________________
Loving and Attachment
79
reproduction of his genetic program. But we can see now that this love is only a special part of the larger program for the conservation of life. Our self-preservative ‘selfish' desires are as much a part of this as our altruistic wishes for others. Being directed by the same parts of the brain, the two sorts bave naturally much in common. The very activities of sex, which may lead us to all the responsibilities of parenthood, are themselves perhaps the most rewarding of all experiences for the individual. 2. Programs for Attachment
We have seen earlier, how we learn physical and develop and intellectual skills, and now we are concerned with our emotional development. The child is born with programs that ensure that he receives attention, for example, crying, and the mother is also programmed to respond to them. Her brain and her bormones normally make sure that she responds to its cries just as they also ensure that she has the milk to feed it. There is an inherited program that promotes attachment to the mother which is most essential, at least, in the first year of life. This is preprogrammed response which shows the presence of neural mechanism ready to respond to certain stimuli by attachment. At the same time, mother is programmed to become emotionally attached and to remain attached to the child. Her face and her voice are prominent in the list of characteristics which elicit responses froni the child. The evidence from childbood shows that humans are born with a propensity to pay special attention to the sights and sounds of each other'.
Is love, then nothing else but attachment ? There is nothing altruistic about the child's devotion (to its mother); it is purely selfish and for long remains so. The little tyrant develops various skills — attractive devices - to fascinate, capture and control her, sometimes by crying and at other times bysmiling. Throughout the long period of childhood, he is learning to get on with people by building the model set which must serve him in all his later human relations.
Adult attachment is very much different from the reaction of the
1. This may perhaps be the basis of anthropomorphism i.e. our tendency for a scribing
human characteristics to physical events, animals or gods.
