Love and its Influence on Behaviors
Love has a significant influence on our behaviors by whatever definition of love we can give. It is a breathtaking step to find out that scientists have taken the pleasure of studying love on how it has a significant impact on our behaviors.
Attachment and the Influence on Behavior
As an infant, the touch, closeness, and attachment to the primary caregiver significantly influence and affect the abilities to love and connect with others. The attachment at an early age also has a significant influence on the mind later on in adulthood. The first experience with love, which is mainly between a child and the mother, begins at the moment of birth. Human behavior is associated with our primary needs such as thirst, hunger, or lack of pain. As an infant, the mother meets these needs, which enforces the closeness of the infant to her. However, love and affection can be considered as the most basic needs of an infant compared to thirst and hunger (Harlow, 1958).
The Impact of Upbringing on Behavior
There is also a profound experience that a significant part of our characters can be traced down to one of our parents. There is a terrible certainty familiar to most of those who encountered a bad upbringing that later on they will re-enact the same experience down to their children. Most certainly, the child-abuser was once abused. Biological needs such as food and milk alone without complementing with contact is not enough to create a bond between a child and a parent (Karen, 1994).
The Importance of Comfort and Bonding
To have a better encounter on the constituents of love between a mother and an infant, one can place the infant in environments where the mother does not meet the basic needs of the infant. By interfering with the mother's capability and capacity to satisfy an infant's primary requirement, it creates a negative impact on the quality and strength of the bond between the two. The growth of some emotions such as love, anger, and fear among humans and nonhumans follows the same sequence. According to Harlow's research using monkeys, he found out that infant monkeys became much attached and would cling on to surrogates or the cloth pads that were used to cover their cages. Whenever the pads were removed for cleaning, the infant monkeys would become very angry and agitated. Close contact with soft and comforting are also essential requirements in addition to the satisfaction of the primary biological needs such as thirst and hunger (Harlow, 1958).
The Significance of Comfort and Security
However, meeting biological needs such as thirst and hunger has a minimal impact on the affection between infants and mothers as compared to offering the comfort and safety of the infants. Lack of comfort and protection causes psychological stress to infants. Presence of safe and secure mothers encourages infants to explore new environments and investigate their surroundings due to the guarantee of the source of security. However, when an infant is reunited with a mother who felt safe and secure after a long separation, they regain their initial bond and affection. In situations where the infants are reunited with a parent that did not offer security, the affection, attachment, and relationship do not grow (Harlow, 1958).
Contact Comfort and Development of Bonds
There is the significant importance of contact comfort when it comes to the development of bonds between mothers and their infants. Contact comfort is considerably the most essential when compared to the primary life-sustaining milk provided by the mother to the infant. This may seem contradicting in the context of the most popular belief that feeding is the most significant element in the infant-mother bond (Harlow, 1958).
The Impact of Institutional Settings
It is so unfortunate that a significant number of children end up spending a considerable part of their lives in different institutional settings such as orphanages or hospital settings. Their placement may be due to an insufficient potential of their parent to meet their needs and take care of them or due to various physical difficulties or illnesses. Providence of basic biological necessities to children under institutional settings is not satisfactory enough since they need physical contact with other humans. Children under various institutional settings need to be shown affection by touching and holding them by nurses, staff members, and volunteers. Contact bonding, which is inadequate for children raised in institutional settings, is a requirement to comfort, encourage, and support them in the long run. When these children are placed together in groups where they make physical contact with each by seeing and touching while playing, they gain contact comfort (Harlow, 1958).
The Role of Non-Biological Parents
Non-biological mothers who act as caregivers to children can also be capable parents by offering efficient contact comfort. This gives room for fathers to assume a role and responsibility in this process. This also enhances the future probability of adoption since it has been noted that non-biological parent can offer the adequate contact comfort required by a child in the same proportion as the biological parent could (Harlow, 1958).
Attachment in Abusive Relationships
Surprisingly, research done by Rosenblun and Harlow, (1963) on abusive relationships where the child is abused by the parent, shows that in most cases, the abused child gets firmly attached and seems to love the abusive parent. Attachment being the strongest basic need, it largely outweighs the effect of punishment from the abusive parents.
The Impact of Social Contact and Attachment on Adults
Social contact and attachment also affect adults. Adults who experience a lack of social attachment in their everyday events find life more stressful and are at high risk of blood pressure, slow healing of injuries, and poor sleeping habits (Walters, 1965).
Skin-to-Skin Contact in Infant Development
Skin-to-skin contact plays a critical role in the survival and development of infants born prematurely. Physical attachment establishes the bond between the premature infant and the mother. The touch experience, especially from the mother, creates a strong bond between the two at an early stage, which gets stronger as the touch experience continues in the long run. This finding is essential when kept into consideration in hospitals taking care of premature infants at high risk. It is also crucial to balance an infant's need for attachment and physical contact and take measures to safeguard the baby from life-threatening infections (Feldman & Eidelman, 1998).
The Therapeutic Role of Touch
In touch therapies like therapeutic and acupressure, when the touch is intentional and accompanied by a great deal of attention and interest, it becomes a significant feature in therapy interaction. With appropriate use of touch therapy, psychotherapeutic interaction is enhanced. In addition, it is evident that touch leads to a reduction in corticosteroid, which is a steroid hormone involved in stress. The feeling of soft touch sends a message of compassion and security, which relieves anxiety and fear in both children and adults (Harlow, 1956).
The Role of Male Parents and Conclusion
In conclusion, it is cheering to view male parents as physically equipped with equal competence as female parents in rearing infants by creating a physical and psychological bond between them and children. In addition, a child's health is directly proportional to the physical contact experienced by the caregiver, not necessarily the biological parents. Love and bond created between a child and a parent are not mainly influenced by the provision of physiological needs such as food or quenching of thirst. The relationship is strongest where safety, security, and physical contact are evident. Close relationship through constant association is primarily basic in contrast to the providence of life-sustaining milk. Exploring against the common norm of food and water being the only needed components for survival, contact is equally important. Feeling loved is all you need.
References
Feldman. R., " Eidelman, A. (1998). Intervention programs for premature infants: How and do they affect development? Clinics in Perinatology, 25(3), 613-629.
Karen, R. (1994). Becoming attached: unfolding the mystery of the infant-mother bond and its impact on later life. New York: Warner Books.
Rosenblum, L. A., " Harlow, H. (1963). Approach-avoidance conflict in the mother surrogate situation. Psychological Reports, 12, 83-85.
Walters, R. H., " Parke, R. D. (1965). The Role of the Distance Receptors in the Development of Social Responsiveness. Advances in Child Development and Behavior Volume 2 Advances in Child Development and Behavior,2, 59-96. doi:10.1016/s0065-2407(08)60479-6..
