{"id":2018,"date":"2023-09-06T19:53:13","date_gmt":"2023-09-06T19:53:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/illuminated-text.com\/cb\/?p=2018"},"modified":"2023-12-06T14:15:19","modified_gmt":"2023-12-06T14:15:19","slug":"attachment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/illuminated-text.com\/cb\/attachment\/","title":{"rendered":"Attachment"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

(image credit<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This chapter on ‘self’ is ultimately about many of the strong feelings that we have about products. So let’s start by reviewing what we already know about liking them (most of CB is about liking, but not all of it#up).<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
#down. Do we really buy things we don't like? Ask anyone who owns insurance, or a mouse trap. But do we really care about products we don't like? Ask a teenager about music genres they don't like, and be prepared for strong opinions about how terrible the people who do like it are. This, all, is a part of CB<\/pre>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n
What we know about liking<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
We consider many brands to be helpful, useful, pleasing, fun, thirst-quenching, or otherwise providers of some valuable core benefit. That seems like a pretty good reason to like something, right? What other reason could there be?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Maybe because it is… nice to touch? Eh, that’s just another core benefit. Everything is a core benefit! <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Well! Once again we seem to have our chapter all wrapped up inside its first few paragraphs. Heavens, we are good at this!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Let us move on, then, as is becoming our tradition, to unrelated fun things. Here, look, here is a totally adorable photo:<\/p>\n\n\n
\n
\"Man
(credit<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
Aww! <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Just to pass the time, let’s map out the positive associations that this baby presumably has for its dad#up.<\/p>\n\n\n
\n
#down. Or any other primary caregivier; Caring is caring<\/pre>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n
Maybe, something like this:<\/p>\n\n\n
\n
\"Same
Baby’s associations<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
Who wouldn’t like someone like that?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And what happens if dad puts baby down, and leaves the room for a few minutes?<\/p>\n\n\n
\n
\"Baby
Oh dear!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
Hold on a minute here. This is not just feeling a bit miffed because an object with positive associations is temporarily out of reach. This is not how we react when we run out of hot chocolate mix. It’s more than that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Thinking about it a bit more deeply, a baby can probably manage without cuddles and dinner for a few minutes, but a baby cannot survive long at all without a caregiver making sure that their physical, emotional, and safety needs are met. So those positive traits we mapped onto dad above weren’t wrong… but they weren’t the whole story either. We could also draw something like this:<\/p>\n\n\n
\n
\"Same
Baby’s attachment<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
Those are positive thoughts too, but they are more than just positive. Dad is integral to baby – he feeds baby when it is hungry, he helps baby get to sleep when it’s tired, and he soothes it when it is scared (and babies can get scared a lot because everything in the world is new to them). <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The first few months of our lives are where we draw important lessons about whether the world is a safe place or a scary one, whether it is a helpful place or an isolating one, or if it is a place of plenty or of struggle. Those answers stick with us for the rest of our lives, and can be very difficult to shake – and our caretakers are the ones who build them into us by the way they look after us: feed us, respond to us, cuddle us, make us feel safe and welcome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
General interest tangent: attachment styles<\/h5>
\n
This isn’t really about CB, but for those who are interested it’s a useful insight into people we may know (and possibly ourselves), so here it is for your optional reading enlightenment:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
These lessons we learn at a very young age about whether the world is safe or not can set a foundation for how we understand relationships over the rest of our lives. Psychologists see it as typically playing out as one of these three patterns. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
We’ll even try to connect each pattern to a pop song or two that looks at a distressed relationship through the lens of each pattern (because this seems like a fun idea, and life should have more fun ideas in it).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There is a “secure”<\/strong> attachment pattern in which people appear to have internalized that the various close others in our lives are generally supportive and reliable, that it is safe to form connections with them, and that it is typically safe try to repair connections when things go wrong. That doesn’t mean that all relationships will work, or can be repaired, it just means that you can feel relatively safe in trying to do these things. (pop song<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There is an “avoidant<\/strong>” attachment pattern in which people internalize that others are fundamentally unreliable, and so it is best to never have to depend on them. When signs of trouble appear (“perhaps they are angry at me? Perhaps I am angry at them?”), the safest thing is to retreat, disengage, and step away. This is considered maladaptive because loving trusting caring relationships are really helpful for humans, and this tends to cut them short before trust can be tested enough to develop. It’s hard to learn to trust when you never give anyone a chance (and yes, trust means the possibility of being hurt – risk and reward being unavoidable bedfellows in this aspect of the human experience). (pop song<\/a>, or a different one<\/a> that mixes in coping through hedonism and materialism) <\/p>\n\n\n\n
There is also an “anxious-ambivalent<\/strong>” attachment pattern in which people internalize that they are fundamentally unworthy of other people’s attentions. This pattern alternates with being highly motivated to connect with others (to the point that it can feel clingy), but combining this with a fear that they will soon be ‘found out’ – that the other will eventually see through and reject them. When signs of trouble appear they can very quickly see this as confirmation that they are about to be left and get scared. If their partner returns they can feel angry (“why do you keep putting me through this!”). Again, this is seen as a maladaptive pattern. (pop song<\/a> with, due warning, some cuss words).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some psychologists argue there’s also a “disorganized” pattern that is a combination of anxious and avoidant, but that’s quite enough for us today on this topic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
An important thing to note about attachment styles is that while they can tend to be stubbornly persistent across our lives, there is evidence that they can change with long-term work and patience, so our fates on such matters are not fixed!<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
In a very real way babies are not fully separate than their caretakers. If we were to draw it, it might look like this:<\/p>\n\n\n
\n
\"There's<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
Did you know: this may explain part of why teenagers are so cranky<\/h5>
\n
You probably think that you are at least somewhat cool. Heck, you are cool#up!<\/p>\n\n\n
\n
#down. We believe in ya, champ<\/pre>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n
But. If you acquire children of your own (someday, somehow, in some way), then someday those children will become teenagers#up. And when that happens, they will probably believe (to some variable degree of sincerity) that you are the least cool person on the planet. There’s a good chance that they will regard your very existence as an abject personal humiliation, and demand that you drop them off around a corner so that none of their friends will witness their connection to you. <\/p>\n\n\n
\n
#down. And if you're already there, then you know what we are talking about. Hang in there, champ<\/pre>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n
Ok, it’s not always so bad, but it really can be. The question is why?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Because when they were little, you were their whole world. You fed and sustained them, taught them right from wrong, and safe from unsafe. But in their teenage years, their mission (their life task, if you will) is to become their own person who can stand on their own two feet. Part of this process can involve pushing their parents away, to make room to grow into.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Don’t worry though, the good news is that it’s not as personal as it feels and that they usually figure it out by their early 20s, calming right back down into normal friendly humans who are comfortable with the thought that their parents are people too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But really, go call your mum (if you can). She misses you.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
But grown-ups don’t do this<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Are you quite sure they don’t?<\/p>\n\n\n
\n
\"A
We can’t find the origin of this image (this<\/a> is as close as we got). Leave a comment at the bottom of this page if you know who to credit<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
Grown-ups aren’t as helpless as babies (contrary to the opinions of some spouses#up). But, yes, we do absorb people and things into ourselves – to at least some extent. We’ll talk about this much more in one of our future organising principles. For now, though, let us tell you about a pretty interesting research study.<\/p>\n\n\n
\n
#down. To be fair this is just a stereotype, married people don't think this is about each other. Or at least, not the ones likely to stay married<\/pre>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n
Park et. al. <\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The authors of this study took asked a whole big bunch of people how they felt about Nike, and how they behaved towards that brand. Put it like that and it sounds like a deeply conventional (even boring) marketing study; It turns out lots of people like a popular brand of shoes. Who knew. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
What makes this study interesting, though, is that it did two unusual things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The first is that it didn’t only measure people’s attitudes towards Nike (i.e., how much they liked it), but also how attached they were to it (i.e., how much belonging they felt towards it). <\/p>\n\n\n\n
So you can see what that looked like, here are some of the questions they used:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For attitude <\/strong>towards Nike they asked people to rate whether they agreed or disagreed (using a scale from +5 to -5) with statements like the following:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    \n
  1. Nike is: good (+5) vs. bad (-5)<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. positive (+5) vs. negative (-5)<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. I like it (+ 5) vs. dislike it (-5)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n
    For attachment <\/strong>to Nike they asked people to rate how much agreed with statements that looked like this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
      \n
    1. \u201cTo what extent do you feel that you are personally connected to Nike?\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    2. \u201cTo what extent is Nike part of you and who you are?\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n
      As you can imagine, people didn’t always give the same answer to both sets of questions. Just because they liked it didn’t necessarily mean that they always felt personally connected to it (though some people did). That difference in people’s responses gives us some evidence that these two ideas (attitude and attachment) really are different things. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
      That’s comforting. On its own, though, it is only a little bit interesting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
      The key to unlocking their even more interesting findings lay in the second thing they did, which was to ask about a wide variety of different ways that people might behave towards Nike.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
      Some of those behaviours were relatively “easy<\/strong>“. For instance:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
        \n
      1. \u201cUsing products with a Nike logo,\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n
      2. \u201cRecommending Nike to others,\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n
      3. \u201cBuying Nike shoes for oneself\u201d,<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n
        Those aren’t ‘easy’ in the same way that scratching your nose is. Basically, though, they only involve being willing to admit that you will engage with Nike when it is personally convenient to do so. If your old shoes wear out, and you try on a few affordable options at the local shop, and you are willing to include Nike among your options, then congratulations, you can answer affirmatively about “buying Nike shoes for oneself”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
        Compare that to these examples of “hard<\/strong>” behaviours that they also asked about:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
          \n
        1. \u201cAlways buying the new model,\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n
        2. \u201cSpending money, time and energy to promote Nike,\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n
        3. \u201cWaiting to buy Nike vs. buying an alternative brand\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n
          Those require sustained dedication to consistently spending money on Nike, and also time and effort. Here people are agreeing that they will go to some trouble to buy Nike wear exclusively, and that they will go considerably out of their way to tell other people good things about Nike. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
          In short, the easy behaviours were about being willing to include Nike in the normal flow of your shopping activity, whereas the hard behaviours are about making a significant investment of your resources into Nike. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
          There’s an obvious question here: Why would anyone be willing to do those hard behaviours if they weren’t already the CEO of Nike (or perhaps owned a lot of Nike stock)? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
          Sure enough, people who reported liking Nike (i.e., having a positive attitude towards it) reported being fairly willing to do the easy behaviours, but not so much the difficult ones. This makes perfect sense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
          The part where it gets really interesting, though, was the people who reported feeling an attachment to Nike. They reported being willing to do the easy behaviours, of course, but also the hard ones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
          They didn’t work for Nike, but somehow they were willing to spend significant time and money on the brand, going out of their way to promote it to others, and to avoid competitor products.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
          The raw mystery of it…<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
          What we see in this study is a bunch of fully grown adults who (we are fairly sure) do not depend on Nike for their every meal, nor for cuddles at night to help get them to sleep. And yet, some of these grown-ups report feeling attached to Nike to the point that they are willing to do some fairly extreme things for the financial interest of that brand. And they feel this way towards – we can’t emphasize this strongly enough – a brand that does not feed, bathe, cuddle, nor otherwise nurture them#up.<\/p>\n\n\n
          \n
          #down. To be fair, it may clothe them - for a price<\/pre>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n
          But why? What human reason could there be for them to feel this way?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
          Once you start asking this question, others suggest themselves too: If they will do this for Nike, will they also do this for other brands as well? Do humans get attached to anything at random? Is this attachment some weird form of mental velcro that gets snagged on things in the normal course of our lives? Does it only happen to certain specific kinds of things? For specific kinds of reasons?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
          So what now?<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
          The next two principles are attempts to answer some of these questions. See you there!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
          Are we done already?<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
          Yep. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
          Don’t worry, the next two are much longer :)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
          Review<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
          {pods_post_review}<\/p>\n\n\n\n
          \n\n\n\n
          \r\n\t\t{4193465:WV6FNZKR}<\/span>\r\n\t\tapa<\/span>\r\n\t\tcreator<\/span>\r\n\t\tasc<\/span>\r\n\t\t<\/span>\r\n\t\t<\/span>\r\n\t\t<\/span>\r\n\t\t<\/span>\r\n\t\t<\/span>\r\n\t\t<\/span>\r\n\t\t<\/span>\r\n\t\t<\/span>\r\n\t\t<\/span>\r\n\t\t0<\/span>\r\n\t\t<\/span>\r\n\t\t2018<\/span>
          \n
          <\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
          What is closer to us than just liking?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2121,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"chapter":[14],"exclude_from_index":[16],"class_list":["post-2018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","chapter-4-self","exclude_from_index-include"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/illuminated-text.com\/cb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/illuminated-text.com\/cb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/illuminated-text.com\/cb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/illuminated-text.com\/cb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/illuminated-text.com\/cb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2018"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/illuminated-text.com\/cb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2018\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3175,"href":"https:\/\/illuminated-text.com\/cb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2018\/revisions\/3175"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/illuminated-text.com\/cb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/illuminated-text.com\/cb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/illuminated-text.com\/cb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/illuminated-text.com\/cb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2018"},{"taxonomy":"chapter","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/illuminated-text.com\/cb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/chapter?post=2018"},{"taxonomy":"exclude_from_index","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/illuminated-text.com\/cb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/exclude_from_index?post=2018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}