Development and Vulnerability in Close Relationships
Development and Vulnerability in Close Relationships
Synopsis
Excerpt
Gil G. Noam
Kurt W. Fischer
How do people develop in their important relationships? How do two people come together to form a new, close relationship? How do relationships affect or determine who we are and who we become? These questions should be central to the study of development, but most researchers, at least in English-language communities, neglect these questions of relationship and focus instead on analyses of individuals, as if people were basically alone, with occasional brushes with other people.
Contrary to this individualist assumption, people are fundamentally social, and relationships are part of the fabric of being human. Social relationships, especially close ones, form an essential foundation for the development of human beings, molding each person's mind and behavior. Many of the most important classic works in social science, including psychology and philosophy, have recognized the foundational role of relationships, analyzing the social foundations of intelligence, morality, language, emotion, culture -- all the many parts of being human (Baldwin, 1894; Benedict, 1934; A. Freud, 1936/1955; S. Freud, 1909/1955; Mead, 1934; Sullivan, 1953; Wittgenstein, 1953).
Unfortunately, the middle of the 20th century saw replacement of the centrality of relationships with solipsistic individualism, which reduced the social nature of human development (Chomsky, 1986; Kohlberg, 1969; Piaget, 1983; Skinner, 1938). Each mind contained its own language, its own morality, its own logic, its own reinforcement history; and relationships with other people were at best ancillary. If relationships remained important, it was only as objects of contemplation for individuals consid-