Of all the behaviours observed in Homo academicus, few are more consequential than imprinting.
The process begins early.
A juvenile enters the tertiary environment carrying little more than curiosity, uncertainty and an increasingly expensive collection of books.
It does not yet know what it is looking for.
This is precisely what makes it vulnerable.
For a brief period, the juvenile remains remarkably open to environmental influence.
It has not yet learned which questions are important.
It has not yet learned which questions are foolish.
It has not yet learned that some authors should be cited while others should merely be mentioned.
Most importantly, it has not yet learned whom to admire.
Then, somewhere in the habitat, it encounters an adult.
The First Gaze
The encounter may take place anywhere.
A lecture theatre.
A tutorial.
A laboratory.
A conference.
Occasionally, it occurs in a corridor, when the adult happens to say something that the juvenile has never heard before.
The circumstances are unremarkable.
The consequences may not be.
The juvenile looks at the adult.
The adult speaks.
And the juvenile experiences what field researchers have termed the First Gaze.
There is usually no obvious sign that anything unusual has happened.
The juvenile does not fall over.
It does not make a nest.
It does not emit a distinctive call.
Instead, it becomes attentive.
The adult may simply appear to know what matters.
This is a powerful signal.
The juvenile has encountered someone for whom the intellectual environment appears already to possess a structure.
There are questions worth asking.
There are distinctions worth making.
There are things that are interesting.
There are things that are not.
And, most importantly, there are things that the juvenile had not previously noticed.
The adult seems to know where they are.
The juvenile follows.
The Critical Period
Imprinting is most effective during a period of unusually high developmental plasticity.
The duration of this period varies.
In some specimens it lasts a single semester.
In others, several years.
In extreme cases it continues into permanent employment.
During the critical period, the juvenile is highly responsive to adult signals.
A mature academic says:
"I think the real issue here is..."
The juvenile listens.
The adult says:
"The conventional account doesn't quite capture what is going on."
The juvenile makes a note.
The adult recommends a book.
The juvenile reads it.
The adult recommends another.
The juvenile reads that too.
Eventually the juvenile begins recommending books to other juveniles.
At this point, imprinting is considered well established.
What Is Actually Imprinted?
For many years, researchers assumed that the juvenile simply acquired information from the adult.
This now appears to be incorrect.
The information is certainly acquired.
But information is not the principal object of imprinting.
The juvenile acquires something much more difficult to observe.
It acquires a pattern of attention.
The adult notices certain things.
The juvenile begins noticing them too.
The adult regards a particular distinction as significant.
The juvenile learns to regard it as significant.
The adult becomes irritated by a particular category error.
The juvenile learns to become irritated by it.
The adult considers a particular question profound.
The juvenile eventually wonders why everyone else has failed to notice how profound it is.
The process is so subtle that the juvenile often experiences the resulting preferences as entirely its own.
This is known as internalised imprinting.
It is one of the most successful adaptations of the species.
The Illusion of Discovery
A remarkable consequence follows.
The juvenile often believes that it has discovered the intellectual territory into which it has been introduced.
This is not deception.
The animal is genuinely experiencing discovery.
The environment has simply been prepared in advance.
A mature specimen has already established paths through the conceptual landscape.
The juvenile follows them.
After sufficient time, the path becomes familiar.
Eventually the juvenile forgets that it was a path.
It becomes, instead, the landscape.
Researchers have observed this phenomenon repeatedly.
It is particularly common when the adult is charismatic.
Charismatic Imprinting
Not all adults are equally effective.
Some possess an unusual capacity to attract juveniles.
These specimens tend to display high levels of:
intellectual confidence;
verbal fluency;
apparent originality;
emotional intensity;
moral certainty;
and the ability to make complicated things sound as though they had always been obvious.
The charismatic specimen may also possess distinctive plumage.
A worn jacket.
An unusual hairstyle.
A particularly impressive office.
A reputation for having once disagreed with a famous person.
Such characteristics appear to have little direct relationship to intellectual quality.
Nevertheless, they can significantly enhance imprinting success.
Researchers refer to this as charismatic selection.
The Mentor Call
The mature specimen possesses several vocalisations that are especially effective during imprinting.
One of the most successful is:
"You should read..."
The juvenile interprets this as a recommendation.
In ecological terms, however, it is more accurately understood as a pathway signal.
The adult is indicating a route through the conceptual environment.
The juvenile follows it.
Another highly effective call is:
"That's a very interesting question."
This signal is particularly powerful because it informs the juvenile not merely that a question has been heard, but that the juvenile itself may possess desirable intellectual characteristics.
The young animal becomes attentive.
It asks another question.
The adult responds.
The bond strengthens.
The Transfer of Taste
Imprinting eventually extends beyond ideas.
The juvenile begins acquiring the adult's taste.
Certain books become important.
Certain writers become indispensable.
Certain kinds of argument become elegant.
Others become clumsy.
The juvenile may develop a preference for a particular intellectual style without being able to explain why.
This is an important evolutionary adaptation.
For a mature academic does not need to teach a juvenile everything.
It merely needs to teach it what is worth learning.
Once this has been achieved, the juvenile can undertake the remainder of the process independently.
The adult has successfully transferred a selection mechanism.
The Reproduction of Objections
One of the most curious manifestations of imprinting occurs when the juvenile begins reproducing the adult's objections.
The phenomenon is easy to miss.
The juvenile encounters a new argument.
It pauses.
It frowns.
Then it says:
"But that seems to assume..."
Field researchers recognise the call immediately.
It is almost identical to that of the imprinted adult.
The juvenile may have no memory of hearing the phrase before.
Nevertheless, the behavioural resemblance is striking.
Researchers have therefore proposed that certain academic objections may be heritable cultural traits.
The hypothesis remains under investigation.
Rebellion
Imprinting does not prevent rebellion.
Indeed, rebellion may sometimes be one of its products.
The juvenile eventually becomes aware of the adult's influence.
It may then announce:
"I don't want to simply reproduce my supervisor's work."
This is a normal developmental stage.
The animal begins to differentiate itself.
It changes its terminology.
It discovers a new author.
It introduces a qualification.
It replaces one conceptual distinction with another.
It may even publish a paper criticising its supervisor.
Observers initially interpret this as emancipation.
Closer examination reveals something more complicated.
The juvenile is often still operating within the conceptual territory established by the adult.
It has simply moved to its edge.
Researchers call this secondary imprinting.
The Great Paradox of Independence
The most successful juveniles eventually become independent.
They no longer need the adult.
They disagree with the adult.
They may even forget much of what the adult explicitly taught them.
But traces remain.
A characteristic distinction.
A preferred question.
A particular way of organising an argument.
A habitual suspicion of certain explanations.
The mature offspring may not recognise these characteristics as inherited.
Yet they can sometimes be detected by other members of the colony.
Indeed, a sufficiently experienced observer can occasionally identify an academic lineage from a single paragraph.
This is known as stylistic phylogeny.
Multiple Imprinting
The situation becomes more complicated when a juvenile encounters more than one compelling adult.
This is common in large universities.
The juvenile may be exposed to several populations.
One adult provides its theoretical framework.
Another provides its political vocabulary.
A third provides its methodological habits.
A fourth teaches it how to give conference papers.
The resulting specimen may exhibit a mixed phenotype.
Such animals can be difficult to classify.
They are sometimes described as interdisciplinary.
Researchers have not yet determined whether this represents genuine hybridisation or simply confused ancestry.
Misimprinting
Occasionally, the juvenile imprints upon an unsuitable adult.
This can have lasting consequences.
The adult may possess an unusually narrow conceptual territory.
It may display aggressive territorial behaviour.
It may have developed a highly elaborate vocabulary for defending a proposition that very few other animals consider important.
The juvenile nevertheless follows.
Once established, the bond can be difficult to break.
The juvenile may spend years attempting to solve problems that arose primarily because the adult thought they were interesting.
Researchers refer to this as misimprinting.
There is currently no known treatment.
The Role of the Habitat
Imprinting cannot be understood solely as a relationship between two animals.
The habitat itself determines which adults are available for imprinting.
Some specimens are highly visible.
They occupy prestigious positions.
They receive keynote invitations.
Their names appear on websites.
Others may possess extraordinary intellectual gifts but occupy marginal ecological niches.
Juveniles cannot imprint upon animals they never encounter.
This has led researchers to revise an earlier assumption.
The development of an academic is not determined solely by individual aptitude.
It depends upon who becomes perceptible.
And who becomes perceptible depends upon the structure of the habitat.
The Imprinting Cascade
Once a juvenile has successfully imprinted, it begins to alter its own environment.
It recommends books to other juveniles.
It introduces concepts into seminars.
It cites its adult.
It joins the adult's research group.
Eventually, it produces work of its own.
Other juveniles encounter it.
They watch.
They listen.
Some follow.
Thus one imprinting event can produce many others.
The original adult may have no idea how far the influence has travelled.
A single encounter can therefore generate a lineage.
The Hidden Transmission
This is perhaps the strangest feature of the process.
What is transmitted is rarely stated explicitly.
The adult does not say:
"Here is the way you should perceive the world."
Instead, the transmission occurs through thousands of small acts.
A question is praised.
Another is ignored.
A distinction is elaborated.
Another is dismissed.
One author is described as "important".
Another as "interesting but problematic".
A particular form of argument receives approval.
Another produces a silence.
The juvenile learns.
Not because it has been instructed.
Because it has been participating.
The animal is learning the ecology by inhabiting it.
The Mature Offspring
Eventually, the juvenile becomes an adult.
It acquires a territory.
It develops plumage.
It publishes.
It gives talks.
It learns to say:
"As I have argued elsewhere..."
And one day, unexpectedly, it finds itself standing in front of a room containing juveniles.
One of them is listening particularly carefully.
The adult notices.
It says:
"That's a very interesting question."
The juvenile looks up.
For a moment, neither animal moves.
The field researchers exchange glances.
They have seen this before.
The process is beginning again.
The significance of imprinting is therefore difficult to overstate.
The university may transmit information.
It may transmit skills.
It may transmit credentials.
But these are not necessarily its deepest inheritances.
The most persistent inheritance may be less visible.
A way of looking.
A way of questioning.
A way of deciding what deserves attention.
A way of inhabiting a conceptual world.
The adult does not simply give the juvenile knowledge.
It gives the juvenile a place from which knowledge can be seen.
And once the juvenile has learned to stand there, it may spend the rest of its life believing that it chose the place itself.
Next week: Episode III — The Herd
Having imprinted upon their elders, the juveniles must now learn to recognise one another. We examine the formation of academic colonies, the emergence of shared plumage, and the curious social function of belonging to a school of thought.
