Thoughts about Stockholm Syndrome

The other day, I was reading up on the grand adventures of Ms. Hearst, and there's a link there to the counter-intuitive phenomenon of Stockholm Syndrome.

In a nutshell, Stockholm Syndrome is where, if you kidnap somebody, cut off all their contact with their friends and family ("their group"), treat them like crap for a long period of time, and then gradually ease off on them until they are treated like one of your family or group, they will transfer their loyalties away from their old group to yours.

From a historical perspective, this phenomenon isn't actually all that new. Humans have known about it, at least implicitly & experientially. Raiding for wives & slavery-manumission cycles are quite attested for, everywhere in the world. I have heard one somewhat tenuous interpretation that the honey-moon was originally a kidnapping-elopment that lasted one month before they returned to the husband's group as a couple. It's probably not that factually true, but it makes an entertaining anecdote. Come to think about it, the use of one month is probably to guarantee impregnation so that the kidnapped wife would feel bound to the husband to support her imminent and-as-yet unborn child.

From my own studies in Amerindian history, capturing of warriors for one's own tribe was pretty common. Though, anti-capturing of warriors (steal the women, kill all the men) was common as well. A journal entry of those that first met Chief Seattle (Sealth) of the Duwamish* was told the story of how some number of years before that a raiding party was sent against the Duwamish. The raiders were ambushed in creek-shed and captured. Among the people that the writer met were some of the people captured - when released, they refused to return to their tribe of origin, "Because of Chief Seattle's Great Magnanimity."

* Insert Mini-Rant Here: While I was living in Seattle, I heard word that the Federal Government (*ahem* Bush) had refused to grant tribal status to the Duwamish Nation because of a 5-year lapse of enrollment in the 1920s. Gee, thanks - take a tribe that is struggling to maintain its identity after 150 years - to whom you ower the land greatest port in the US Pacific Northwest - and then refuse to let them have their identity because they struggled to maintain it the the past.

The numerous anecdotes of Puritan & European settlers that would refuse to return to the colonies after their capture by Iroquois/Abenaki/Potowatomi (sp?) may be a reflection of those tribes' great valuation of personal liberty & value in comparison to monarchical Europe; but it might also be a sign of these captives identification with their new group.

But on the face of it, it seems odd that something that essentially a crushing & manipulation individual will would be so widespread and forceful to a person. One would naively think that a person in such circumstances would cling to the memory of what they had ever so much more, since that is all that they have in such a hostile situation. Such a counter-intiutive development makes me wonder if, biologically, the wife & warrior capturing behaviors are something that people have been practicing for millions of years. If they are a biologically beneficial, if individually detrimental, behavior. After all, humans often operate on the social level, and a person that is flexible enough to adapt to their new environment rather than fight it to their death, is probably more likely to survive to have kids.