mental schemas—foreshadowing.) But, sadly, attachment researchers rarely look at let alone know about a central piece of the Bowlbian puzzle: Inner Working Models (aka, mental schemas, or mental models, etc.). Although rarely mentioned, the Strange Situation Assessment looks at how well a toddler is able to negotiate and navigate two (often conflicting) spaces at the same time: Euclidian-defined space and attachment emotion-defined space. Again, attachment behavior is spatial behavior.
Hart and Moore (hereafter simply “H & M”) start their chapter by pointing out that prior to Piaget, work in the area of spatial cognition took place “within a strictly behavioristic framework” (quoting H & M). According to H & M, this behavioristic framework was “fragmentary” at best and did not “purport to trace comprehensively the developmental sequence [of spatial cognition].” Remember, Piaget was a part of the developmental conceptual revolution and greatly influenced Bowlby. Right off the bat we begin to get the sense that the behavioristic framing of spatial cognition clashed with the developmental frame of Piaget and others.
H & M alert us to the fact that at least back in the 1970s, developmental psychologists were in regular contact with a wide range of other researchers and practitioners, such as “geographers, urban planners, psychologists, anthropologists, and educators.” Recall this list from my August 25th, 2011, blog post. These were the “movers and shakers” Bowlby collaborated with:
- Dr. John Bowlby—Psychoanalysis
- Dr. Konrad Lorenz—Ethology
- Dr. Margaret Mead—Cultural Anthropology
- Professor Jean Piaget—Psychology (and big on mental models)
- Dr. J.M. Tanner—Human Biology
- Dr. W. Grey Walter—Electrophysiology (and of “robot turtle” fame)
- Bärbel Inhelder—Psychology (also big on mental models)
- Professor Erik Erikson—Psychoanalysis (and of “trust versus mistrust” fame)
- Dr. Julian S. Huxley—Biology
- Dr. L. von Bertalanffy—General Biology (and the father of systems theory)
If I had to point to one thing that has undermined the integrity of Bowlbian attachment theory, it would be the death of interdisciplinary scientific investigation. I hate to say it but the current crop of attachment researchers tend to operate in silos.
At this point, Hart and Moore point out that the developmentalists of the time used an organismic or naturalistic systems frame. As H & M put it, “Theories of development are concerned with qualitative changes in structural organization, whereas theories of learning [which Bowlby tended to diss] are concerned with quantitative changes in the incorporation of specific information into structures.” H & M talk about an “organismic developmental approach.” Suffice it to say that Bowlby, throughout his work, also used an organismic developmental approach. H & M describe how researchers using an organismic developmental approach will pull “results from each behavioral domain” and then seek to “derive developmental laws applicable to mental life as a whole.” Bingo! That’s a great way to view and define naturalistic systems theory. Recall that in my post of February 1st, 2011, I talk about what I call the Grand Bowlbian Attachment Environment (or GBAE for short). Simply, the GBAE holds the behavioral systems of caregiving, attachment, and sex. Bowlby’s ethological studies revealed to him that one of the greatest challenges facing the animal world was how to go about balancing and harmonizing the motivations arising from different motivational (or behavioral) systems that often have conflicting goals.
OK … pop quiz. Who said the following:
The more differentiated and integrated the cognitive structure of an organism, the more flexible and stable its behavior; that is, the organism is more capable of genuine modification in response to change in the organism-environment system, yet it retains integrity in the face of rapid fluctuations in the environment.
Answer: This is a quote by Hart and Moore. But if we turn to page 47 of volume I of Bowlby’s trilogy on attachment, we hear Bowlby tell us:
For a number of reasons the concept of adaptation in biology is a difficult one. When the issue concerns an animal’s behavioural equipment it is especially difficult, and when it concerns the behavioural equipment of man such difficulties are doubled. Because of this and because the concept ‘environment of adaptedness’ is central to the argument of this book, the final section of this chapter (p. 50) and the whole of the next are given to discussion of these terms.
A bit further along, Bowlby suggests that higher order animals have a “repertoire of behavioural techniques” that pull from multiple behavioral systems. Ergo, Bowlby makes the following connection: Higher order animals must possess a “means by which behavioural systems and the order in which they are activated are so organized that within the environment of adaptedness the whole performance as a rule has effects that promote the survival of individual and/or kin.” Man, that’s a mouthful. Lets decompress this statement a bit:
- higher order animals, which includes humans
- multiple behavioral systems such as caregiving(receiving), attachment, and sexuality
- some process whereby multiple behavioral systems can be ordered, integrated, organized, and otherwise harmonized
- this “process” or dance reveals something about the organism–environment interaction or exchange
- the “whole” of this process has as its central goal: success (surviving and, hopefully, thriving) within the environment of adaptation
Simply, the above parts are parts and parcel of naturalistic systems theory. It might sound corny but ornithologists observe birds (especially bird dances) in natural environments as a way of observing the dance of naturalistic systems. Heck, Mary Ainsworth (developer of the Strange Situation Assessment) effectively allowed researchers to observe children (in a semi-natural environment—the playroom) as they engaged in what may be considered bird dances. Why do male birds often dance for potential female partners? Because good male dancers have mastered the naturalistic systems dance, and that mastery brings with it increased levels of survival success. As developmental researchers (such as Alan Sroufe) point out, when kids are able to master the naturalistic systems dance, they seem to be more successful in life (i.e., able to cooperate with others, able to ask for help when needed, able to stay on task better, able to form close social ties, able to understand and solve problems better, etc.).
Bowlby’s volume I was written in 1969; Hart and Moore wrote their chapter in 1973. There’s no indication that these researchers were aware of each other but yet it is clear that they are advocating for the same conceptual revolution: the ethological or organismic or naturalistic systems theory revolution.
Consider this quote by Hart and Morre:
Essential to [Piaget’s] theory is the notion of the active organism. Piaget’s findings strongly contradict the assumption of behavioristic “learning” theories that the child is a passive recipient of information from a “real” environment. [Recall my discussion of real fear versus imaginary fear in my August 30th, 2011, post.] On the contrary, his findings indicate that, in adapting to its environment, the organism actively initiates [attachment?] contacts and structures its experience. Therefore, the impetus for moving toward higher levels of equilibration comes from this intrinsic motivation.
Again, we see the passive learning of the behavioristic conceptual system placed cheek to jowl with the active experiencing of the organismic or naturalistic systems conceptual system. Simply, H & M state: “Piaget’s findings strongly contradict the assumption of behavioristic ‘learning’ theories that the child is a passive recipient of information from a ‘real’ [as opposed to a cognitively mapped] environment.” Again, look at the entailments that H & M are pointing out:
- behavioristic learning theories contain entailments such as passively receiving information from real environments where motivation in imposed from without.
- naturalistic systems experiencing theories contain entailments such as actively receiving information from both real and cognitively mapped environments where motivation is intrinsic and innate.
I hope the reader can see that these two conceptual frameworks—and their respective entailments—are diametrically opposed. To a large extent, the battle of behaviorism versus organismic systems waged during the 1950s, 60s and into the 1970s, was of epic proportions. Sadly, today we are only presented with behavioristic frames.
Let me end with this quote from Hart and Morre toward the end of the chapter:
Given the importance of action and of domicentricity [e.g., the centrality of home], it is not surprising that Rand (1969) found children’s “trips and excursions to far-away places are remembered but not thought of as connected with, or of the same world, as their immediate habitat.” Similarly, Lee found that the spatial world of primary school children in England was divided into various local “schemata” which bore a “detectable relationship to the physical world,” but that “beyond this home area lay one total schema that might be called the ‘elsewhere schema’ in which physical dimesions were irrelevant.” Rand (1969) claims that a deep sense of familiarity with the home area is necessary as a basis for further exploration and discusses the notion of home as “sacred space” from which the child can make “brief excursions into the profane world” (see Eliade, 1959). This seems sufficiently obvious to be a truism, but such statements are understandable: not only has there been little research into the development of topographical representation in children but there have been very few studies of children’s environmental behavior. With an increasing awareness of the importance of early environmental experience in children’s development into “rich and competent human beings” (Carr and Lynch, 1968), we can anticipate a growth of research in these fields….
Isn’t that a great quote? Isn’t this attachment theory? a mother as a sacred home base from which a child can make brief excursions into the world of the profane. How sweet the ebb and flow of energy between the various forms cognitive models can take. The “home schema” as real, intimate and sacred. And the “elsewhere schema” where “physical dimensions [are] irrelevant” (quoting H & M from above). Could it be that attachment dimensions are more relevant with respect to the elsewhere schema? Don’t we see this ebb and flow in fairy tales? There’s a known and intimate home, usually with a fire or hearth. And there’s a journey into the unknown, the profane, the cold. Children go to bed, they go to school, they simply go out. It’s all spatial behavior. The space changes, the schema changes, the behavior changes. It’s an exquisite dance. Some move effortlessly; others stumble and fall. In certain cases (as the Strange Situation Assessment reveals), some freeze when presented with this dance. I would suggest that fairy tales were constructed to help both children and adults understand how our perceptions of space change as we make journeys into the world. Today, however, when children are having difficulties with going to bed or even going to school, cognitive-behavioral techniques are ordered up, not fairy tales (click here for an example).
Hart and Morre are right though, as of the 1960s and into the 70s, there were “very few studies of children’s environmental behavior.” But I think Bowlby wanted to change all of that. I think Bowlby wished to increase our “awareness of the importance of early environmental [and spatial] experience in children’s development” (quoting H & M from above). This was a golden age when the organismic conceptual revolution was at its peak with it focus on such things as multiple behavioral systems and integration of said behavioral systems into wholes; and schemas, and spatial behavior.
Is it all gone now? Hmmmm? Maybe a look at Carr’s work as presented in The Shallows will give us a clue. As they say, stay tuned.
