Toward a Radically Embodied Neuroscience of Attachment and Relationships?

Abstract

Attachment theory (Bowlby, 1969(Bowlby, /1982 posits the existence of internal working models as a foundational feature of human bonds. Radical embodied approaches instead suggest that cognition requires no computation or representation, favoring a cognition situated in a body in an environmental context with affordances for action (Chemero, 2009;Barrett, 2011;Wilson and Golonka, 2013;Casasanto and Lupyan, 2015). We explore whether embodied approaches to social soothing, interpersonal warmth, separation distress, and support seeking could replace representational constructs such as internal working models with a view of relationship cognition anchored in the resources afforded to the individual by their brain, body, and environment in interaction. We review the neurobiological bases for social attachments and relationships and attempt to delineate how these systems overlap or don't with more basic physiological systems in ways that support or contradict a radical embodied explanation. We suggest that many effects might be the result of the fact that relationship cognition depends on and emerges out of the action of neural systems that regulate several clearly physically grounded systems. For example, the neuropeptide oxytocin appears to be central to attachment and pair-bond behavior (Carter and Keverne, 2002) and is implicated in social thermoregulation more broadly, being necessary for maintaining a warm body temperature (for a review, see IJzerman et al., 2015b). Finally, we discuss the most challenging issues around taking a radically embodied perspective on social relationships. We find the most crucial challenge in individual differences in support seeking and responses to social contact, which have long been thought to be a function of representational structures in the mind (e.g., Baldwin, 1995). Together we entertain the thought to explain such individual differences without mediating representations or computations, but in the end propose a hybrid model of radical embodiment and internal representations.

A Theory of Social Thermoregulation in Human Primates

“…Most of what we have provided until here can be explained through people's direct interaction with the environment, and much of it can be understood through a direct coupling of action and agents that can mostly rely on biosocial models (e.g., Chemero, 2009;Beckes et al, 2014). But we would like to extend our model further, and provide a first consideration into what our ideas may mean for more complex cognitive systems.…”

“…One of the hallmark features of attachment theory has been the concept of the predictive model of others (e.g., Craik, 1943;Bowlby, 1969;Hazan and Shaver, 1987;Mikulincer and Shaver, 2003; but see also Beckes et al, 2014). In the recent past, several 12 Curiously enough, the development of the infant's body to be able to thermoregulate solitarily seems to go hand in hand with the development of this specialized organ, which has been implicated in internal thermoregulation (Cannon and Nedergaard, 1985;Grigg et al, 2004;Ivanov, 2006).…”

Why Some People Just “Can’t Get No Satisfaction”: Secure versus Insecure Attachment Styles Affect One’s “Style of Being in the Social World”

“…In order to do so, we first developed in lay terms an embodied approach to attachment systems based on research by Beckes et al (2014), which ultimately shows that attachment system activation depends on proximal (neuroendocrine) processes in the brain. Then we introduced the three attachment styles.…”

Is Comfort Food Really Good for the Soul? A Replication of Troisi and Gabriel's (2011) Study 2

“…Social thermoregulation has been thought to be one way via which people can downregulate negative emotional states (particularly if they are rooted in belongingness concerns; IJzerman and Semin, 2009;IJzerman and Koole, 2011;Beckes et al, 2014). When we ran the 4-way interaction, comparing both American samples to TiU and SMU samples, secure versus insecure attachment, belongingness threat vs. control, and cold dishes versus room temperature and hot dishes, we found a marginal 4-way interaction, F (1, 725) = 3.14, p = 0.077, η 2 p = 0.004, with SMU/TiU participants scoring lower on loneliness when recalling higher temperature foods (M = 1.93, SD = 0.49) than lower temperature foods (M = 2.24, SD = 0.59) when they are secure and in a belongingness threat.…”