Psychosocial theories 1 - Attachment Flashcards
Neoanalytic theories
❖Neoanalytic theories of personality focus on Ego (self)
❖Focus is on centrality of relations with others for personality development
❖Issues of ‘trust’ permeate these theories
❖Behaviour / personality difficulties rooted in relationship issues
❖Many different theories with some overlap:
• Patterns of relating to others established in early childhood
• Patterns recur throughout life
Attachment theory – history 1
❖John Bowlby (1950s) argued tendency to
establish strong emotional bonds to others is
an hereditary motivational system built into
primate biology to ensure survival.
❖Tendency exists from the early infancy
through adulthood into old age.
Attachment theory – history 2
❖Infant viewed as biologically programmed to seek:
❖ proximity to &
❖ promote a care-seeking-care-giving relationship
❖ with specific individual(s) who will provide protection & support
❖Attachment theory born from unlikely combination
of:
❖ ethology (animal behaviour),
❖ developmental psychology &
❖ psychoanalysis.
Attachment theory – history 3
In 1958 Harry Harlow reported a study inspired by the work of psychoanalyst Renee Spitz, who had shown that infants raised in orphanages without loving attention withered away & often died.
❖ Harlow devised an experiment with rhesus monkeys
❖ Infant monkeys taken from their mothers shortly after birth and raised with 2 surrogate “mothers”:
• one made of bale-wire mesh
• the other covered with terry cloth
❖ Either “mother” could be equipped with a feeding nipple.
Attachment Experiment
❖ Even when bale-wire “mother” only one
providing food, infants became more attached to
the terry cloth “mother” cuddling it, running to it
when frightened & using it as a base for
explorations.
❖ Experiment appeared to disprove assumption
that infant attachment to mother is mainly
function of feeding.
❖ But experiments with monkeys cannot be used
to draw conclusions about human attachment.
The Strange Situation 1
❖ Ainsworth had mother & 1 year old together in strange environment with lots of toys to invite exploration: • introduced stranger when mother was still there, to see how baby responds • then had separation situation where mother left the baby with stranger
The Strange Situation 2
❖Since stranger was in room during first departure an episode in which the mother left the baby entirely alone was included to see whether return of stranger lessened distress.
❖Finally, another reunion with mother
The Strange Situation (Ainsworth et al.,1978) takes
twenty minutes. Whole procedure videotaped and
rated focusing particularly on response of child to
separation & reunion.
- Secure Attachment
❖ Securely attached sought mothers
when distressed,
❖ Seemed confident of her availability
❖ Were upset when she left them
❖ Eagerly greeted her upon her return
❖ Were readily comforted by her embrace then
able to return to excited or contented play.
2.Insecure-Avoidant(‘A’)
Avoidantly attached seemed to:
❖ Depend less on mother as secure base
❖ Sometimes attacked,
❖ Were far more clingy and demanding initially
❖ Despite in some cases being just as openly upset by
mother’s departure in the Strange Situation’, showed
no interest in her when she returned
❖ These children remained watchful of mother &
inhibited in play
- Insecure-Ambivalent (‘C’): Part 1
❖ The ambivalently attached tended to be most overtly
anxious of all children
❖ Were also clingy & demanding.
❖ Like the secure were upset when abandoned by mother in
the Strange Situation
- Insecure-Ambivalent (‘C’): Part 2
❖ Despite seeking contact when reunited, resisted by arching away or remaining limp in mother’s embrace ❖ Could not be soothed -continued to alternate between anger and clinging to mother. ❖ Exploratory play was inhibited
4.Insecure- Disorganised (‘D’)
These children showed a diverse range of confused behaviours including: • ‘freezing’ OR • stereotyped movements when reunited with parents.
What is the significance of Strange Situation?: Part 1
❖ Observation shown that in first months, mothers of secure infants responded more promptly when they cried, looked, smiled at and talked to their babies more; & offered them more affectionate & joyful holding.
❖ Caregivers of children later classified as insecure avoidantly attached tended to interact less & in more functional way
What is the significance of Strange Situation?: Part 2
❖ Mothers of insecure ambivalently-attached children tended to ignore babies signals for attention & generally be unpredictable in responsiveness.
❖ Once researchers had identified groups of children with different styles of relating & knew what type of care-taking different groups had experienced, relating could be empirically studied.
Attachment Theory 1
❖ “The developing child builds up a set of models of
relationship of ‘self’ and ‘others’, based on repeated
patterns of interactive experience.
❖ These form relatively fixed representational models which child uses to predict and relate to the world. (John Bowlby used term “internal working models of attachment” (IWM)).
❖ The measure of security of infant-mother
attachment has demonstrated systematic
associations between developments at first year of
life & later functioning.
Attachment Theory 2: Part 1
❖ Whether there has been attachment and quality of
attachment is central for later social relationships.
❖ Key to secure attachment is active reciprocal interaction
❖ Quality of interaction matters more than quantity.
❖ IWM’s are dynamic working models that not only
represent nature of past interactional experience but
become prototype for formation of future relationships.
Attachment Theory 2: Part 2
❖ IWM’s built up in early years of life are enduring &
difficult to modify via subsequent experience.
• People who show patterns of change over time may
be those who are insecure but have periods of
security
• People can demonstrate different patterns for
relationships in different contexts (close friends,
groups)
Inter-generational transmission of internal
working models of attachment
❖ Quality of early child-rearing is also viewed as
pivotal influence on adult’s ability to parent
❖ The parents thoughts, fantasies & feelings about
own childhood relationships (assumed to be
represented mentally as IWM’s) appear to
determine parents’ behaviour patterns with their
children
❖ In turn complements child’s emerging sense of self
in the relationship & the child’s system of
attachment behaviours.
Three central features of attachment
❖ Proximity–seeking e.g. crisis
❖ Secure base effect (exploring the world)
❖ Separation protest (distress about
potential loss)
Adult attachment patterns
Idea that working models of relationships developed in childhood carry over into adulthood (Hazan and Shaver, 1987)
❖ Relationships of secure people:
• More happy; friendly; trusting; longer lasting
• Mental model of love: It’s real and it stays
❖ Relationships of avoidant people:
• Less accepting of lovers’ imperfections
• Mental model of love: Cynical, romantic love doesn’t last
❖ Relationships of ambivalent people
• Obsessive; preoccupied; extremes of emotions, sexual attraction, and jealousy; love at first sight
• Mental model of love: Falling in love is easy, but doesn’t last
Alternate conceptualization of adult attachment
❖ Bartholomew & Horowitz (1991) focused on models of ‘self’ and ‘other’
rather than a model of the relationship between oneself & another
❖ Two dimensional approach
• Self (positive vs. negative) / Other (trustworthy vs not trustworthy)
Some implications of adult attachment: Part 1
❖ Avoidant:
– Socialise less at work; greater desire to keep busy
– Seek less support during stress; provide less support to stress partners
– Less responsive caregiving
– Greater use of distancing coping
❖ Anxious Ambivalent:
– Unhappiness with job recognition and security
– Higher levels of compulsive caregiving
– Higher levels of self-criticism and wishful thinking coping
Some implications of adult attachment: Part 2
❖ Pairings:
– STABLE— Secure – Secure; Avoidant men – Ambivalent women
– UNSTABLE— Ambivalent – Ambivalent; Avoidant – Avoidant;
Ambivalent men – Avoidant women
Attachment Patterns and the FFM
(Carver, 1997; Shaver & Brennan, 1992) • Strong links: • Avoidants are introverted • Secures are extraverted • Ambivalents are high in neuroticism • Dimensions of attachment avoidance and attachment anxiety resemble introversion-extraversion and neuroticism
Neglect (emotional deprivation)
Brain is plastic, even after a terribly difficult childhood, with the right interventions/support/envt can bring about huge changes to overs – Harvard research here shows the way brain plasticity and the right envt and support can break cycles of problems.
