and her presence creates a sense of safeness and calmness which will allow exploration, as well
as sleep
And of course we know that when we are distressed and turn to others from whom we
receive kindness – this calms us down. So basically kindness tends to be calming rather than
exciting.
From an evolutionary point of view, the shift from reptiles to mammals was to bring a complete
change in social relating such that mammals found ways of staying close to each other in many
domains of relating. This meant they had to evolve mechanisms for feeling safe and calm with
each other and hence the signals they were sending each other were stimulating brain systems
involved with calming (hence the social mentality was affiliative). This would be in contrast to
signals that stimulated threat when in close proximity to
each other and that required regulation of the fight/flight threat systems
. This is particularly
noted in:
1. the mammalian attachment system whereby a mother provides a safe place and point of
stress reduction (e.g., through physical closeness and comfort the mother calms the infants).
Important too, mothers are attentive to distress calls and will react to them with caring and
protective behaviour. This may be the beginning of the evolution of sensitivity to distress and
motivation to do something about it.
2. as mammals, and particularly humans, move into adolescence and sexual maturity they tend
to turn to peers for sources of relating, enjoyment and safeness. Cooperation and alliance
building grow
The formation of friendships and mutual support networks become important
and liking, trusting and sharing create feelings of social safeness and calming. Indeed, feeling
socially safe and connected is a more powerful predictor of mental health than positive affect
or social support
There is increasing evidence that particular kinds of physiological systems underpin the experience
of affiliative positive affect and sense of safeness in social relationships. Porges
suggests the
importance of the evolution of the myelinated parasympathetic nervous system, which facilitated
the regulation of threat and enabled the evolution of close and affiliative/loving relationships. In
addition, particularly important is the neurohormone oxytocin (see also
in this volume).
It is now known that oxytocin is important in long-term pair bonding, development of trust and
liking, it facilitates mentalising and theory of mind, and the stress buffering effects of affiliative
support (for a review see MacDonald and MacDonald
). So to cut a long story short we can
distinguish between three different types of functional emotional systems which are qualitatively
and experiential distinct:
•
Threat and self-protection focused systems
– enable detecting, attending, processing, and
responding to threats. There is a menu of threat-based emotions such as anger, anxiety and
disgust, and a menu of defensive behaviours such as fight, flight, submission, freeze etc.
•
Drive, seeking and acquisition focused system
– enable the paying of attention to
advantageous resources, and with some degree of ‘activation’ – an experience of excitement
and pleasure in pursuing and securing them; the positive feelings from doing an
achieving/winning.
•
Contentment, soothing and affiliative focused system
– enable a state of peacefulness and
openness when individuals are no longer threat focused or seeking resources – but are
satisfied. These are also linked to feelings of well-being. Over evolutionary time, this system of
calming has been adapted for many functions – the most important for the understanding of
compassion is that of attachment, caring and affiliative behaviour. The system is linked to the
endorphin-oxytocin systems which function is to promote trust and affiliative behaviour.
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