Lecture 7 - Emotional Devlopment & Attachment In Infancy Flashcards
Self-concept
Who are you?
Most developmental psychologists believe that infants are born without self-concept (so it due to Nurture?)
Infants gradually come to distinguish themselves from the external Environment over the first 2-6 months
18-24 months toddlers display true self-recognition: dependent upon cognitive development and social experiences
Important: self-concept development is a continuous process
The “looking glass self” is the idea that a child’s self concept is largely determined by the ways other people respond to him or her
Categorical self: a person’s classification of the self along specially signification dimensions such as age and sex
- this usually occurs once toddlers display self-recognition
What does it tae to become self-aware?
- cognitive development
- social experiences
Self recognition
The ability to recognise oneself in a mirror or a photograph
Refers to a conceptual system made up of one’s thoughts and attributes about oneself
An individuals concert about the self can include thoughts about one’s own physical being, social roles and relationships and ‘spiritual’ or internal characteristics
The ‘rouge’ test: young children recognise themselves by age 18-20 months
The rouge test (Self-recognition)
Gallup (1970)
Exposed 4 chimps to a mirror
By day 3 they were using it to inspect their bodies and were pulling faces into it
Red spot was then placed on their face while they were anesthised
When they saw their reflection in the mirror they touched the red spot almost 30 times in 30 minutes
Behavioural evdience for self-awareness
Amsterdam (1972)
6-12 months: it’s another baby. The child behaves as though the infant in the mirror is someone else
13-20 moths: withdrawal. The infants no longer seem particularly happy at catching their own image i. The mirror. One interpretation is that the infants are acting self-consciously
20-24 months+: its me! From around this age infants start to clearly recognise the loved by pointing to the spot of rouge on their own noses. This strongly suggests they have realised thre image is themselves and then spot of rouge is on their own nose
However only 4 iMac ants in each stage if the sample
Lewis and Brooks-Gunn (1978,1979)
Examines mirror behaviour in 9-24 month infants with a bigger sample
Observed ‘nose-directed behaviour’ in front of mirror before and after red sot placed on nose
Ability to direct bhevaiour to nose based reflection was never observed prior to 15 months
Is this the sage that self-awareness develops?
- authors suggest 15-24 months
Emotional development: 3 areas of research
Recognising and expressing facial expressions of emotion
Understanding emotions and empathising
Regulation of emotions
Innate expressions of emotion
Darwin (1871) argued that there were innate emotion
Are expressions of emotions culturally universal?
Can newborn infants produce facial expressions of emotion?
Universality
Evidence from Ekman and Friesen (1971) - people from entirely different cultures could recognise happiness, sadness, anger and disgust (surprise and fear a little harder ) in photos
Innate expressions
Evdience of a rapid maturational unfolding of key simple expressions (e.g. happiness, sadness, disguist) over the first year of like - early to determine if an infant is feeling pleasant or unpleasant emotions
- innate unfolding of smiles - initially only during REM sleep - social similing at 6 weeks from brith
More complex emotions e.g. self-consciousness take more cognitive development
Innate discrimination of expressions?
Habituation work suggests 3 months olds can discriminate between smiling and frowning
Field et al (1982) report neonates can discriminate between happiness and surprise of a live model and even imitate them
This doesn’t mean that infants understand emotions gets though
Understanding emotions
Social referencing
- infants look to caregiver to for information as to how they should respond
~ Sorce et al (1985) found that likelihood of 12 month old infants to cross visual cliff was impacted by mothers facial expression
Use of emotion words - e.g. Bretherton et al (1981) found such use as young as 18 momths
Parental ‘mid-mindness’ at 8 months predicts understanding of emotions at 4 years
Attachment
“Attachment is one of many organism’s native endowment” - Bowlby, 1969
An enduring social-emotiona relationship between infant and parents
An emtional bond with a specific person thar is enduring across time and space
Relied upon infnat’s growing perceptual and cognitive skills
Newborns from most species are completely dependent on their (principal) caregiver
Usually first attach to mothers, then fathers
Imprinting
Phenomenon observed primarily in bird, the term was first coined by Konrad Lorenz
When young birds hatch they become attached to the first moving object they encountered typically their mother
Lorenz ensured he was the first thing newly hatched goslings encountered and thus they attached to him
They would just as easily attach to inaminate objects and oddities such as a pair of gum boots, a white ball and an electric train
The goslings are predisposed to form and immediate strong social bond within the first 12-17 hours after hatching
John Bowlby (1907-1990)
44 juvenile thieve study (1944)
Procedure
- interviewed 44 adolescents - referred to a child protection program in London and a gorup of 44 children to act as control
- interviews the parents from both got ups to state whether their child has experienced separation druing the critical period and for how long
Findings:
- more than half of theives has been separated from their mothers for longer than 6 months during first 5 years. In control gorup only 2 experinced this
- also found several thieves (32%) showed “affectionless psychopathy”. None of the control group were affectionless psychopaths
Observations of Bowlby and others (e.g. Robertson 1950s) involved with institutionalised children led to an understanding of the importance of parent-child interactions in development
Many investigators belive children;s early relationships with parents influence nature of their interactions with others from infancy into adulthood
Criticisms
- what was the social/historical context of his research?
- how might this had impacted Bowlby
- do chidlren just form one bond, with their mother for exmaple
- critical period vs sensitive period - evidence from adopted children who have been neglected in infancy
- attachment innate or learnt?
Harlow (1958)
Early experimental work with monkeys who were deprived of all early social interactions strongly supported view that healthy social and emotional development is rooted in early social interactions
Food or security?
He separated a baby monkey from its mother and raised it in a cage with 2 substitute ‘mothers’
The wire mother had a bottle for the infant, the cloth one didn’t
As soon as te infant finished nursing, abandoned wire monkey and clutches the cloth one
Thw power of social isolation and neglect: had later consequences when these monkeys has babies of their own)
Attachment theory
John Bowlby proposed attachment theory
Children are biologically predisposed to develop attachments with caregivers as a means of increasing the chnaged of their own survival
Secure base - term for an attachment figure’s presence - providing an infant/toddler with a sense of security that makes it possible for the infant to explore the environment
Mary Ainsworth, Bowlby’s student, extended and tested his ideas
Attachment theory
4 stage model of attachment and its development - Bowlby
Pre-attachment —> attachment in the making —> clear cut attachment —> reciprocal relations
1. Pre-attachment phase - brith to 6 weeks
- infant produces signals that bring tigers to their side and is comforted by the interaction that follows (e.g. crying then cuddling)
2. Attachment-in-the-making - 6 weeks to 6-8 months
- infants begin to respond preferentially to familiar people
3. Clear cut attachment - 6-8 months to 1.5-2 years
- infnats actively seeks contact with their regular caregivers and typically shwoing separation protest?distress when the caregiver departs
4. Reciprocal relations - 1.5-2 years +
- children take an active role in developing working partner ship with their caregivers, increased independence, reocngtiton of care givers needs and goals
Phases 1 and 2
How does the infant initiate attachment processes in these stages?
Instinctual behaviours that premotes the development of attachment:
- sucking - relived the child of distress/enables the child to feed
- cuddling - an interactive, reinforcing process granting comfort to the baby & satisfaction to the carer
- looking - an invitation for mother to responds - innate seek eye-to-eye contact. - babies responds by smiling & stretching arms and legs, a reinforcing process
- smiling - 6-week-old infnats smile to stimuli (e.g. objects), but particularly to mothers faces - by three months, smiling with mother is an interactive reinforcing mechanism
- crying - infants typically cry when they are hungry, cold or in physical discomfort - the act of picking up a child and cuddling in response to crying is also a reinforcement process - the child is relived from distress
Attachment: anxieties
Stranger anxiety vs separation anxiety
Expressive forms of attachment
- though becoming attached is an innate behvaiour, babies don’t become attached to a specifric, predefined figure, they need to learn to become attached to one
1. Stranger anxiety
- typically between 6 & 12 months
- shows in a behvaiour of wariness and fear, the baby tends to cry and/or grip to the career in the presence of strangers
- reduced or eliminated when the caregiver is friendly with the stranger and/or in familiar conetexts or environments
2. Separation anxiety
- when thr caerer ‘leaves’ the infant, behvaiour simialr to that exhibited in stranger anxiety
- emerged around 6 months and peaks around 15 months
- is less liekly to occur is people or context are familiar to the child
Assessing attachment
The strange situation task (Ainsworth, 1978)
Infant is put through a series of situations
In each situation, the baby’s reactions are measured to test quality of attachment
The stidy involved observing chidlren between ages of 12 to 18 months responding to a situation in which they were briefly left alone and then reunited with theitr mothetr
Tasted about 100 middle class American infant-mother pairs
- 8 stage procedure -
1. Observer shoes caregiver and infant into the experimental room and leaves
2. Caregiver sits and watched child play
3. Stranger enters (silently) then talks to caregiver and interacts with infant. Caregiver leaves
4. First separation, stranger tries to interact with infant
5. First reunion. Caregiver comforts child, stranger leaves. Caregiver then leaves
6. Second separation. Child alone
7. Stranger enters and tries to interact with child
8. Second reunion. Caregiver comforts child, stranger leaves
Attachment types and results in strange situation
Secure attachment:
Separation - distressed when other leaves
Stranger - avoidant of stranger when alone but friendly when mother present
Reunion - positive and happy
Other -will use mother as a safe base to explore environment
% - 7-
Ambivalent attachment:
Separation - intense distress
Stranger - avoids stranger and shows fear
Reunion - approached mother but resists contact, May even push away
Other - infant cries ore and explores less than others
% - 15
Avoidant attachment:
Separation - non distress
Stranger - ok with stranger and plays normally when present
Reunion - little interest
Other - mother and stranger comfort child equally
% - 15
Ainsworth conclusions
PCG behvaiour determines attachment style of the child
Sensitive primary cg leas to secures attached child
Insecure attachment will klead to problems later in Life
Additions
Main & Cassidy (1988) and Main & Solomon (1990) proposed inconsistent behvaiour on part of parent might be contributing factor in development of disorganised attachment
- chidlren shown inconsistent behvaiour, confusion and indecision
Cassidy and Berlin (1994), ambivalent attachment
- relatively uncommon with 7-15% in American samples
Consequences
Social development different between children who are securely and insecurely attached to pcg
- at 3 years 6 months (in nursery school setting), securely attached babies enjoy successful social interactions with their peer group
- insecurely attached babies tend to be hostile, impulsive withdrawn later in childhood
Predictors of secure attachment
Mother sensitivity (adequate responding)
Synchronous behaviour, coordinated play, positive mood, stimulation and emotional support
Healthy parental interactions
Method evaluation
Pros:
- standardised procedure and has been repeated many times
- measurement of attachment based on mor than one behvaiour e.g. several separations and reunions
- early identication of attachment problem could mean earlier intervention and prevention of later problems
Cons:
- lacks validity because it is a ‘strange situation’ to child
- cultural variations in child rearing technique and study originally on American sample
- ethics, distressing for child and caregiver
Later consequences of attachment
Children who were securely attached as infants seem to have closer, more harmonious relationships with peers than do insecurely attached
Secure attachment also predicts positive peer and romantic relationhsips and emotional health in adolescence
Secure chidlren also earn higher grades and are more involved in school
Long-term social effects of attachment
Attachment linked to a number of social abilities:
- social competence
- social adjustment and social self-efficiency
- social desirability
- dating competence
- link between secure attachment and likelihood of loneliness in adulthood
Biological effects of maternal care
Animals models give us some insight into biological effects of disruption to mother-infant relationship
- associated with impairments to stress responsivity
- materna; behaviour in the adult offspring
- these effects are result pf chnages in gene expression
Experinces pf neglect in childhood linked to diabetes and cardiovascular disease
Chemistry of attachment/ bonding
Oxytocin: bonding hormone
- chemcial messneger released in brain in response to social contact, particularly skin-to-skin contact
- providing health benefits, promotes bonding patterns and created desire for further contact with the individuals inciting its release
- depending on the practises of te parents, the resulting high or low level of oxytocin will control the permanent organisation of stress-handling protion of baby’s brain - promoting attachment characteristics in later life
Securely attached mothers shoe greater activation of brain reward regions including oxytocin associated region
Adult attachment styles
Autonomous: clear and balanced account of attachment relationships. Value close relationships
Dismissing: deny importance of attachment experienced, typically can;t recall early ones or idealise
Preoccupies: unable to move on from early childhood experinces
UnresolvedL unable to resolve feeling of less around e.g. death of a love one
When parents these styles of thinking impact of security of infant attachment styles
Stability in attachment security
Only about half of infants tested at 18 months showed same attachment style as they did at 12 months
Large (N=1000) study found little stability at 15, 24 and 36
Inconsistent findings and small effects in relation to stability to childhood and adulthood
Long-term effects
Unclear whether security of attachment in infancy has a direct effect on later development, or whether early security pf attachment predicts children’s functioning because “good”parents remain “good: parents, i.e. continued to love and support (nurturing)
It is liekly that children’s development can be better predicted from the combination of their early attachment status and quality of subsequent parenting
