The Change in the Development of Intimacy and Identity in Ind ...

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  • Title: The Change in the Development of Intimacy and Identity in India due to Economic Development: An Observable Cultural and Neurobiological Shift toward Self-Determination
  • Author(s): Alexander Scott
  • Publisher: Common Ground Research Networks
  • Collection: Common Ground Research Networks
  • Series: New Directions in the Humanities
  • Journal Title: The International Journal of Civic, Political, and Community Studies
  • Keywords: India, Economic Development, Psychosocial, Multifamily, Nuclear Family, Attachment, Arranged Marriage, Oxytocin, Vasopressin, Self-Determination
  • Volume: 17
  • Issue: 1
  • Date: April 11, 2019
  • ISSN: 2327-0047 (Print)
  • ISSN: 2327-2155 (Online)
  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.18848/2327-0047/CGP/v17i01/27-35
  • Citation: Scott, Alexander . 2019. "The Change in the Development of Intimacy and Identity in India due to Economic Development: An Observable Cultural and Neurobiological Shift toward Self-Determination." The International Journal of Civic, Political, and Community Studies 17 (1): 27-35. doi:10.18848/2327-0047/CGP/v17i01/27-35.
  • Extent: 9 pages

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Abstract

The purpose of the present article is to advance the theory that an ongoing cultural shift from a multifamily to a nuclear family norm is well underway in India. However, from a biopsychosocial or developmental perspective, very little is understood concerning the implications about such a cultural shift on either individual development or cultural evolution. For too long, Western biopsychosocial theory has focused only on a nuclear family developmental trajectory rooted in the infant-mother attachment dyad as a valid model of human development. Alternative models of biopsychosocial development can no longer be ignored by Western developmental theories. In India, biopsychosocial development is traditionally based on a multifamily developmental trajectory rooted in infant-multiple-mother attachment relationships as the model for development. While it is the cultural predominance of a primary-other attachment relationship that is associated with cultural self-determinism, it is the cultural predominance of multiple-other attachment relationships that can be associated with cultural social-determinism. However, because of the ongoing cultural shift from a predominant multifamily structure to a nuclear family structure due to economic development, India may be moving increasingly toward cultural self-determinism. Further, if such a shift is occurring, it may be observable in neurobiological development in the oxytocin and vasopressin systems associated with the development of attachment relationships. Because of the implications for predicting long-term geopolitical change due to the economic development in other traditional cultures currently dominated by a multifamily developmental trajectory and a multiple-mother-model of human relationships, India’s cultural shift in family structure warrants study through a broad range of disciplines.