Attachment Theory and Research. Группа авторов
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had to learn for itself the hard way what was dangerous and what safe casualty rates would be enormous. To respond to everything strange with caution or escape may perhaps lead on many occasions to unnecessary timidity; but if on even only a few occasions it saves life it is intuitively worthwhile. Better to be safe than sorry.
The obverse of avoiding the strange is to remain close to the familiar. Remaining close to the familiar is, of course, the state of affairs maintained in personal‐environmental homeostasis; and a principal position of this essay is that maintenance of personal environmental homeostasis is a particularly efficient method of forestalling and avoiding disturbances to morphological and physiological homeostasis, and also to ecological homeostasis. A corollary of that proposition is that the reason that, during evolution, higher vertebrates have become equipped with environmentally stable behavioural systems that have the effect of keeping an animal within its own familiar environment and close to its own familiar companions is that such systems, by maintaining that animal within a relatively safe arena, all make a major contribution to species survival.
The persistence of traditional customs in social groups, not only of man but also of some sub‐human primates (e.g. food habits of chimpanzees) and of some birds (e.g. migrating habits of geese), can be looked at in the same light. Although obviously the details of such customs are learned, there seems to be a strong tendency in the young to adopt the customs of the group in which they are [illeg.] and a strong tendency in other members to enforce conformity.
The same seems to obtain for a working model of the world. Each social group has its own such model which is acquired by the young during the course of their education. Despite the existence of well‐known exceptions in economically advanced countries, it seems likely that these conformist tendencies are an expansion of a genetic bias to develop in a conformist way in any environment that is not too far removed from the species environment of evolutionary adaptedness.13
Exploration and innovation are not overlooked. Even in animal societies and in tradition‐rooted human societies such exploration and innovation occur. Where westernised societies are unusual is in the amount of exploration and innovation that they encourage and, especially, in the high valuation nowadays put upon it. But it needs to remembered that such shift in balance between tradition and innovation is not only historically very recent but is giving rise to much unforeseen and unwanted instability. Whilst in the short run the survival value of western innovation is undeniably high, its survival value in the long run remains unproven.
It is true that a familiar environment, familiar companions, and traditional customs and worldview may well not be the best possible for survival. Yet the very fact that a young creature has been born and reared in that environment and has been cared for by others who have adopted those customs, is testimony that the environment and the customs together are a combination capable of sustaining life. In wild creatures, therefore, and in almost all human communities also, it is no surprise that there is strong bias to preserve a conservative way of life.
The evolution of personal‐environmental and representational homeostasis, it is therefore suggested, has provided higher vertebrates with an additional set of regulatory systems that contribute to survival. Evolved later than the systems that maintain morphological, physiological and ecological homeostasis, this additional set of systems acts as an outer ring. As a consequence of their evolution many hazards are avoided that would jeopardise safety by stressing the capability of the inner ring of regulatory systems evolved earlier. Seen in this light the evolution of personal‐environmental and representational homeostasis appears as a way of doubling safety measures.
In concluding this section, special emphasis is given to the hypothesis that the outer ring systems that maintain personal‐environmental and representational homeostasis are as ‘bred in the bone’ namely are as environmentally stable as are the inner ring systems that in an immediate way maintain morphological, physiological and ecological homeostasis. Thus, threats to outer ring steady states are responded to just as promptly and just as instinctively as are threats to inner‐ring steady states. Moreover, just as an animal learns cues that forewarn it of threats to morphological, physiological and ecological homeostasis, so does it also learn cues that forewarn it of threats to personal‐environmental and representational homeostasis. If this hypothesis is correct it would be expected that any disturbance, actual or potential to personal‐environmental and representational homeostasis will engender no less stress and no less anxiety than do disturbances, actual or potential to those categories of homeostasis that, because more obviously contributing to survival, are better known and understood.14
A Distinction Between Fear (or Alarm) and Anxiety15
It is stated in the introduction to this essay that it is useful to distinguish between fear and anxiety. On the one hand, it is posited that we try all times to withdraw or escape from a situation or object that we find alarming, and on the other, we try to go towards and to remain with some person or in some place that makes us feel secure. The first type of behaviour is commonly accompanied by a sense of fright or alarm. What is experienced when the second type of behaviour is implicated, it is suggested, is best termed ‘anxiety’.
Applied in the context of the theory of homeostasis now proposed this means that, whenever a person is focussing attention on the source of some homeostatic disturbance (or the threat of it) and on how to avoid it, what he feels is best termed ‘fear’ or ‘alarm’; and that, whenever a person is focussing attention on restoring homeostasis and the difficulties of doing so, what he feels is best termed ‘anxiety’. Whilst it is evident that both types of feeling can be present together, not infrequently one or the other predominates. The belief that in the two situations there is a real distinction in feeling is supported by the fact that the terms proposed have roots the meaning of which shade in two quite different directions. Thus, the English word ‘fear’ has cousins in old high German and old Norse with meanings that indicate ‘ambush’ and ‘plague’; whilst alarm derives from sixteenth century Italian meaning ‘to arms’ and implies, therefore, ‘surprise attack’ (Onions, 1966).16 By contrast, ‘anxiety’ has cousins in Greek and Latin in meanings that center on grief and ‘sadness’; and is related to the German ‘Angst’ that, in addition to signifying dread, could in the seventeenth century also mean ‘longing’. In addition ‘anxiety’ has as further cousins both ‘anguish’ and ‘anger’ (Lewis, 1967).17 Insofar as separation from an attachment figure is accompanied by anxiety and often also by anger, and loss by anguish and despair, the usage is in keeping with its historical roots. It is also in keeping with Freud’s belief that ‘missing someone who is loved and longed for…’ is ‘…the key to an understanding of anxiety.’18
Inter‐relations of Fear (or Alarm) and Anxiety
Although reasonably distinct in tone, those feelings termed respectively ‘alarm’ and ‘anxiety’ are nonetheless linked with one another in a very intimate way. A number of studies show clearly that the way children and animals behave toward mildly frightening objects varies greatly in differing social conditions.
It seems likely that comparable experiments would show similar results in adult humans (though I have not read of any). Walking through a wood at night with and without companions would be an appropriate type of test.
There is, of course, good reasons why in a group living species of animal should be more wary when isolated than when with its conspecifics. For in such species, when a predator threatens, the safety of every animal turns on the defensive efforts, either of all of them, or of the adult males together.
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