The process of finding and making meaning is complex, nuanced, and multifaceted. Moreover, aspects of this process and its complexity change with development. Age by age, new capacities for meaning making emerge. Likewise, individual systems of meaning evolve based upon individual histories of experience. Still, throughout all of this development there are four features of meaning making that are pervasive. These will be themes carried throughout this book.

The first feature or theme is that humans are inherently motivated to seek meaning. No one has to be taught to seek meaning. Humans seek to find meaning in their experience from the first time they are able to make connections with the environment, and the striving for meaning continues throughout life. Seeking meaning and coherence is a preeminent human motivation

The second theme, which is quite closely related to the first, is that meaning making is an active process. Humans impose order on experience. Meaning is always an interaction between events and the people experiencing them.

The third theme concerns the dynamic or “transactional” nature of the development of meaning. Meaning is a product of experience; yet, at the same time, past meanings govern what kinds of experiences are sought, how they are interpreted, and what is extracted from them. This is a cyclical or reciprocal process that goes on throughout individual development.

Finally, fourth, the developmental process underlying meaning making is inextricably social. Comparative psychologist Michael Tomasello, in his marvelous book, Becoming Human (Reference Tomasello2019) and other writings, makes clear that human motivation for connection with others is what most distinguishes us from other animals. Other animals, especially primates, seek joint attention from partners for the purpose of meeting instrumental goals, but it seems that only humans seek joint attention simply in order to have shared experience. Our greatest adaptive advantage is that we evolved to share experience and to collaborate, even with those to whom we are not related (Wilson, Reference Wilson2019).

Meaning as an Inherent Human Motive and Active Process

How do we know that any characteristic is inherently human? Generally there are two lines of argument. The first is that it is universal. It is a characteristic that all humans across all cultures exhibit. The second argument is that it appears very early in life. Both of these criteria are met in the case of seeking meaning. We see signs of striving toward order from the very earliest days of life.

As one example, when researchers put awake and alert newborn infants in a completely darkened room, with absolutely no light, infrared cameras revealed an amazing thing – the infants continually scanned the black surround. There was nothing to be seen, but still they engaged. This is something that infants do universally. They seek to be engaged with the environment. No one has to teach them to do this. It is a stretch to assume that newborns are even capable of extracting meaning, as we would define it; yet such a built-in reflex to engage is a precursor of what we see age by age, as the individual moves from engagement to interest to curiosity and to the search for coherence.

Here is another example: Use a long ribbon to connect the foot of an 8-week-old infant to a mobile. When they kick their feet the mobile will turn. In just a matter of days or even hours they will learn to make the mobile move, and they will do so repeatedly. No one has to reward them for doing this (or even be present). The “reward” is simply in the connection between the infant’s activity and the reaction. There is an inherent interest in one’s world and an inherent desire to act upon it.

Toddlers in the early phases of language learning reveal another example of early meaning making. There is a common tendency for them to engage in what is called “crib speech.” When they awake from a nap, and no one is present, they frequently jabber away. They don’t simply make random sounds. In fact, they are playing with what they are just in the process of learning. They may repeat something like, “Ball, ball, yellow ball.” Or they may say, “Put this … up there” over and over. They are actively practicing – making sense out of – their language environment. Practicing is a tool for achieving mastery. It is again noteworthy that they do this in the complete absence of external reward.

Or consider the example of two parents pushing their toddlers in strollers from different directions. When they meet and pass by, both of the toddlers’ heads whip around as they look at each other. No one has to reward such activity. It is a part of a built-in interest in others “like them” they both have. Surely it is a beginning step in discovering the meaning of who they are.

A final example may be seen in the symbolic play of 3–5-year-olds. Especially in their solitary play, they routinely review and work through themes that are salient and challenging in their current lives. For instance, children in the midst of toilet training will frequently engage in play wherein they change the dolly’s diaper, scold the dolly for being wet, and so forth. And all child clinicians are aware of how conflicts with and between parents are acted out in myriad ways in a child’s play. Clearly, young children do this because it is one of the tools available to them to make experience meaningful and to thus explore and achieve some mastery in the world and their place in it. The main point here is that again no one needs to instruct or urge preschoolers to engage in this activity. In all cultures, children engage in symbolic play, recapitulating salient experiences.

Each of the examples here illustrates the active nature of meaning making. This is always the case. Consider the following scenario:

This example conveys something very important about the nature of meaning. Obviously, it is not the stimulus of the clown per se that leads to the pleasurable emotional reaction. It is the infant’s active interest and mental activity in this experience. The baby does not smile at the first presentation. So an infant at this young age is not smiling because it is a clown, or a toy giraffe, or any other novel object that you could choose. Clearly, the smile derives from the infant’s active involvement. After repeated study, the baby with effort can now recognize the clown as something familiar. The clown acquires meaning through this active engagement, and the smile is part of this acquired meaning. The pleasure derives from the infant’s active engagement and connection with the object. Finding pleasure in familiarity promotes further exploration of familiar objects. With repeated trials effort is no longer required. Engagement and connection, critical cores of meaning making, wane.

A somewhat related example is seen in toddler problem-solving tasks. When toddlers solve problems after some work, they frequently smile, again attesting to the meaningfulness of the activity. Most notably, the harder the problem is to solve, the bigger is the smile, as Jerome Kagan (Reference Kagan2013) noted in his study of toddlers. The more actively involved the toddler is, the greater their investment, and the more potent is the experience.

The inherent, active tendency to try to make experience meaningful is helpful in explaining much behavior that at first seems paradoxical. As just one example here, it is at first perplexing why young children, who are as mentally able as others, would repeatedly behave in ways at preschool that lead generally warm and supportive teachers to discipline them. There is, of course, the circular argument that they do such things to get attention. But why do they do it that way? A more helpful explanation is that they, like all others, are actively seeking to make this new world understandable. They have no choice about this, such is the nature of human motivation. And what they know from their experience is the behavior–punishment cycle. For them a nonpunitive response is ambiguous or confusing. It makes no sense when they act out and receive no negative response. When they in time hit on the behavior that leads to discipline, they are back in familiar, understandable territory, which gives them some sense of agency and control. The new world becomes coherent, at least to a degree.

The Dynamic Interplay of Meaning and Experience

Development is “cumulative.” Each phase of development builds upon what was there before. The issues and experiences of any given age are negotiated and processed based upon meanings derived from preceding history. These new experiences then become part of a new history that frames subsequent development. Because of the nature of development, there is a reciprocal relationship between meaning and experience, described by Arnold Sameroff in terms of a “transactional model” of development. Meaning is based on the history of experiences but meaning is also the core of what is internalized from any new experience and often drives what experiences are sought. An experience, in contrast to an event, is the personal meaning extracted by the individual. Over time individuals play an increasing role in what their experiences are, even though it is also the case that new experiences can change the organized network of meanings. This ongoing, dynamic interaction of meaning and experience is why early experience is so important. Those around the infant often largely determine first meanings. But soon, and increasingly with age, the child will actively seek and find meaning based on their individual history.

This cumulative, transactional nature of development also explains why therapeutic change can be difficult. Experiences are not just laid upon a person; they are in large part created by the person, as they have developed to that point. New relationships, including those with therapists, are seen through the lens of relationship history. Problems are seen through the lens of past experience confronting problems.

Mikel provides an example of the dynamic nature of development. In his early years Mikel experienced a very responsive environment, a kind we will describe more fully in the following chapters. Because of this responsiveness he developed positive expectations regarding himself, others, and relationships. Social encounters were seen as full of potential for enjoyment. Problems were seen as possibilities for mastery, either by himself or, if not, with aid he expected would be available from others. The meaning network he carried forward set him up well for the preschool and the early school years. His needs had been met before, so he expected the new adults in his world to be responsive as well. Partly because of these expectations, Mikel behaved in ways that in fact encouraged teachers and peers to like and support him, which led to deeper, positive social expectations. All was going well.

Then when he was 8-years-old, Mikel’s parents got divorced. This of course would be expected to impact Mikel’s meaning network, but by itself would not likely undermine the fundamental structure. The positive history would help him retain basic positive expectations about himself and others. However, this was an acrimonious divorce. Partly to punish his ex-wife, Mikel’s father moved away, taking Mikel’s older brother with him. This was enough to begin shaking Mikel’s foundation, leading to a complex picture. When we saw Mikel at age 10, he had become angry and “ready to fight someone.” Still, he had much of the self-confidence we had seen at earlier points, was doing well at school, and was popular with the other boys.

But things got worse. As he approached his teenage years, Mikel’s mother had become unduly reliant on him and he, we thought appropriately, had begun to push away. Then she suddenly died in a car accident. One can imagine the guilt he felt. On top of everything else this was too much. His view of the world and his place in it dramatically changed. He became depressed and uncommunicative and engaged in some antisocial behavior (although it is noteworthy that this never involved harming or threatening others). Other young people still liked him. They found that “underneath” he was a thoughtful and good person (see Chapter 8). But, from the outside, it seemed that the light had gone out, that he lost his belief in himself and his optimism about the future. Of great clinical significance he said in an interview at age 19 that the death of his mother only bothered him briefly, perhaps a matter of weeks. He could not accept how profoundly meaningful this loss was for him. We found this distancing from his feelings troubling but recognized that it might have been a necessary adaptation at this time to keep some of his historical meaning system intact.

Then, in his twenties, the situation improved. Mikel married a very supportive woman who, while complaining about his emotional guardedness, recognized a good heart. When interviewed at age 26, Mikel was much more open regarding his feelings about the losses he had experienced. When his son was born, he became a devoted and warm father, one of the best we observed. This and many cases we studied revealed the back and forth process between meaning and experience over time. We often saw that those with solid beginnings were able to capitalize on new opportunities – to reconnect with meanings from the past (see Chapter 11). This was certainly true for Mikel.

Systematic research has amply demonstrated these same transactional processes. Some of the most comprehensive work has been done by Grazyna Kochanska and her colleagues at the University of Iowa (e.g., Kochanska et al., Reference Kochanska, Boldt and Goffin2019). Measures in her early studies included toddler difficult temperament (including anger and other negative emotional reactions), parental coercive discipline, and later child noncompliance and other problems. She found, as others had before, that negative temperament predicted mother coercive behavior which in turn predicted poor child outcomes. The simple conclusion would be that difficult temperament causes harsh parenting and later problems. But she did not stop there. She showed that such a link was only true when there was an earlier history of infant–parent relationship problems; namely, an insecure attachment (see Chapter 4). When there was a secure attachment history, a difficult toddler temperament led to neither parental harsh discipline nor to later child problems. Her most recent work utilized measures of parent and child representation to explain these findings. What does it mean to a parent, for example, when a toddler behaves in a negative manner? How do they see this behavior? It seems that those parents whose infants have insecure attachments with them are “primed” to see even mild negativity as challenging and to react more negatively to it; that is, it means something more negative to them. Likewise, children with histories of insecure attachment expect their parents to react in negative ways and are therefore ready to escalate their negative behavior. Children with secure histories tend not to make such interpretations.

Another illustration of the transactional nature of development comes from the work of Michael MacKenzie and Susan McDonough (Reference MacKenzie, McDonough and Sameroff2009). They followed the development of a large number of children in the first 30 months of life. They had measures on both infants and their mothers. There were interview measures with the mothers, similar to those of Kochanska, and they measured the amount of crying and fussiness of the infants at ages 7- and 15-months. Then they measured broader aspects of toddler temperament and problem behavior at age 30 months. The results again demonstrated the importance of a longitudinal data base and a transactional view of development, because only the later measure of fussiness at age 15 months predicted 30-month behavior problems. If this had been the only information in the study one might have thought that inborn temperamental differences cause behavior problems. But, as we are seeing, development is more complex than this. The amount of crying at 7 months did not predict later behavior problems or even crying at 15 months. What did predict crying at 15 months and later problems was how the parents experienced the crying of the younger infants; that is how much the crying bothered them, what it meant to them. This had no relation to the actual amount of crying. It was related to a representational measure of the mothers that captured their expectations of themselves in close relationships. This finding is consistent with other work that showed what expecting mothers expected the temperament of their infants to be in fact predicted later “temperament” (Vaughn & Bost, Reference Vaughn, Bost, Cassidy and Shaver1999).

To summarize: The meaning that the parent brings forward from an integration of their own histories of experiences colors their reaction to their young infants crying. These parental reactions – what these infants experience from their parents when they cry – impact later infant behavior. Those infants, whose parents were most bothered by whatever degree of fussing the babies in fact did, cried more later and became more difficult toddlers. This is again the power of meaning, and in particular how meaning systems adults bring forward to their parenting provide the foundation for beginning meaning networks of the child.

The Social Embeddedness of Meaning

Humans are thoroughly social creatures. Meaning is created in social groups, from dyads to families to communities to society as a whole. As evolution scholar David Sloan Wilson (Reference Wilson2019) states in his book, This View of Life, “individuals are products of their social interactions.” What are often thought of as individual traits, such as our statures, our physical health, and our personalities, are “the result of social processes that stretch all the way back to when our distant ancestors were born if we take all evolutionary processes into account” (p. 146). We literally become ourselves through others (Vygotsky, Reference Vygotsky1978). It is in a social setting that one can work toward deeper and fuller understanding. We really can’t write our own story alone. We need others to listen, ask questions, and give feedback. That is how we grow.

Social context includes both the general motivation for connection built into our species, as well as processes that develop in the early months that lead to specific attachments. Beyond revealing the role of engagement and the integrated nature of meaning, studies of joy and fear in infancy reveal the incredible power of the social context in determining what events mean. Consider the following example: Someone puts on a colorful human-looking mask and slowly approaches within a few feet of a 10-month-old infant. What will the reaction be? Remarkably, the reaction can be anything from stark fear to joyous laughter. It completely depends on how this is done. If the infant gets to watch his or her parent put on the mask, and this takes place in the child’s home, smiling and laughter are by far the most common reaction. If an unfamiliar person dons the mask in an unfamiliar environment, wariness and fear are predominant and virtually certain if an attachment figure is not present.

It is even more complex than this. If the parent puts on the mask first, the infant is subsequently less wary when the stranger does it (and even may smile in the home). In contrast, if the stranger does it first, then parent, the child is less positive toward the parent (and even likely to be wary in the laboratory). Infants are less wary of the masked stranger if they are sitting on the parent’s lap, rather than when he or she is in plain view but a few feet away. Clearly, the meaning of this event is not in the mask but is a product of the infant’s context-based evaluation of the event. This is a potent situation, involving transformation of familiar and unfamiliar faces. It will engage all infants at this age. But the masked face has different meaning depending on who puts it on, where they put it on, and who puts it on first. When the infant feels secure, this level of arousal is pleasurable; when not feeling secure, it is distressing. Meaning does not lie simply in the objective qualities of an external stimulus or event, or even the amount of excitation it arouses, but in how it is appraised by the infant. This evaluation is largely a product of the social context.

This sensitivity to such aspects of context is itself a developmental outcome. Five-month-olds show none of this range of reactions. Regardless of who puts on the mask, or where it is done, they generally just look at it attentively; then they try to reach and grab it. It is pretty much like they no longer know (or care) who is behind the mask. But well before the end of the first year, all infants show this sensitivity to social context. Likewise, infants in the first few months of life rarely show wariness regarding strangers, but many do at some point in the second half-year. A 5-month-old may, after scrutinizing an unfamiliar face for some time, pucker and begin to cry. In contrast, if a stranger approaches a 10-month old in the laboratory, many are rather quickly wary. Moreover, if the stranger leaves and comes in a second time, these older babies immediately have a negative reaction, even before the approach. The situation has changed from not-knowing-if-I-like-this, to I-know-what-this-is-and-I-don’t-like-it. The situation has quite specific meaning.

These observations have profound implications. By the end of the first year, the emotional experiences of infants – the meanings of events encountered – are heavily influenced by the surrounding environment, especially social relationships. In many ways, infants are more dependent on external supports than we are as adults. This is because they have less cumulative experience, fewer cognitive capacities, and very limited capacities to fend for themselves. Whether something is threatening, benign, or delightful depends on how comfortable the infant feels in the situation. And it is clear that the dominant source of this comfort is the presence and behavior of caregivers.

The critical role of caregivers in meaning making was amply demonstrated in past studies of what was referred to as “social referencing.” In the second year of life, toddlers often look to parents for cues about how to interpret situations. The caregiver’s facial expression and voice tone can be used as a guide as to whether something is dangerous or benign, especially in situations that are ambiguous. In one telling study, 15-month-olds were presented with toys that were pleasant, frightening, or ambiguous while in the presence of their mothers (Gunnar & Stone, Reference Gunnar and Stone1984). The mothers were instructed to present a smiling face or a neutral expression in each case. It turned out that this expression did not matter in the case of the pleasant toy or the frightening toy. The toddlers readily grasp the meaning of these, without recourse to maternal cues. They engaged the cuddly toy and shrank back from the frightening toy. It was in the ambiguous situation that they looked to the mother. Those whose mothers were smiling and nodding much more readily engaged and played with the ambiguous toy. This toy meant something different to them than it did to the toddlers whose mothers showed a neutral expression. It remained ambiguous. Other studies showed that a frightened face on the mother inhibited toddler behavior.

Social context, of course, also includes the infant’s history, both recent and distant. Infants recently receiving shots at a doctor’s office may be more wary in a research lab, even before any procedure. Beyond such particular experiences, the cumulative history of interaction with caregivers plays a critical role. When caregivers are reliable and responsive to infant signals, infants learn over time to have confidence in caregiver availability. They are more readily reassured by the caregiver’s presence. When some threat arises, often a look and reassuring nod by the caregiver is all that is needed to change the meaning of the event. More extreme threat, of course, requires physical contact, but such contact is readily reassuring if there is a history of responsive care. What is perceived as threatening, and the degree of threat experienced are in a substantial way influenced by the interactive history between infants and caregivers.

For many infants, by the end of the first year, the presence of the attachment figure means that most situations are safe. Moreover, infants who have experienced reliable responsiveness to their signals of need – those we refer to as secure in their attachment – have a different sense of themselves and their relationship. They know that, if threatened, they can effectively take action and that they can count on the attachment figure to respond (see Chapter 4). This is the core of the network of interpersonal relational meanings that will develop in the following years. To draw upon an idea proposed by Iris Murdoch (Reference Murdoch1978), we in fact learn to love by being loved.

Acknowledging Culture

This book is focused on the development of individual meaning systems in relationships, primarily within Western, industrialized culture. The impact of culture is outside of its purview. Still, it must be noted that culture has a huge impact on the meaning systems of human groups. Culture, including variations in religion, has a major impact on how humans prioritize activities and events, how they perceive problems and formulate solutions. Culture at all levels, from family to society, is the basis for shared, abstract meanings.

Culture is part of individual inheritance. In modern evolutionary views of the development of the person, it is now well known that information in genes that is passed from parents to children is only one part of the story. It is indeed complicated. Even the impact of genes is impacted by epigenetic factors, including the way in which experience influences gene expression. Beyond all of this, however, more than the human organism has evolved. As explained by David Sloan Wilson (Reference Wilson2019), evolution works at multiple levels, from individuals to groups to human culture itself. There is intergenerational transmission of genetic material and intergenerational transmission of cultural practices. In particular, Wilson states that “meaning systems” are the carriers of culture from one generation to the next.

A classic book by Michael Cole and colleagues (Reference Cole, Gay, Glick and Sharp1971), titled The Cultural Context of Learning and Thinking, illustrates the huge impact of culture on meaning, as well as providing a warning against making value judgments regarding unfamiliar cultures. When young children and adults (Ivy League college students) in the United States were compared in their manner of classifying objects, it was noted that the college students grouped the objects categorically (for example, all of the foods in one category, all the utensils in another), whereas the young children grouped them “functionally”; that is, put a spoon, a bowl, and a fruit together, because you would eat the fruit with the spoon. Because tribal members in a non-industrialized community sorted the way the children did, some had argued that their thinking was therefore “primitive.” However, Cole and colleagues did something brilliant – they asked the tribal members why they grouped objects the way they did. The tribal members responded, “because that is the way a wise man would do it.” OK, so how then would a foolish man do it? They would group the objects by category. Of course they had the same cognitive equipment as the American college students. Their culture simply led them to prioritize some ways of approaching problems. Psychologists and anthropologists have provided many such examples.

Culture is unquestionably critical in shaping meaning systems of groups and subgroups of humans. A system of morality is created in culture. Consider the prioritizing of intent that arises in the moral judgments of elementary school children. Major developmental theories consider this a normative cognitive achievement. When, for example, middle class children in Western countries are asked whether it is worse to break one dish trying to retrieve a prohibited cookie from a shelf or six dishes trying to set a table as a nice surprise for your mother, they typically say the first is worse, because of the child’s intention. Children in a poor, rural Mexican village were found to say the latter is worse. This is not because of a limitation in cognitive development, but because of the meaning of these events in this cultural context. The loss of that many dishes in the context of poverty would mean great economic hardship. The premium on caring for these precious possessions is far greater.

Culturally based prioritization can also appear in cross-cultural studies of self-development. Individuals in all cultural groups of course have all of the same emotional capacities and the common abilities for self-awareness, reflections on the self, and what can be called self-esteem. But what is given priority in self-evaluations may vary, often in terms of a dimension of independence–interdependence. In some cultures individual achievement and success have greater priority, while in others service to others plays a greater role in self-esteem (Marcus & Kitayama, Reference Markus and Kitayama2010).

Things reported in this book would be at times expected to operate somewhat differently in different cultural contexts, and this needs to be acknowledged. At the same time, studies have shown that many of the findings are robust across cultural groups (Gojman-de-Millan et al., Reference Gojman-de-Millan, Herreman and Sroufe2017).

The Place of Meaning

The concept of meaning is absolutely critical for our understanding of individual development. A focus on meaning sheds light on why various emotions emerge when they do and why they are expressed when they are; how experiences at one age provide the foundation for the child’s adaptation at the next; how early primary relationships influence development as they do; why maladaptive behavior is perpetuated; and what happens to earlier experience following developmental change. Meaning allows researchers to define the essential core of child functioning at each age. Therefore, it guides assessment strategies and informs the construction of measures. Without the focus on meaning, the task of defining continuity in individual development floundered. With a focus on meaning, powerful demonstrations became possible, as will be documented in subsequent chapters.

Understanding the development of meaning and meaning making also helps us understand variations in adult functioning and sheds light on many important clinical phenomena. Thus, it is a key in explaining why some individuals struggle with the basic nature of reality, why others so chronically feel threatened in objectively safe circumstances, why early experience is so powerful in shaping personality, why therapeutic change can be so difficult, how change is nonetheless accomplished, and why some are more resilient than others.

These are all matters we will consider in this book. From cradle to grave, making meaning is a prime human motive. In the following pages we will share what is being discovered about the role of meaning in the developmental process, age by age. We begin in infancy.