Scientists from different disciplines, including anthropology, psychology, psychiatry, pediatrics, neurobiology, endocrinology, and molecular biology, explore the concepts of attachment and bonding from varying scientific perspectives. Attachment and bonding are evolved processes; the mechanisms that permit the development of selective social bonds are assumed to be very ancient, based on neural circuitry rooted deep in mammalian evolution, but the nature and timing of these processes and their ultimate and proximate causes are only beginning to be understood. In this Dahlem Workshop Report, scientists from different disciplines-including anthropology, psychology, psychiatry, and behavioral biology-come together to explore the concepts of attachment and bonding from diverse perspectives. In their studies they seek to understand the causes or the consequences of attachment and bonding in general and their different qualities in individual development in particular. They address such questions as biobehavioral processes in attachment and bonding; early social attachment and its influences on later patterns of behavior; bonding later in life; and adaptive and maladaptive (or pathological) outcomes. The studies confirm that social bonds have consequences for virtually all aspects of behavior and may be protective in the face of both physical and emotional challenges.

Leading thinkers from a range of disciplines discuss the compatibility of power and care, in conversation with the Dalai Lama. For more than thirty years, the Dalai Lama has been in dialogue with thinkers from a range of disciplines, helping to support pathways for knowledge to increase human wellbeing and compassion. These conversations, which began as private meetings, are now part of the Mind & Life Institute and Mind & Life Europe. This book documents a recent Mind & Life Institute dialogue with the Dalai Lama and others on two fundamental forces: power and care-power over and care for others in human societies. The notion of power is essentially neutral; power can be used to benefit others or to harm them, to build or to destroy. Care, on the other hand, is not a neutral force; it aims at increasing the wellbeing of others. Power and care are not incompatible: power, imbued with care, can achieve more than a powerless motivation to care; power, without the intention to benefit others, can be ruthless. The contributors-who include such celebrated figures as Frans B. M. de Waal, Olafur Eliasson, Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, and Jody Williams-discuss topics including the interaction of power and care among our closest relatives, the chimpanzees; the effect of meditation and mental training practices on the brain; the role of religion in promoting peace and compassion; and the new field of Caring Economics. Contributors Paul Collier, Brother Thierry-Marie Courau, Frans B. M. de Waal, Olafur Eliasson, Scilla Elworthy, Alexandra M. Freund, Tenzin Gyatso (His Holiness the Dalai Lama), Markus Heinrichs, Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, Frederic Laloux, Alaa Murabit, Matthieu Ricard, Johan Rockstroem, Richard Schwartz, Tania Singer, Dennis J. Snower, Rabbi Awraham Soetendorp, Theo Sowa, Pauline Tangiora, Jody Williams