Lecture 4 Flashcards
theories of attachment
Ainsworth and Bell 1970
“an affectional tie that one person or animal forms between himself and another specific one”
a tie that binds them together in space and endures over time
key characteristics:
- emotional intensity
- proximity maintenance
- specificity of attachment figure
- distress upon separation
learning accounts and psychoanalytic accounts
learning:
- food provision
psychoanalytic
- love object through association with oral-need gratification
BUT
Harlow: contact comfort may be more powerful basis for attachment than food provision
theories of attachment
- ethological
- biological adaption of infant-mother attachment
- ethological
- imprinting in baby birds (Lorenz)
- evolutionary advantage: proximity = safe and fed - biological adaption
- nutrition
- protection
- secure-base for exploration
infants elicit parental care and protection
- smiling/ crying/ vocalisation/ movement
monotropy
bias of a child to attach himself especially to one person (Bowlby, 1969)
- fathers/ siblings/ peers
evidence nowadays doesn’t add up, as there are multiple carers for one infant that can all have equal secure relationships with the child
development of attachment:
1. pre-attachment (0-6 weeks)
- crying/ smiling elicits caregiver behaviour
- preference for social stimuli e.g. faces
- “no discrimination”
development of attachment:
2. attachment in the making (6 weeks- 6 months)
- visual recognition is 3m and across room is 5-6 months
- more social behaviour
- more discrimination between carer and strangers
development of attachment:
3. clear-cut attachment (6-18 months)
- specific figure
- secure base for exploration
- separation distress
- stranger anxiety around 7 months
- coincides with locomotion and object permanence
development of attachment:
4. reciprocal relationships (18-24 months)
- decline in separation anxiety
- awareness of goals and plans of caregiver
- “internal working model” of self in relation to others
measuring attachment
- quality or security of attachment varies
- the ‘strange situation’
- observations of mother-infant interaction in the home from birth - 54 weeks
- observations of attachment security in lab
- places child under slight stress
- procedure showed evidence for secure attachment
- key for testing attachment level is their behaviour on reunion
classification of security (A,B,C,D)
A - Insecure avoidant (21%)
- happy to explore, not secure-base; usually not distressed by separation
B- Secure (65%)
- base for exploration; distressed or not by separation; on reunion actively approach carer and distress reduces
C - Ambivalent resistant (14%)
- clingy; distressed by separation; on reunion anger/ resistance to comfort
D - Disorganised (15%)
- most insecurity displayed; show confused behaviour on reunion like looking away while parent holds them
antecedents to attachment
- although a relationship construct, theorists have implicated mothers in individual differences found in attachment security
- in particular accessibility and responsiveness of attachment figures are held to determine attachment security (Bowlby, 1973)
maternal sensitivity
- detailed, frequent, lengthy in-home observations in first year of life
- narrative descriptions rated on 28 global scales of sensitivity
- sensitive (more responsive) to infant cries, more tender and constant interaction
- caretaking provided substantial prediction of classification
maternal sensitivity and temperament
- Van den Boom, 1994
- intervention study of 100 ‘irritable’ first-born infants from low SES families
- 50 controls, 50 experienced intervention of 3x2 hour home visits between 6-9 months
- at 9 months, intervention group mothers were more responsive, stimulating, visually attentive and controlling of infants behaviour
BUT
infant temperament also changed
- more sociable, self-soothing and exploration
- less crying than controls too
consequences of attachment
- attachment quality stable overtime
- secure (self-esteem/ confidence/ social competence/ positive effect
- lasting impacts
- stability of underlying factors
