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The Attachment Formation
Personality Spectrum Ensemble 
Select the section that interests you. |
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The Attachment Formation
Personality Spectrum Ensemble
Select the section that interests you. |
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Human behavior appears to include a component that is also a component in the various ensembled developments within All That Is. That component is "Attachment Formation". We see this instinct, drive, or urge to form, maintain, and develop tendencies toward and dependencies on attachments in many areas, including:
- Relationships with friends and family
- Relationships with religious, cultural, or political affiliations
- Relationships with theories, faiths, interpretations, and ways of perceiving things
- Relationships with sports teams
- Relationships with foods, and styles of cooking
- Relationships with objects, or places, or ways of including them in our lives
The desired objectives of "Attachment Formation", or "Attachment Seeking", are outcomes that can be described as "attachments" or "unified relationships". Yet, as mentioned elsewhere, the Attachment Formation Phenotype can be seen far beyond its observation in human behaviors. Attachment Formation can be seen to drive many of the ensembled outcomes observed in nature. It is possible that "Attachment Formation" may be a Fundamental Rule, or possibly a Fundamental Prerequisite of All That Is or of All That Results in All That Is.
Natural phenomena that are potential examples of a drive toward "Attachment Formation" are:Let's take a dive into the Attachment Formation Personality Spectrum Filter.
- Gravitational attraction
- Electromagnetic attraction
- Sexual reproduction (in every species that leverages it)
- Chemical reactivity and physical chemical phase production and transfer processes
- Planet, solar, black hole, and galaxy formation
- Etc.
The Attachment Formation Spectrum Filter is another among a collection of learning-related traits or filters that enable us to perform cooperatively as a "social" species. A few other related filter examples are:However, the impact of the Attachment Formation Spectrum Filter is beyond simply its influence on interpersonal relationships. When it is dialed up sufficiently, our instinct or urge is to "maintain associations", to be "consistent", to minimize unexpected, uncomfortable or disappointing change. Thus, Attachment Seeking can lead to increased dependence between people.
- The Compatibility Seeking Personality Filter
- The Pattern Recognition Personality Filter
- The Narrative Bias related filters
- The Indoctrination Filter
When people are involved, increased Attachment Formation (engagement) can lead to a more positive, and even a more survival-selective result. However, the instinct for Attachment Formation (engagement) often can (and is) exploited by others seeking to manipulate our preferences and choices. Many commonly regard this manipulative type of activity with a negative connotation. Yet, "Engagement" can also lead to positive outcomes, and when they do we often use a different word for it, such as "Team Building" or "Membership Development". However, whether the outcomes are positive or negative, this section will refer to attachment changes that result from any environmental (e.g. nature, event, person, new information, etc.,) exposure as "Engagement or Assimilation." For this reason, the reader is asked to suspend his or her negative view of relationship marketing conducted to increase "engagement, assimilation, team building, or membership development".
Attachment formation has been described or defined as - the binding of someone to a person, thing, cause, ideal, or the like, resulting in a devotion to (and craving for) the relationship or interaction with that with which the attachment is made. - Wikipedia, Dec 2015.
Summing up, Attachment Formation often can result in cooperation-oriented changes to preferences, friendships, associations, habits, and outlooks, and we can refer to these changes generically as Engagement, Assimilation, or Adoption. As with other of the filters related to social cohesion, Attachment Formation seeks to adopt an identity narrative coincident with a need to "fit in."
Apparently, most of us are drawn to "fitting in" with those around us. For whatever reason, the approval of others, especially those most important to us, is a strong draw, and hard to resist. The greater the Spectrum Setting on the Attachment Formation Filter, the stronger the urge, or the easier the choice, to mold our choices and behaviors such that those important to us are more comfortable with and around us.
"Those" which are most important to us may not necessarily be "people," though they most often are. As we mature, various ideologies or world views or personal narratives are learned and embraced. These can be the result of both environmental influences and other genetic personality predispositions. These "outlooks" that we feel compelled to identify with take on a life of their own and become included in the "those-which-are-most-important-to-us."
Since these views are accumulated over time based on experience, it is the relatively inexperienced who are the most malleable with regard to the attachment oriented or engaging influence of other people and cultures. Naturally then, while all are responsive and adoptive to attachment formation, youth tend to be a little more so than seniors.
On the other hand, when a particular narrative is compelling, individuals of all ages are easily engaged when in the presence of others who are able to articulate the narrative effectively.
For the purpose of clarity, it bears repeating that while the intent of "engagement" or "assimilation" can tend to have negative connotations in some instances, responsive attachment building is not being used in that way in this chapter. Rather, competence for culturally influenced attachment building is a very, very important behavioral feature of many, if not all social species. And, since humans are social animals, whose very survival usually depends upon cooperation with others, personality mechanisms for "fitting in" are generally required for survival.
For a similar description of the term "Socialization", which is not usually associated with negative connotations, see Wikipedia, Dec 2014.
→ The Introduction was last updated 04 Oct 2017 22:30 PDT ←
Description of Impact
As is often the case, it is convenient to use extremes to illustrate or define our personality filters. However, since people exist along a spectrum with regard to the expression of these filters, it is rare to find someone who fits all descriptions of these extreme cases. And in general, other filters may be present and expressed sufficiently that they may either mask or enhance a filter that is being only partially expressed. Agreeing that we do not intend to over-generalize the extent of a filter when suspected to be significantly present, let's define the Attachment Formation Personality Spectrum Filter in terms of what we might see when it is dialed up to 80% or so in an individual.
We would see in an 80% (approx) dialed up individual (strong Attachment Formation Personality Filter) the following tendencies:
When we do not have all the information necessary to make well thought out decisions or to rationally form opinions, we rely on external resources. We choose those resources based on trust. For many, that trust may fall out of attachments that have developed, and the beliefs that:
- strong tendency to form or join cliques, gangs, social groups.
- demonstrates pride in group identities (e.g. regional, school or team pride, etc.)
- embraces popularly held group views without explicitly examined analytical regard for "why" they are embraced. Equally valid alternate views or affinities are either dismissed or not considered.
- comfortable self identifying with the adopted view.
- compromise or suspension of ordinarily present "careful observation and reasoning" discipline in order to avoid conflict dissonance between embraced views and evidence which challenges them.
- we will not be harmed or lied to, and
- we will find positive resonance (e.g. attachment) with those people and narratives that play important roles in our lives.
For some, the influence of embraced information is dialed up (or down) more than others:
- Those with a strong Attachment Formation Personality Spectrum Filter will embrace messages anytime they come from trusted or important resources.
- For others, their Attachment Formation Filter may be firing, but other Filter instincts are also present that may be enhancing or interfering.
- For still others, they may in many moments genuinely not be influenced by Assimilating messages in the sense defined above, even though under other circumstances they might enthusiastically embrace them.
- Finally, for still others, their Attachment Seeking Spectrum setting is low enough that they cannot truly be influenced by compelling desires to "fit in" or "be accepted."
Synergies and Interactions
There are other personality filters that work to enhance or diminish the Attachment Formation phenotype. Links will be provided as they are defined. A few are:
- The Skepticism Personality Filter - when strong, is focused on Truth, and the general need to verify what is being stated as truth, or thought to be observed as a pattern.
- The Faith Personality Filter - when strong, tends to believe without additional rational confirmation. When combined with the expression of the Attachment Formation Filter, there may be a tendency to jump to conclusions (with the rest of the supporting group) about the robustness or credibility of the messages one consumes before their veracity has been demonstrated.
- The Intelligence Personality Filter - when strong, the general ability to learn material and retain it. That will be a plus for the rate at which assimilation is achieved.
- The Imaginative (or Creative) Personality Filter - when strong, the ability to craft novel explanations or proposals from learned material that is different from the explanations given generally or by alternate authority figures.
- The Pattern Recognition Filter - when weak, the ability to perceive legitimate patterns or associations (or, lack thereof) is compromised. A weak Pattern Recognition Filter renders easier the engagement that might otherwise be challenged with conflicting associations, patterns, and facts.
Now, each one of the filters above are also possessed by most. However, since they, like Attachment Seeking, are also Spectrum Filters, each of us expresses their phenotypes to greater or lesser degrees as well. As discussed elsewhere, each individual has its own spectrum setting for each behavioral or perceptive phenotype.
This leads to a recognition conundrum, as it does with most of the other filters.
The difficulties for recognizing any of the Filters could be used as an example, but since this is a chapter on the attachment formation and attachment seeking instinct, lets elaborate on recognition difficulties for gauging the Attachment Formation Personality Spectrum Filter. And, while a number of other Spectrum Filters impact the perception of the Attachment Formation filter, we'll choose just one for illustration - the Pattern Recognition Personality Filter.
An Example of Interfering Filters
It may often be assumed that those with a strong Attachment Formation Personality Filter may not have a strong Pattern Recognition Personality Filter. While that may occasionally be accurate, in reality the situation is often more complex. Often, individuals with a strong Attachment Formation filter are VERY much aware of the Pattern Recognition (e.g. rational / logical) aspects of a perspective they are considering embracing.
A strong Attachment Formation filter, however, may confound the recognition of a Pattern Recognition Filter operating jointly, but at a level allowing reduced rational skepticism, such that judgement seeking correctness is overridden by the instinct for attachment and engagement. Confounding the issue additionally is that from a self reporting perspective, those operating with reduced analytical stringency may often deny or suppress the perception that they are. We all are aware that we are "thinking" after all. It is easy to confuse the observation that we are giving thought to a topic with the notion that we are considering it with analytical stringency and a healthy skepticism or appreciation of what we actually know and what we don't know. True skepticism, of course, questions without regard to the direction or nature of the eventual conclusion that will be reached.
From an evaluation perspective, the filter differences between the evaluator and the evaluated also come into play and can lead to recognition issues, or even a lack of appreciation of a filter's importance for individuals with a different filter level setting. For example, people without a strongly expressing Attachment Formation Filter have a very difficult time appreciating the importance of its influence. Since they may not suffer many conflicts between their Attachment Formation Filter (expressed at a lower level) and their analytical pattern recognition and skepticism abilities, they may judge that reduced analytical stringency is simply the result of reduced Pattern Recognition Filter expression rather than due to a stronger expression of the Attachment Formation Filter. An alternate way of stating this is that those with a weakly expressing Attachment Formation Filter cannot appreciate that the more easily assimilated (engaged) ARE responding to their urge for truth, but their facility for skepticism (within Pattern Recognition) has been hijacked or degraded by their urge for resonance (with people or narratives) deriving from a strongly expressing Attachment Formation Filter.
For this reason, the advantage of the Pattern Recognition and Skepticism Filters for ferreting truth from conjecture or effective rhetoric may be compromised when a strong Attachment Formation filter is present.
Summary Essays
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