Attachment Flashcards
Attachment
- An attachment is an enduring affectional bond formed between two people
- “Enduring”
- “affectional”
- “bond”
- “formed”
- “between two people”
Theoretical Approaches
-
Psychoanalytic: Freud, Erickson, Spitz
-Mother as ‘anaclitic’ love object (feeding)
-Drive Reduction Theories: oral need and mother fufills tem -
Learning Theories: From Pavlov, Watson,
-Associations from feeding relationship
-mother gives food or whoever did
-Importance of food/physical comfort - Challenges: Harlow’s work
- Cognitive Approach: Schemas
- Ethological Approaches
Harry Harlow
- Disproving feeding as the basis for attachment(learning/phychonalitical)
- monkey could either eat with a wire monkey or with a cloth mother
- result: they spent more time with cloth mother
Theoretical Breakthrough
- Behaviorists had proposed that the infant-mother relationship is classically conditioned as the mother provides nourishment to the child
-
Psychoanalytic approaches described the mother, as the source of ‘oral satisfaction’, as an “anaclitic love
object” -
Harry Harlow proposed that attachment develops due
to the sense of security provided by the other: Security as a base to explore (from ethology) - Ultimately leads to an internal working model
drive reduction theory
infants have needs that need to be filled
for example feeding
beheviorist and psychoanalitical
Attachment Theory
Theory based on John Bowlby’s work positing that children are biologically predisposed to develop
attachments to caregivers as a means of increasing the chances of their own survival
-
Secure base: The idea that the
presence of a trusted caregiver provides an infant or toddler with a
sense of security that makes it
possible for the child to explore the
environment
Bowlby/Ainsworth Theory
oCombo:
Ethological + Psychoanalytic & Cognitive
oFunctions of attachment
-To maintain proximity (& ensure survival)
-To develop feelings of:
effectance, reciprocity, & trust
-To serve as a secure base for exploration
-(Today: to modulate the stress response system)
oOutcome:
o Scheme, or internal working model of what a relationship can be
Stages Bowlby/Ainsworth
Theory of Attachment
oPreattachment (0-2 mos – innate signals – crying to obtain
comfort – up to emergence of social smile)
oAttachment-in-the-making (6 wks – 6-8 mos) respopnd to
familiar face by smiling, laughing, & babbling -up to fear of strangers
oClear-cut attachment (active initiation in proximity seeking;
6-8 mos – 18 mos) Increasing separation anxiety
oReciprocal relationships (18-24 months on) increased
understanding of parent’s feeling; mutual understanding; can
gradually better understand & tolerate separation
Measuring Attachment: The Strange Situation Procedure Developed by Mary Ainsworth
- Based on theoretical constructs in theory
- Maintenance of proximity, secure base from which to explore, & feelings of effectance, reciprocity, & trust
- A series of episodes involving strangers, new situations, separations, & reunions
- Measures of both + and - behaviour
- Most appropriate during Stage 3
strange situation
step 1: mother and child play
step 2: mother,child,starnger
step 3: child and stranger (mom leaves)
step 4 : mom comes back - mom and child
step 5: just child
step 6: child and stranger
step 6: child and mom(mom comes back and starnger leaves)
Classification Scheme
- Secure (Type B)
most infants are secure
– when alone in room with their mothers, they explore -
constantly looking back, vocalizing or returning; continually involving Mom in play
– when stranger enters, show wariness but not distress
– when mother leaves, infant becomes anxious
– when mother returns, infant seeks contact & appears happy at the reunion
Classification Scheme
-
Insecure Avoidant (Type A)
Too independent :
-indifferent to their mom’s behaviour.
-Readily separates and explore without involving her
-no wariness of strangers
-not upset when mom leaves or happy when she returns - ** Insecure Resistant/Ambivalent (Type C)**
cling extraordinarily in SS task.
-Stay close & do not explore.
-Very wary of stranger.
-Very distressed when Mom leaves. - But ambivalent on her return
- Disorganized/Disoriented (Type D)
- Goes to parent reluctantly, sometimes looking away;
Sometimes seems to express fear when with parent
Measuring Attachment Relationship
- B. Secure – 50-70% (N Am)
- A. Avoidant – 10-20%
- C. Resistant – 10-20 (N Am)- anxious
- D. Disorganized- disoriented – 5-10%
Percentages are similar around the world, with some variation. In many SE Asian cultures A, Avoidant, is not seen at all.
Father-infant attachment
- Once thought that infants must have an exclusive attachment, and to the mother
- But infants can have multiple attachments
- A secure attachment w/father can counter some of the negative outcome of insecure attachment w/mother
- Lack of a secure attachment w/either parent is very damaging to self esteem, outcome, etc
Correlations between parenting behavior
and infant attachment
- Highest correlation is with sensitive, responsive parenting
- Contingency
- Warm
- Responsiveness
- These qualities at 4 months “predict” attachment at 12 months
