Quote:
Originally Posted by DwnWthVwls
It's really not emotionally devastating if you haven't developed the capacity to understand what's happening on an emotional level.
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This doesn't make sense. Understanding is higher level intellectual activity, dominant in neocortex - we are able to actually control and understand our emotions once we develop this equipment, but that doesn't mean emotions aren't there and don't influence behavior before we do.
Emotions are tied very stongly to the ancient parts of our brain that we share with reptiles. This is why conditioning and learning can occur at a young age (def younger than 2!), because it is guided by emotional correlates of punishment and reward. The system remembers patterns and their emotional consequences. It doesn't have to understand anything, it's just pattern recognition - a so called "easy problem" in brain science. If a parent becomes a regular part of a pattern involving punishment, the child will often adapt with aversion (lying and doing things behind the parents back) the same way they learn not to touch a stove when it's hot. They don't need to understand thermodynamics. they just know the visual pattern (a stove) has a negative consequences (owie).
So while the emotional equipment is definitely underdeveloped (and in fact, developing) that doesn't mean that it can't be affected by abusive behavior. On the contrary, during development is precisely when the system is most fragile (which is why it's supposed to be spent with a nurturing parent).
It's the same for dogs, they work on attachment, too... and positive reinforcement (reward) is more effective than punishment. I didn't mean to say that people should treat dogs like conditioning machines - I just feel like everyone thinks of pavlov's dog when they think of kids and argue that we should use these behavioral modification techniques on children.