CC811 Chap 14 & 15 Flashcards
Attachment Theory
A theory formulated by British psychiatrist John Bowlby and was elaborated on by his colleague Mary Ainsworth. It is based primarily on ethological theory and therefore asks how attachment might have evolved. It also draws on concepts from psychoanalytic theory and cognitive theory (p. 450).
Attachment
A strong affectional tie that binds a person to an intimate companion. It is also a behavioral system through which humans regulate their emotional distress which under threat and achieve security by seeking proximity to another person.
Imprinting
An innate form of learning in which the young will follow and become attached to a moving object (usually the mother) during a critical period early in life.
Oxytocin
A “love hormone” that plays a highly important role in facilitating parent-infant attachment as well as other social relationships.
Bonding
A more biologically based process in which parent and infant form a connection in the first hours after birth, which a mother is likely to be exhilarated and her newborn highly alert.
Internal Working Model
A cognitive representation of oneself and other people that guides one’s processing of social information and behavior in relationships.
Peer
A social equal; someone who functions at a similar level of behavioral complexity– often someone of similar age.
Chumship
A close childhood friendship, which teaches children to take on others’ perspectives and supports and protects children from the otherwise harmful effects of a poor parent-child relationship.
Self-conscious Emotion
Emotions, such as embarrassment, that require an awareness of self and begin to emerge around 18 months of age, just when infants are first able to recognize themselves in a mirror.
Social Referencing
When infants begin to monitor their companions’ emotional reactions in ambiguous situations and use this information to decide how they should feel and behave (usually begins around 9 months of age).
Emotion Regulation
The process involved in initiating, maintaining and altering emotional responses.
Synchronized Routines
Situations in which parents respond to a child’s invitations for play or social stimulation and retreats when such invitations aren’t so apparent. This tends to occur when a parent is sensitive to moments when a baby is receptive and alert while allowing space when a baby approaches social stimulation ‘overload’.
Goal-corrected Partnership
A relationship that involves taking a parent’s goas and plans into consideration and adjusting one’s behavior to achieve the all-important goal of maintaining optimal proximity to the attachment object, caregiver, or parent in this case.
Separation Anxiety
A form of fear; once attached to a parent, a bay often becomes wary or fretful when separated from that parent.
Stranger Anxiety
A wary or fretful reaction to the approach of an unfamiliar person.
Secure Base
A point of safety from which an infant can feel free to venture (usually the infant’s attachment figure or caregiver).
Strange Situation
A now-famous procedure for measuring the quality of an attachment that consists of eight episodes that gradually escalate the amount of stress infants experience as they react to the approach of an adult stranger and the departure and return of their caregiver.
Secure Attachment
An infant-caregiver bond or intimate relationship in which the individual welcomes close contact, uses the attachment object as a source of comfort and dislikes but can manage separations.
Resistant Attachment
An insecure infant-caregiver bond characterized by strong separation anxiety and a tendency to show ambivalent reactions to the attachment object upon reunion, seeking and yet resenting reunion.
Avoidant Attachment
An insecure infant-caregiver bond characterized by little separation anxiety and a tendency to avoid or ignore the attachment object upon reunion.
Disorganized-disoriented Attachment
An insecure infant-caregiver bond, common among abused children, that combines features of the resistant and avoidant attachment attachment styles and is characterized by the infant’s dazed response to reunion and confusion about whether to approach or avoid the caregiver.
Contact Comfort
The pleasurable contact sensations provided by a soft and cuddly “parent”.
Disinhibited Attachment
Attachment characterized by indiscriminate friendliness, lack of appropriate wariness of strangers and difficulty participating in real, reciprocal social interactions.
Pretend Play
Play in which one actors, object or action symbolizes or stands for another and usually begins around age 1 for most children.
Social Pretend Play
Play in which children cooperate with caregivers or playmates to enact dramas. They can become quite sophisticated and require a good deal of social competence.
Sociometric Techniques
Methods for determining who is liked and who is disliked in a group.
