Kagan called “highly reactive.”
At about two months the behavioral-activation system becomes functional. Now you showed an interest in new things in case they might satisfy your needs. Along with that came a new feeling—anger and frustration when you did not get what you wanted. So positive emotions and anger were possible, and how much you felt them depended on the strength of your activation system. Rob, having both systems strong, became an easily angered baby. But sensitive babies with a low activation system would be placid and “good” at this age.
At six months your superior automatic pause-to-check system came on line. You could compare present experiences with those of the past, and if the present ones were upsetting, as those in the past, you would experience fear. But again, you saw more subtle differences in each experience. For you there was more that was unfamiliar and possibly frightening.
At this point, six months, every experience becomes very important for HSPs. One can see how a few bad experiences when approaching new things could turn the pause-to-check system into a pause-and-do-nothing system, a true inhibition system. The best way to avoid bad things would seem to be avoiding everything. And, of course, the more the world is avoided, the newer everything will seem. Imagine how frightening the world could have seemed to you.
Finally, around ten months, you began to develop the ability to shift your attention, to decide how to experience something, or to stop a behavior. Only at this point could you start to handle conflicts between the two systems. A conflict would be I want to try that, but it seems so strange. (At ten months we might not use those words, but that would be the idea.) But now you could make some choices about which emotion to obey. One could almost see Rob doing it: Okay, it’s unfamiliar, but I’ll go ahead, anyway.
You probably had favorite methods of overriding the pause-to-check system if it slowed you too long or often. One way might have been to imitate those with less of it. You just went ahead and got some good things, too, like them, in spite of your caution. Another might have been the recategorizing of the stimulation to make it familiar. The growling wolf in the movie “is just a big dog.” But most of your help probably came from others who wanted you to feel safe, not afraid.
Social help with fears involves yet another system that Rothbart believes is highly developed in adult humans. It also arrives at about ten months. With it, a child begins to connect with others, to enjoy them. If these social experiences are positive and supportive, another physiological system develops for which humans are biologically prepared. One could call this the loving system. It creates endorphins, the “good feeling” neuro-chemicals.
How much could you overcome your fears by trusting others to help? Who was around whom you could rely on? Did you act as if Mother is here so I’ll try? Did you learn to imitate her calming words and deeds, applying them to yourself? “Don’t be afraid, it’ll be okay.” I have seen Rob using all of these methods.
Now you might spend a moment thinking about yourself and your childhood, and we will do more of this in the next two chapters. I know you don’t really remember, but judging from what facts you have, what was that first year probably like? How does your thinking and self-control affect your sensitivity now? Are there times when you can control your arousal? Who taught you to do so? Who were your role models? Do you think you were taught to control your cautiousness too much so that you dare to do more than your body can handle? Or does it seem that your lesson was that the world is unsafe and over-arousal is uncontrollable?
How Trust Becomes Mistrust and the Unfamiliar Becomes Dangerous
Most researchers on temperament have studied short-term arousal. It’s easy to study, for it’s quite apparent from the higher levels of heartbeat, respiration, perspiration, pupil dilation, and adrenaline.
There is another system of arousal, however, that is governed more by hormones. It goes into action just as quickly, but the effect of its main product, Cortisol, is most noticeable after ten to twenty minutes. An important point is that when Cortisol is present, the short-term arousal response is also even more likely. That is, this long-term type of arousal makes us even more excitable, more sensitive, than before.
Most of the effects of Cortisol occur over hours or even days. They are mainly measured in the blood, saliva, or urine, so studying long-term arousal is less convenient. But psychologist Megan Gunnar of the University of Minnesota thought that the whole point of the pause-to-check system might be to protect the individual from this unhealthy, unpleasant, long-term arousal.
Research shows that when people first encounter something new and potentially threatening, the short-term response always comes first. Meanwhile, we start to consider our resources. What are our abilities? What have we learned about this sort of situation from past experiences? Who is around who might help out? If we think we or those with us can cope with the situation, we stop seeing it as a threat. The short-term alert dies out, and the long-term alarm never goes off.
Gunnar demonstrated this process in an interesting experiment. She set up a threatening situation much like those Kagan uses to identify “inhibited” children. But first, the nine-month-old babies were separated from their mothers for a half hour. Half were left with a very attentive baby-sitter who responded to all of the child’s moods. The other half were left with a baby-sitter who was inattentive and unresponsive unless the child actually fussed or cried. Next, while alone with the babysitter, each nine-month-old was exposed to something startlingly new.
What is so important here is that only the highly sensitive babies with the inattentive baby-sitters showed more Cortisol in their saliva. It was as if those with the attentive sitter felt they had a resource and had no need to make a long-term stress response.
Suppose the caretaker is your own mother? Psychologists observing babies with their mothers have discovered certain signs that tell them if a child feels “securely attached.” A secure child feels safe to explore, and new experiences are not usually seen as a threat. Other signs indicate that a child is “insecurely attached.” The mothers of these children are either too protective or too neglectful (or even dangerous). (We will discuss “attachment” more in chapters 3 and 4.) Research on sensitive children facing a novel, startling situation in the company of their mothers has found that these children do show their usual, strong short-term response. But if a sensitive child is securely attached to Mom, there is no long-term Cortisol effect from the stress. Without secure attachment, however, a startling experience will produce long-term arousal.
One can see why it is important that young HSPs (and older ones, too) stay out in the world, trying things rather than retreating. But their feelings about their caretakers have to be secure and their experiences have to be successful or their reasons not to approach will only be proved true. And all of this gets started before you can even talk!
Many intelligent, sensitive parents provide all the needed experiences almost automatically. Rob’s parents are constantly praising his successes and encouraging him to test his fears to see if they are realistic while offering help if he needs it. With time, his idea of the world will be that it is not as frightening as his nervous system was telling him it was during that first year or two. His creative traits and intuitive abilities, all the advantages of being sensitive, will flourish. The difficult areas will fade.
When parents do nothing special to help a sensitive child feel safe, whether the child becomes truly “inhibited” probably depends on the relative strength of the activation and pause-to-check systems. But remember that some parents and environments can make matters much worse. Certainly repeated frightening experiences will strongly reinforce caution, especially experiences of failing to be calmed or helped, of being punished for active exploring, and of having others who should be helpful become dangerous instead.
Another important point is that the more Cortisol in an infant’s body, the less the child will sleep, and the less sleep, the more Cortisol. In the daytime, the more Cortisol, the more fear, the more fear, the more