Attachment: Key Vocabulary Flashcards
What is this term referring to?
A term used by Bowlby to describe people who don’t show concern or affection for other people and show no or very little remorse or guilt.
Affectionless psychopathy
What does the ‘asocial stage’ refer to?
Stage from 0-6 weeks where infant may respond to faces or voices but an attachment has not been formed.
Define attachment
Two-way enduring emotional tie to another person.
What is contact comfort?
The physical and emotional comfort than an infant receives from being close to its mother.
What is the Continuity Hypothesis?
The idea that early relationships with caregivers predict their relationships in adulthood.
What is meant by the critical period?
A time period where an attachment has to form or else it never will.
What type of attachment is this?
Child shows equal affection to strangers as they do people that they know well.
Disinhibited attachment
What is the evolutionary explanation?
Explanation for behaviour such as attachment that views it as a means for increasing survival chances.
What is imprinting?
Where offspring follow the first large-moving object that they see.
What type of attachment is this?
Infants aged 2-7 months can discriminate between familiar and unfamiliar people but does not show stranger anxiety
Indiscriminate attachment
What is this defining?
A behaviour that is instinctive and does not need to be learned.
Innate behaviour
What type of attachment is this?
Attachment classification within the Strange Situation where the child shows low stranger and separation anxiety in addition to showing little response upon reunion with their caregiver.
Insecure avoidant attachment
What type of attachment is this?
Attachment classification within the Strange Situation where the child shows high stranger and separation anxiety in addition to resisting comfort upon reunion with their caregiver.
Insecure resistant attachment
Define institutionalisation
The effects of growing up in an institution, such as a children’s home or orphanage.
Define interactional synchrony
Infant and caregiver reflect each other’s actions and emotions in a coordinated manner.
What is this referring to?
Mental representation of our relationship with our primary caregiver that becomes a template for future relationships.
Internal working model
What is the learning theory?
A behaviourist explanation that suggest that attachments develop through classical/and or operant conditioning.
What is the maternal deprivation hypothesis?
Who was it proposed by?
Proposed by John Bowlby in 1951.
The theory states that separation from the mother in early childhood can harm the child’s psychological and social development.
What is this referring to?
The concept that infants have an innate capacity and drive to attach to one primary caregiver or attachment figure.
Monotropy
What is privation?
Occurs when a child has no opportunity to form a relationship with a parental figure or when such relationship is distorted due to their treatment.
What is this referring to?
The way that infants try to maintain physical contact or to be close to their attachment figure.
Proximity seeking
What is reciprocity?
Infant and caregiver match each other’s responses.
What attachment type is this?
Most desirable classification within the Strang Situation where the child shows separation anxiety, stranger anxiety and is easily comforted upon reunion with their caregiver.
Secure attachment
What is this referring to?
Refers to the notion that the effects of environmental stimuli on the development stimuli on the developing organism are stronger during certain periods of development.
Sensitive period
What is separation anxiety?
Degree of distress shown by the child when separated from the caregiver.
What are social releasers?
Innate behaviours shown by an infant that lead to a caregiver’s response.
What is this referring to?
Infants aged 7 months tend to show a strong attachment to one particular person and tend to be wary of strangers.
Specific attachment
What was the Strange Situation?
A standardised observational procedure involving short separations and reunions between an infant and their caregiver.
What is stranger anxiety?
Degree of distress shown by an infant when with unfamiliar people/strangers.
What is this referring to?
An aspect of personality concerned with emotional dispositions and reactions and their speed and intensity; the term is used to refer to the prevailing mood or mood pattern of a person.
Temperament
