this is a film about the science of
attachment more precisely a film about
yees jackdaws a scientist called
Konrad Lorenz and your love life Konrad
Lorenz who was born in 1903 and died in
1989 was an Austrian ornithologist and
zoologist who spent most of his adult
life in marshes and wetlands studying
the behavior of greylag geese and
jackdaws what particularly interested
him was how these birds seemed to
develop an attachment to their mother
from within a few minutes of their birth
following dutifully behind her and
obeying her guidance in matters of
sheltering and feeding his observations
led him to develop what is known as the
principle of imprinting a theory about
the way in which new defocus birds that
is birds that leave their nests just
after hatching grow to develop an
instinctive and rapid bond with maternal
figures but what Lorenz discovered in
his research was that contrary to
centuries of thinking birds like greylag
geese and jackdaws do not necessarily
develop an attachment to their real
mother they develop an attachment to the
first moving object that they lay eyes
on within hours of hatching they aren't
able to discriminate in any
sophisticated way about who they form an
attachment to it might be a kindly
maternal bird but it could also be an
indifferent farmer or a random piece of
agricultural machinery rather cruelly
but illuminating Leigh Lorenz showed
that a young bird can depending on the
experiment develop an extremely powerful
attachment to a scientist in wellington
boots a bicycle a tire a garden hose or
a mannequin Lawrence's most famous book
the companion in the environment of
birds published in 1935 talked
exclusively of winged creatures but it
was seized upon by psychologists
reflecting on human behavior
and used to shed light on a particularly
painful phenomenon of our love lives our
tendency to seek out and trot obediently
behind other humans who may not all
things considered be in any substantial
way fitting or appropriate for us just
like young birds young humans develop
powerful attachments to the adults who
are closest to them in their early years
yet also rather like birds they are
unable to discriminate very well between
caregivers they latch on to who is
around not what their deeper nature
would ideally call for they can at the
most extreme develop attachments to
people who don't deserve their love at
all who are as it were as relevant to
their needs as a bicycle is to a goose
an infant might not actually become
attached to a tire but they might in a
comparable process grow powerfully
impressed by someone who neglects them
emotionally who belittles them who makes
them feel ashamed and visits
considerable cruelty upon them far worse
this early imprinting then has the power
to govern the sort of lovers who these
people once they're grown find
themselves growing attached to in turn
with some of the same sort of almost
laughable impression ability evinced by
baby jackdaws trotting behind a
scientist in a lab coat a human who's
been imprinted with unhelpful ideas
about who should give them care and
nurture may spend decades devoting
themselves to the most inappropriate and
callous figures it seems via Lawrence's
work that our biological makeup
privileges attachment to anyone over
attachment to someone able to fulfill
our needs we are sometimes puzzled by
how frequently we find ourselves in love
with people whom we know at a rational
level are not going to be too good for
us but who mirror the disturbing
patterns of our attachments from early
childhood the process may seem deeply
dispiriting but Lawrence's work opens up
an avenue of compassion we may be a
great deal more sophisticated than
birds in our mental processes but when
it comes to whom we are drawn to
we're prey to some of the same
mechanical illogicality as they it can
take years and a lot of work to realize
that we are imprinted to follow fools
and ingrates
when we trot without question behind a
person who treats us coldly or plays
with our mind we shouldn't merely hate
ourselves we should reflect on how much
this unfulfilling adult mirrors an early
attachment figure who indirectly mocked
who we were before we had a chance to
understand ourselves and what we
deserved it is no insult to recognize
that we are sometimes in intimate areas
of our lives as helpless before the
workings of imprinting as a goose and
yet as always it is by realizing our
servitude that we have a chance to break
free from it we are not compelled to
follow incessantly behind someone
unworthy of our love we are as young
birds are not free to take off and seek
out someone better able to deliver in an
adult form the generous and
life-enhancing love that we should have
known from the first to learn more about
love try a book on how to find love
which explains why we have the types we
do and how our early experiences shape
how and whom we love