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Child Development
A New Way of Explaining and Predicting Human Behavior
We don't outgrow the need for teddy bears and other "transitional objects".
Posted March 4, 2024 Reviewed by Hara Estroff Marano
Key points
- In psychology a transitional object is how a child establishes independence from maternal reassurance.
- We don't outgrow the need for reassurance but seek it in ways we can say "At least I've got this."
- A great way to predict people's behavior is to watch how they transition from reassurance to reassurance.
- We don't like to admit that we need reassurance because it isn't a reassuring thought.
In developmental psychology, the term “transitional object” refers to such things as Teddy bears and blankets that toddlers cling to in their transition from dependence upon their mother’s affirming touch to independent maturity.
Still, we might wonder: Do we ever reach full independence? Do we ever get over transitional objects?
I suspect we transition from security blankets to blanket self-affirmations, ways to reassure ourselves that we’re adequate or great, good enough or best, ways of telling ourselves, “At least I’m this,” or “At least I’m not that,” “At least I’ve got this,” or “At least I don’t have that” —concepts that help us feel buoyant enough to survive life’s undertows.
Human undertows are different. We’re an unusual animal with special needs, or at least strong desires that are worth recognizing as central to the human condition. We are the only known organism that has concept-mediated feelings. We can think scary, sad, irritating, thoughts—thoughts that have a direct effect on how we feel. This makes us an unusually vulnerable, and anxious, species, forever bombarded by ideas that could make us feel inadequate.
One can shout discouraging words at a dog. The dog will cower at the shout but not at the words and the concepts. Lacking language, the dog isn’t burdened by the kind of self-awareness we have. A dog doesn’t wonder whether it has a fatal personality flaw.
It’s different for us. A worded concept can make us feel inadequate, triggering a flood of self-doubt. The human world is teeming with such feeling-triggering concepts, online and off, stored in our memories or sprung at us anew, sprung by people who want to stir us this way and that, people who want something from us.
We’re all the springers and the sprung, which makes modest everyday gaslighting less a rare pathology and more the human condition. We have different interpretations of reality that we might press upon each other. And there are no facts about the future, just conceptual speculations, some more credible than others, often influenced by what we want people to believe. One way or another, we’re all trudging through a barrage of emotion-triggering concepts that other critters can’t comprehend. A dog can hear high-pitched sounds we can’t. But a dog can’t hear low-blow concepts that we can.
It’s, therefore, unsurprising that even as adults, we need transitional objects, the adult equivalent to our childhood blankets and mom-like reassurances. This would be the case whether we had a reassuring mom or not. If we had one, we might expect to be affirmed in the manner to which we’re accustomed. If we didn’t, we might try to make up for missed affirmation.
Adult transitional objects are like psychological insurance policies: “Whatever happens, I’m OK because I have this.” Throughout our lives we transition between transitional objects, changing clusters of transitional objects that together form a safety net that holds us aloft.
We can get these ‘At least I’ve got this” reassurances from our religion, spirituality, or beliefs; from our jobs, marriages, or sexual conquests; from our besties, belongings, or memberships; our looks, shopping, or owning; and from what we know, who we know, and what we’ve done.
These “At least I’ve got this” safety nets sometimes tear. We lose a partner or job; our religion or belief stops feeling reassuring. In a crisis, or when there’s opportunity, we might upgrade, swapping out one transitional object for another.
I’ve found it useful to list in chronological order the transitional objects I’ve relied upon over my life.
One could even write a memoir, titling each chapter after a transitional object, one after another in different phases of one’s life.
Why aren’t more memoirs written that way?
Here’s the paradox. We need to feel not needy. To admit we need reassurance is not reassuring. We’d rather think that we choose our transitional objects by judicious reason, not our human need for reassurance. We’re more inclined to say we embraced new jobs, partners, beliefs, or friends because it is logical than to admit we found an upgrade replacement transitional object, a better teddy bear, in our lifelong struggle to bear life’s blows.
This may seem a cynical attitude, or perhaps a projection of an anxious, needy researcher. To me, it’s a compassionate perspective.
Humans are obviously different from other organisms, and this is a key difference. We are uniquely concept-triggerable, which makes us an anxious species, paddling upstream against turbulent conceptual currents.
We wouldn’t begrudge a fish water. Why would we begrudge a human their need for reassurance, except perhaps to enjoy the reassurance of “at least I’m not that!”
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