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Positive Adaptations in Development

Positive adaptations in human behavioral development are a legacy of our evolutionary biology. They appear early, are active throughout life, are social with a moral core, and contribute to our health.

A central definitional concept in development involves its increasingly organized complexity. As Heinz Werner (1890–1964) noted, development involves processes of differentiation (divisions into subsystems), integration (articulation of wholeness), and hierarchicalization (successive ordering of parts and wholes). Equally important, human development is social from its beginnings and throughout life—with its adaptive thrust of lines, steps, and exchanges, and with its increasing complexity and emergent creative functions—of necessity occurring with other human beings.

Learning From Infancy

Developmental scientists have come to appreciate the extent to which infants are preadapted for positive social affectivity. Infants are born wired for feelings with a readiness to learn and engage in social interactions with those who care for them. Infants meaningfully communicate with mothers, fathers, and others, through a variety of emotions that enable a sustaining sense of security and exploration in attachment relationships. Not surprisingly, from the viewpoint of positive adaptation, there are corresponding developmental processes in parents, which have been described as intuitive. These consist of relatively automatic procedural skills, based both on biology and the practices of culture, that are shown in particular rhythms of emotional communication and caring with babies—with ways of holding, gesturing, eye-to-eye contact, and motherese talk and loving engagement.

These universal adaptive functions reflect inborn proclivities from evolutionary biology. They are part of a developmental process, evident in early form in infants and in adult form with parents and caregivers. They are relational, involving practice, experience, and availability with significant others over time. Moreover, in line with the theme of positive adaptations, life-span core features of human morality have come to be recognized that are also evident in infancy. These features include reciprocity, empathy, and valuation. Like all moral systems, they rely on social responsiveness in some form of the golden rule; they rely on emotional communication and empathy, and they also rely on the internalization of values, standards, and rules about what is expectable and acceptable in the world. Reciprocity in infancy begins as a capacity and motivation for turn taking with mother and others. Reciprocity is also indicated by early forms of cooperation, with an infant sometimes completing the intended actions of another. Empathy and a concern for others have developmental origins in the infant’s emotional communications. The toddler when confronted by the distress of another may not only evidence distress but may engage in comforting, helping, or caring behavior directed toward the distressed other. Valuation also begins early as the infant seeks out the new to make it familiar. Valuation also includes expectations that are internalized about rules and the way the world should be, sometimes with a sense of distress when violations are encountered.

Regulation in Development

Early moral functions involving emotional connectedness with others cannot, of course, develop without nourishing regulation provided by parental interactions. Such interactions are typically positive, providing a sense of security and love, even in the midst of frustrations and challenges. Adaptive regulation is a vital aspect of the developmental process throughout life, and its dynamic features are continuous, operating to sustain functioning at multiple levels from cells to social behavior.

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