Born to Be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life

These early attachment experiences, dozens of human studies show, lay the foundation of the capacity to connect. In the thinking of John Bowlby, these early experiences of love alter our jen ratios or, in Bowlby’s terminology, the individual’s “working model” of intimacy, trust, and the goodness of others, deep, early beliefs that shape our peer relations, work dynamics, ensuing adventures in our own families, and engagement in communities. Individuals who report a secure attachment style feel comfortable with intimacy and desire to be close to others during times of threat and uncertainty. They were likely raised by parents who were responsive to their early needs and emotions. And as adults, these individuals enjoy healthily high jen ratios. People who report a sense of secure attachment perceive their partners to be a steady source of support and love. They look charitably upon their partner’s criticism, tension, and insensitivity, putting a positive spin upon these struggles of intimate life. And as life progresses, securely attached individuals feel greater satisfaction in their current romantic relationships, they are about half as likely to divorce as other individuals, and they consistently report a greater sense of contentment and meaning in life.

Anxiously attached individuals, by contrast, feel a deep sense of uncertainty about their attachment to others; they feel that others do not give enough and are not reliable sources of intimacy and love. Their parents, research shows, were less responsive and warm and more tense, anxious, and distant in their minute-by-minute interactions. A quick study of a morning in such a house would find a more impoverished vocabulary of attachment behaviors—encouraging touch, warm smiles, brief eye contact, and playful vocalizations—and more sighs of exasperation, remote gazes, and painful touch. These more anxiously attached individuals have greater difficulties in their subsequent bonds—greater dissatisfaction, cynicism, distrust, and criticism. These tendencies suffuse every moment of their intimate relations. When Chris Fraley and Phil Shaver surreptitiously observed romantic partners as they said good-bye in airports, anxiously attached individuals expressed great fear and sadness as their partners headed down the walkway, privately suspecting that this would be the last they would see of their beloved. Anxiously attached individuals are more likely to interpret life events in pessimistic, threatening fashion, which increases the chances of depression. They are more likely to suffer from eating disorders, maladaptive drinking, and substance abuse, in part to reduce their distress and anxiety. They are more likely to have intimate relationships that dissolve in bitterness.

The first great love of life begins upon leaving the womb. It lasts, in the words of John Bowlby, “from cradle to grave.” It is laid down in a rich vocabulary of touch, voice, gaze, and facial display, it is evident in the merging of minds, heartbeats, and nervous systems of caretaker and young child. These processes establish deep patterns of neural response in the pro-social nervous system—growth in tactile receptors in the skin, strengthening of the oxytocin system (which is damaged in orphans), the setting of the HPA axis to less stressful levels, lighting up of reward centers in the brain. These early attachment experiences are laid down so early we can’t consciously remember them, for the regions of the brain involved in memory—the hippocampus in particular—aren’t fully functioning until age two or so. But they are felt every moment of life, in the trust of a stranger, in the willingness to speak out and fail, in the devotion to a romantic partner in times of difficulty, in the sense of hope, and in the devotion one feels for one’s own children. If it goes well, that early love is felt as the encouraging, not-so-invisible warm hand on your back as you move through life.

THE ELEMENTS OF DESIRE

 

A lek (Swedish for “play”) is the singles bar for many bird species. It is a small patch of ground where the males of a species congregate and set up shop to take their shot at seducing their female counterparts. The male bowerbird, for example, will build elaborate bowers of sticks, leaves, bottle caps, and hot commodity items like the bird of paradise’s feathers to show off his resource-acquiring abilities. Like young women arriving at the dance after a trip to the bathroom, female bowerbirds arrive at a set time at the leks, inspect each male, engage in a few courtship head bobs and coos, and then converge on a couple of males who seem most worthy (that is, resource-rich) to mate with.