Attachment theory Flashcards
Bowlby
- attachment begins in infancy
- the primary care giver is the one that will most shape the child’s personality (usually the mother)
- bonding starts at birth
- attachment formation needs caregivers presence in early stages
- monotropy- innate tendency to attach to an adult female
- multiple attachments are common
- attachment is innate
- attachment peaks between 12-18 months
Monotropy
-Bowlby- innate tendency to attach to one adult female
Preattachment
- birth to 12 weeks
- babies orient to their mothers
Indiscriminate attachment
8/12 weeks to 6 months
-allows strangers to handle, infants become attached to one or more persons in the environment
Clear-cut attachment
6-24 months
- preferential attachment, separation anxiety, object permanence, stranger anxiety
- at later part there is weakened stranger anxiety and other attachment figures may be present
- after 25 months the mother figure is seen as independent
Harlow’s experiments
- Rhesus monkeys
- babies separated from their Mum
- ‘surrogate mother’ madde from wire or cloth given
- infants preferred the cloth covered surrogate as it was comforting
- they chose comfort over food
Ainsworth’s experiments
- strange situation experiment
- 2x separation adn 2x reunion episodes
- infant observed in the presence and absence of its mother and a stranger in 7 different combinations
- child is Type A, Type B or Type C (sometimes Type D)
Strange situation experiments
-Ainsworth
Situation 1: both mother and infant enter the room
Situation 2: stranger joins them
Situation 3: Mother leaves now; infant is left with stranger
Situation 4: Mother returns and the stranger leaves
Situation 5: Infant left alone; mother leaves now
Situation 6: stranger comes back and tries to comfort the child
Situation 7: Mother comes back and comforts, stranger leaves
Type A
- Ainsworth Strange situation
- Anxious Avoidant: 15%
- indifferent when Mum is leaving or entering but distressed when left.
- Stranger can comfort easily
- highly environment directed, low attachment behaviour
- perpetrators of bullying have this pattern
- greater in the West
Type B
- Ainsworth Strange situation
- Secure: 70%
- plays independently when mother is in the vicinity (secure base effect)
- distressed when mother is leaving
- seeks contact on return of the mother and easily comforted
- not comforted by stranger
Type C
Ainsworth Strange situation
- Anxious resistant-15%
- fussy and cries a lot, not secure in presence of mother
- very distressed when mother is leaving but not easily comforted when she returns
- ambivalent when she returns
- resists stranger’s efforts to pacify
- common in victims of bullying
- occurs more in Israeli and Japanese families
Type D
Ainsworth Strange situation
- Disorganised type
- occurs in maltreated or maternally deprived children
- child has an insecure, dazed look and acts as if frightened by the mother
Attachment style
- anxious-avoidant, secure, anxious resistant, disorganised
- it is a function of the quality of the caregiver not the temperament of a child
Main
- devised a semi-structured adult attachment interview with 15 items
- AAI
- infantile attachment predicts adult attachment
- secure autonomous, dismissing, entangled, unresolved disorganised
Secure autonomous
- those who had secure attachment provide spontaneous and coherent answers with the ability to talk freely about negative experiences in childhood
- Secure- Type B
Dismissing
- -dismissing of experiences
- had avoidant (insecure) pattern and minimise their experiences
- do not use colourful metaphors during discourse
- Type A
- anxious avoidant