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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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A Discussion of Friendship and Belonging
Let's discuss how the Attachment Formation Personality Spectrum Ensemble works for us in practice. We'll touch on one or more of the following. What is not discussed here is left to the reader to contemplate.
- The Influence of Attachment in Making and being Influenced by Friends
Creates a willingness to seek friendships among others. This willingness is independent of the similarity between the two forming the friendship. An active part of the engagement process is also the process of learning to tolerate, adapt to, and even enjoy the differences between "me" and the "other".
Among other attributes, descriptors of the relationship may include (bidirectionally):
- Devotion
- Reliance
- Trust
Once these friendships form, their status as friends with each other is usually sustained long term, often for entire lives, even when long periods of absence from each other occurs.
As with all the filters, which are to a degree tunable, the degree to which this filter is tuneable (e.g. that we are adaptable) changes with both time and circumstance.
ConserveLiberty readers may want to peruse an interesting essay titled,
- Bidirectional Parent/Child Attachment Formation and Engagement
Oh yes, this works both ways!
Children are surely influenced by their parents' world views, even if they are to rebel against them later (and, more on "Rebellion" later...).
What parent has not observed that what they regarded as their normal habits and preferences did certainly change somewhat as a result of their having kids, and that those new habits in thinking and preferences very soon became "normal" to them?
Of course, it is commonly observed that the attachment that a child has to its parent changes with age, and retunes typically with the maturation to adolescence, then to younger adulthood, and then as one grows older.
It is also the case that these changes differ between people, since people differ organically, and so to due their filters.
- Attachment and the Assumption of Group Identity, Habits, and Culture
When I was much younger, I had an interesting experience. The undergraduate university that I attended did not have a "Greek" system. Instead, undergraduates were assigned randomly to each of the "Residential Colleges" before matriculation. Every undergraduate was a member of a residential college, membership was permanent, and only very rarely was a change in college membership either requested or approved.
The residential colleges served both as on-campus student housing, the cafeteria, and the organizing social sphere for its members. While all students interacted with all others as one normally would, one's residential college was "home", and you were its citizen. When residential college teams competed, for example, the teams were made up only of its own members, they did not trade players or create teams "under their flag" made up of members from other colleges.
In almost every case, even though randomly assigned, it was generally relatively easy, based on observed behavior, to accurately guess which residential college a newly encountered student belonged to within a month or two of their matriculation.
- The Impact of Numbers on the Direction of Influence
Per the example above, it is also undeniable that while the residential college as a whole was made up of the personalities of each of its members, it was also true that the incoming freshman (the minority group) were more dramatically impacted than the upperclass students (the majority group), as the recognizable "group identity" of each college seemed to change very little over the four years I was there.
- Why Cultures Persist (see above regarding numbers)
In the example above (and, all of us have differing observations of a similar nature, often with much larger groups) there is an algebra of sorts involved with the formation of cultures and their maintenance. "Assimilation" occurs, but most visibly in the direction of those having previously been "non-members" adopting the existing culture of those that are currently "members." This is not to say that the new entrants don't impact the existing culture, they most certainly do! However, what we observe is that the pre-existing majority has a greater impact on the newly arriving minority than vice versa.
When assimilation does not occur, difficult relationships competing for power and dominance generally materialize. This difficulty is especially profound when those who were previously "non-members" attempt either to supplant the dominant culture of the existing "members" or to suppress the culture embraced by those who are currently "members."
- The Influence of Attachment Momentum on Genetic Trait Selection
Without elaborating too long and hard on this, let's simply consider that in general, trait selection happens when survivability to the age of reproduction is enhanced over another competing trait.
(Reproduction is key here. Traits flow with lineage. Lineage propagates via reproduction. The individual is simply the mechanism through which reproduction, and thus trait propagation is delivered.)
So, if there is something about a particular culture that is in conflict with the way a particular individual is built, and if it is so onerous that elimination pressures are applied prior to significant reproduction, then those conflicting traits will become reduced generation to generation so long as the selective pressures remain.
Examples throughout human history can be given. They span areas as general (and without historical documentation) as the issues that drove the creation of our species from its predecessors, the creation of the races within our species, and other factually observed differences between various groups. It is left to the interests of the reader to explore them independently.
- Indoctrination and the domestication of pets, animals, livestock, plants, and general natural synergy
This portion will be updated in a later revision.
In addition, this section may be updated to further discuss our sharing of the Attachment Formation Personality Spectrum Ensemble with other living species, such as canines, other mammals, birds, insects, and even microorganisms (e.g. various of the yeasts, the gut microflora, etc.).
Interacting Filters, Ensembles, and Tapestries
Various Personality Filters (some defined within the ConserveLiberty resource as of this writing, most not yet) interact with the Attachment Ensemble, either working independently of it, or perhaps as components of the Ensemble itself. Of course, in time with further study and discovery, we may eventually decide to refer to the Attachment Filter as a Tapestry rather than an Ensemble. A few of these interacting filters are:
- The Filters discussed in "Synergies and Interactions"
- A few from various credible psychology research projects:
- Mirroring - the tendency to subtly mimick another person's behavior
- Exposure Impact - increases affinity for those we see more often
- Spontaneous Trait Transference - others associate the adjectives you use to describe other people with your personality, whether or not the association factually describes you. Depending on the adjectives and connotations used, the effect will either increase or decrease affinity.
- Emotional Contagion - we feel the emotions of those around us, and feel something similar to what others are feeling. The environments we are in can either bring us "up" or "down".
- Stereotype Content - people judge others based on their perceived warmth and competence. Warmth increases trust. Competence increases respect.
- The Pratfall Effect - people will like you more after you make a mistake if they believe you are competent.
- For a few more insights, see:
- Others will be added and elaborated on in future revisions of this chapter.
→ Interacting Filters (Multiple Filters in Play) was last updated 05 Oct 2017 13:25 PDT ←
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