----- Original Message ----- From: "Keith Henson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <[email protected]> Sent: Monday, May 02, 2005 3:11 AM Subject: Re: Co-dependency
> At 10:26 PM 01/05/05 -0500, Dan Minette wrote: > > >----- Original Message ----- > >From: "Keith Henson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > >To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <[email protected]> > >Sent: Sunday, May 01, 2005 9:59 PM > >Subject: Re: Co-dependency > > > > > > > At 09:37 PM 01/05/05 -0500, Dan Minette wrote: > > > > > > snip > > > > > > >With all due respect, Keith, how familiar are you with the literature on > > > >abusers returning to their spouse? I understand why you want to explain > > > >everything in terms of evolutionary psychology, but I tend to be biased > > > >more towards experimental studies than broad theoretical statements. > > > > > > I was rather up on this area of study a few years ago. > > > > > Are you aware of any studies that don't support this EP model? > > > >Sure. There are a number of things that don't support this. First, there > >is a pattern of repeatedly finding spouses that are abusive. After > >divorcing an abusive spouse, an abused woman is more likely than the > >average woman to find another abuser. With the Stockhome syndrome, getting > >the woman out of the position where the man has power over her should lead > >to as low a level of still supporting the kidnapper months after being > >freed. Are there instances of them asking to be reunited with the > >kidnappers months after they are free? This happens quite frequently with > >abusers. I think that family dynamics and a co-dependant family of origin > >are much better explainations for this behavior. > > Have you read the original story of the bank robbery where the syndrome got > its name? Indeed, one of the women broke her engagement and tried to marry > one of the bank robbers. OK, there are instances, so the event rate isn't zero. But, if we look at a number of places where the syndrome is said to take place, such as in concentration camps, hijackings, prisons, I don't think we would see it anywhere near as prevalant as we do with battered spouses. About half of the battered spouses return to the abuser as they leave the shelter. > Incidentally, none of your examples provides an alternate theory of how > such psychological traits evolved. "Co-dependant" just does not have > biological/evolutionary roots where you can understand the origin of the > behavior. Well, it depends on what you you want. If you start with the idea that you must explain everything by expressing it in terms of the behavior of proto-humans as they evolve into humans, and how certain traits were genetically selected for, then no. But, that isn't science. Science simply provides models and predictions for observables. It does not require that biology make intuative sense when one is thinking about electromagnetic potential. It's not that there isn't a tie; it's that it is complex enough so simple general rules of thumb obtained at the atomic level need not apply at the level of organisms. If you want an explaination in terms of biologically selected traits; I think the answer is fairly simple, but it leads to complex systems. Humans have been selected for a tremendous ability to learn and adapt. In particular, humans learn a great deal during their childhood. If this were right, family of origin issues are crucial when understanding human behavior. And, we find this is true, that almost everyone's behavior, especially in their own initmate surroundings, is tied to the norm of their family of origin. > Evolutionary psychology, by considering the environment of primitive people > where women were captured back and forth between tribes for millions of > years cleanly accounts for capture-bonding as an essential survival > trait. That is speculation. We don't know what proto-human societies were like. We have some extremely limited knowledge of present day hunter-gatherer societies (but those societies are so small, it's hard to understand if they are anomolies or normative. Native American societies might have provides some examples, but since there were a wide range of types of societies in North America (including farmer/hunter hybrids) and since vast organized civilizations had existed here, and since good studies were not done before the societies were changed through interaction with Europeans, we can only gather some information here. In terms of Western European society, the furthest back that I can see, in terms of the development from pre-humans to human hunter/gatherer to nomad/animal herders to agricultural civilizations the rules of the second society given in contrast to what may have applied to the first society. As a result, the nature of older societies is somewhat of a blank slate...and people tend to put on it what they expect; not what the data lead them to believe. Going back in history, we can piece together a good deal about the nature of Greek and Roman societies. We can gain a great deal of understanding about the socieity nomadic Israelites from scripture. We can do a far poorer job understanding the details of the Egyptian society before, say, 1000 BCE. (We may be able to go further back in India and China, but I'm not as well read in those areas, so I won't speculate). We have no writings, songs, oral tradition, etc. that we know comes from >10,000 years ago. We can speculate from cave paintings, findings of bones, etc., but the canvas is mostly blank when we consider societies before 10,000 BCE. There is a tremendous temptation for anybody to extrapolate from a small amount of information to fill the canvas as they "know" it must be filled. > >Actually, my wife did her master's thesis on the issue of relative power > >and the probability that an abused women returns to her abuser. > > That's not an experiment where the experimental procedure induces > capture-bonding by confinement and abusive treatment. > > Fortunately. > Except, I've read claims that this was capture-bonding by folks I think were evolutionary biologists and evolutionary psychologists. If one wants a simple, arm waving explanation for the Stockholm syndrome, I think triggering coping mechanisms for dealing with people with total control over one that are learned in childhood is a much simpler explanation than a capture-bonding genetic predisposition. Dan M. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
