Module 11: attachment Flashcards
pre-attachment
newborns prefer social stimuli, cry to summon caregivers
attachment in the making
6 weeks: begin to show social smiles, but still no specific attachment
- whoever meets their needs
- begin to trust that someone will respond to their needs (or not)
clear-cut attachment
6 months: attached to specific individuals- happier with them, smile more at them
reciprocal relationships
1.5 years on: mutually-regulated reciprocal relationships, less separation anxiety
learning theory approaches
behaviorist: how does environment provide positive and negative reinforcements for behavior?
- eating is rewarding, mom is associated with that reward and so positively reinforced —> infants attach to mom
- food is paramount: importance of feeding schedules, reinforcement strategies, age at weaning, etc
- here, attachment squarely on parents shoulders
- attachment failures related to all things parents do wrong (not responding to its needs)
criticism of learning theory approach
- surely there is more to attachment than who feeds you
- no account of children’s interpretations/ thoughts of relationship
- children become attached to bad/ neglectful parents
evidence against learning theory
Renee spitz: orphanage v. prison studies
- compared sterile (but physically supportive) orphanages to prison nurseries
- after 4 mos, babies in orphanages (NOT in prisons):
- movement diminished: lay in one place
- vacant, expressionless faces
- infants unstable and hyper-fearful: sudden dramatic clinging, biting
- stereotyped motor behaviors (rocking, banging heads against crib, thumb sucking)
spitz biggest finding
- 37% of orphanages babies did not survive past second bday
- zero prison babies died
- babies in a dirty and malnourished situation survived
anna freud and sophie dann: concentration camp children
- group of 6 infants separated from parents in concentrations camps; no stable adult figure, essentially raised each other
- discovered at age 3
- initially quite hostile toward adults, but lovely to each other: shared, took turns
- fared better than orphanage children (with no relationships); became relatively normal adults
- peer relationships may help in atypical attachment situations
harlow: critical period for bond formation
monkeys chose loving mother (cloth) over wire mother
- monkeys turned out atypically, especially if no cloth mother
- lacked social skills, abused their own offspring
- cloth mother infants were able to use mother a secure base from which to explore, but not typical
- orphanage reared children also atypical
- recall international adoption studies: age at adoption matters
john bowlby: ethological approach to bonding
- Bowlby proposed that children are biologically pre-programmed to form attachments with caregivers because this helps them survive
- monotropy: one attachment is the most important
- biological/ evolutionary perspective
- bonding (not just eating) made our predecessors more successful
- konrad lorenz: birds imprint on caregiver
- human attachment behaviors: crying, smiling, clinging
internal working models
- not just attachment behaviors
- early attachment relationships lead infants to develop mental representations fo the self, of attachment figures, and of relationships in general
- guides relationships throughout life
attachment behaviors
- smiling: smiling feedback loops
- clinging: probably was once as common in human primates
the strange situation
- major distress expected from 11-15 mos or so
- by 17 mos, more ok if mom leaves
4 attachment styles
- securely attached
- insecure-avoidant
- insecure-ambivalent
- disorganized-disoriented
secure attachment
- use mother as secure base from which to explore
- mostly OK with strangers when mom is in room
- very upset when mom leaves
- easily comforted upon return
- 60% fo Canadian babies
insecure-avoidant attachment
- explore no problem (doesn’t seem like using mom as secure base)
- fine with strangers
- might not care that mom leaves
- avoidance of mom when she returns
- 15% Canadian babies
insecure-ambivalent/ resistant
- less prone to explore- seem clingy
- always uncomfortable around strangers
- extremely upset when mom leaves
- inconsolable (even by her) when se returns
- 10% of Canadian babies
disorganized- disoriented attachment
- babies who are very inconsistent in their reactions
- sometimes dazed/ disoriented
- sometimes fearful
- linked to later aggression issues and psychopathology
- more likely to have been abused
- 15% Canadian babies
continuity of styles
- securely attached infants are more sociable 3 year old
- better at understanding others emotions, more prosocial, empathetic
- better at handling stress
- predicts relationship with mother in adulthood
- predicts friend/ romantic relationship styles in adulthood
- predicts academic success
why do attachment styles differ?
- nature: the child themselves
- nurture: parenting styles, culture
sensitive/ insensitive parents
- parental sensitivity: consistently responsive caregiving- in timing and in kind
- Infants of insensitive mothers have just 38% rate of secure attachment (v 60%)
- babies of adolescent mother are more likely to be disorganized
- Relationships observed in > 26 cultures
- Hard to determine causality but:
- Children can have diff styles with diff parents
- Twin studies suggest most attachment variation due to environment, not genes
- Parents in sensitivity training interventions have more securely attached, less disorganized children
- Children can have diff styles with diff parents
Internal working models
- Perhaps continuity result of developing a mode of how relationship go- people will treat me/each other like X
- Formed early on, effects interpretation of future ones
- Recent evidence in babies for this: securely attached babies expect other moms to return, insecurely ones expect them to leave
Sleep training price et al., 2012
- Randomized trial where infants were randomly assigned to sleep training ro usual care
- 5 yrs late, no diff in attachment styles between children who were asleep trained versus not
- Parents and health professional can confidently use these techniques to reduce the short- to medium term burden of infants sleep problems and maternal depression
cultural differences in how how insecurity plays out
- German insecure babies more avoidant
- Japanese, Korean, and Israeli insecure babies more ambivalent, almost never avoidant
Individual differences in how insecurity plays out
seem to be partially explained by diff alleles of genes related to dopamine, serotonin and oxytocin
oxytocin
neurotransmitter that is proceed during bonding, cuddling, etc
-if adults snort it, they get nice, trusting, social
- Facilitates social cognition in autistic adults
- Institutionalized children show less oxytocin reactivity to caregiver interaction
Certain DRD4 alleles (for dopamine) associated with…
disorganized attachment if mother suffering from trauma, but with better attachment in less stressful contexts
- Institutionally raised children disorganized only if certain allele of serotonin transpire gene SLC6A4
- Points to gene-environment interactions; differential susceptibility
sarah hrdy on alloparenting
We evolved to and do attach to many individuals- attachment theory often fails to recognized that
- One secure relationship may buffer from risk of insecure ones
- Implicants for social policy- shared parenting after divorce
- Removal of any attachment figure extremely stressful for children
