Attachment
Enduring affection between two individuals
The Development of Attachment
- Newborns prefer social stimuli, cry to summon caregivers = preattachment
- 6 weeks: begin to show social smiles, but still no specific attachments (in the making)
- 6 months: attached to specific individuals - happier with them, smile more at them (clear-cut attachment)
- 8 months: begin to show separation anxiety from attachment figure specifically
- 1.5 years on: mutually-regulated reciprocal relationships, less separation anxiety = reciprocal relationship
Psychosexual development
- Everything is about “drives” and (sexual) pleasure
- We bond to things that increase pleasure and relieve pain
- First attachment formed to mom through breastfeeding
- Mother-infant relationships forms the basis of all later relationships
Freud: good and bad
Good
- There’s something right about the opposite-sex parent thing
- An explanation for differing personality types
- Importance of early experience
- Importance of parenting styles
- Cognition/interpretation of child plays a role
Bad
- Mother-infant bond no necessarily paramount, and probably not based on breast-feeding
- Never studied actual children
Learning Theory Approach
Behaviorist: how does the environment provide positive and negative reinforcements for behavior
- Eating is rewarding, mom is associated with that behavior: infants attach to mom
- Child development squarely on parents’ shoulders
Criticism
- There is more to attachment than who feeds you
- No account of children’s interpretations/ thoughts of relationships
- Children become attached to bad/neglectful parents
Bonding
- Biological/evolutionary perspective
- Bonding (not just eating) made our predecessors more successful
Attachment Behaviors
- Smiling: smiling feedback loops
- Clinging
- Crying: extremely aversive, leads to parent-infant co-regulation of emotional states
Bowlby’s “Internal Working Models”
- Not just attachment behaviors
- Early attachment relationships lead infants to develop mental representations of the self, of attachment figures, and of relationships in general
- Guides relationship throughout life
Attachment Style: Secure Attachment
- Use mother as a “secure base” from which to explore
- Mostly OK with strangers when mom is in room
- Very upset when mom leaves
- Easily comforted upon return
- 60% Canadian babies
Attachment Style: Insecure-Avoidant Attachment
- Explore no problem (doesn’t use mom as secure base)
- Fine with strangers
- Might not care that mom leaves
- Avoidance of mom when she returns
- 15% Canadian babies
Attachment Style: Insecure-Ambivalent/Resistant
- Less prone to explore - seem clingy
- Always uncomfortable around strangers
- Extremely upset when mom leaves
- Inconsolable (even by her) when she returns
- 10% Canadian babies
Attachment Style: Disorganized-Disoriented Attachment
- Babies who are very inconsistent in their reactions
- Sometimes dazed/ disoriented
- Sometimes fearful
- Linked to later aggression issues and psychopathology
- More likely to have been abused
- 15% Canadian babies
Critiques of Stranger Situation
- Too categorical - dimensions of security might be better
- Less “stranger” in a world where there’s lots of daycare/working parents
Continuity of Securely Attached Attachment style
- Securely attached infants are more sociable 3-year-olds
- Better at understanding others’ emotions, more prosocial, empathetic
- Better at handling stress
- Predict relationship with mother in adulthood
- Predict friend/romantic relationship styles in adulthood
- Predict academic success
Parental Sensitivity
Consistently responsive caregiving - in timing and in kind
Nurture in attachment style (twin studies)
Children can have different styles with different parents
- Twin studies suggest most variation due to environment, not genes
Internal Working Models
Continuity result of developing a model, or theory, of how relationships go - people will treat me/each other like X
Securely attached babies expect other ‘moms’ to return, insecurely ones expect them to leave
Day Care
Large studies suggest children in daycare no more likely to be insecurely attached
- Daycare can even serve a compensatory function
- Only time daycare seems to relate to attachment is in low quality daycare when parents also insensitive
Nature for Attachment
Individual difference seem to be partially explained by different alleles of genes related to dopamine, serotonin, and oxytocin
- Oxytocin: the neurotransmitter that is produced during bonding, cuddling etc.
Attachment Figures
We attach to multiple individuals
- Insecure child-father attachment may be more linked with conduct problems
- One secure relationship may buffer from risks of insecure ones
- The removal of any attachment figure is extremely stressful for children
The Development of Self
- 2-4 mos learn their contingency with the environment, and display positive/negative emotion
- Young infants prefer those who imitate/act contingently with them
- Separation anxiety at 8 months
- 11 months, joint attention, directing others’ attention
- Age 2, recognize self in photographs, begin to show self-conscious emotions
Pass Mirror Test by 18 ~ 24 months
Some hints of its presence and development throughout infancy
