Untitled

98 CHARACTERISTICS OF BRAIN AND BEHAVIORcompletion of the exercise may be essential to assemble the structural elementsnot only of specific interpersonal relations but of abstract conceptualization in thecomplex interpersonal environment of adult life. Through the perspective gainedby the understanding of multiple intentionalities in interpersonal interaction, thesense of self gains increasing depth, such that the young person’s identity becomesarticulated with a degree of differentiation that can be grasped consciously, andthen used as a guide to frame the personal context of new interactions.The psychological operations of the dorsal limbic pathway, elaborated in theright hemisphere, support not only the grasp of context but an effective fusion ofself with world. Under modulation by the habituation bias and supported by theinherent positive mood, the actions of the dorsal pathway are projected directlyonto the world, and the perceptions are taken directly into the syncretic matrix ofthe limbic representation of self. This is the fundamental psychological orientationof childhood that is lost in early adolescence. If it is not replaced by effectivepeer attachment relations in adolescence, and/or balanced by successful individuationand effective independence, the effect can be devastating. For many people,the adolescent individuation is limited, such that mutuality of intentional perspectiveis only minimally achieved, and the result is a lifelong identification withauthority that precludes not only independent thought, but the full capacity forabstract reasoning (Harvey, Hunt, & Schroder, 1961).Just as the dialectical progression of new ideas in science requires an active,painful rejection of the old paradigm (Kuhn, 1996), the adolescent’s developmentof an adult personality may require a similar negation of the childhood self in orderto achieve a full dialectical reformulation (Piaget, 1971). There must be a rejectionof the assumptive matrix of childhood, not through a simple replacement byadult attitudes and values, but first through an active negation of that matrix. Thenew attachment relations of adulthood are then engaged with an effective mutualitythat can be perceived only from an autonomous perspective. The individuationof the self allows the successful adolescent to understand the other person asindividuated as well. When the juvenile orientation of fusion with authority ismaintained uncritically, the individuality of the other person cannot be graspedfully, leading to a concrete and undifferentiated attitude toward others as inanimate(unintentional) objects. Such an attitude is most apparent in the bias andprejudice toward those most foreign to the local culture, in other words, to thefamiliar values of the juvenile assumptive matrix.Societies of Adolescent BrainsPerhaps primarily because motives regulate memory consolidation, an analysisof brain systems may be essential to understand psychological development. Althoughthere may be ongoing transformations in adult development, none will