Quiz 2 (Based off Professor Slides)/ Attachment Lecture Flashcards
What is attachment?
A strong emotional bond develops between a child and parents.
Provides the child with emotional security
a secure relationship
What is the transactional model?
Child-parent transactions are key to attachment and development (the interplay between child and caregiver)
What is interpersonal neurobiology?
Early brain development is experience dependant
What is the Critical Fundamental Principle?
The brain develops and organizes as a reflection of developmental experience, organizing in response to the pattern, intensity, and nature of sensory perceptual experience
What are the basic assumptions in Attachment theory?
1) Attachment is a universal phenomenon in humans
2) Expression of attachment varies across cultures
3) Attachments develop w/ specific people, usually in order of preference
What are the functions of attachment?
1) Provide a sense of security in the world
2) To facilitate regulation of affect and arousal
What is arousal?
Refers to the subjective feelings of being on alert, accompanying physiological responses expected.
What happens with the expression of feelings and communication?
- The relationship is the vehicle for expression of feelings and for learning how to communicate and interact w/ others
-Becomes a pattern of transactions between child expression and parent response
What does attachment provide?
- provides children with a base of operation for exploration
- The motivation to learn and explore the world and develop new skills is assumed to be intrinsic in infants.
What are Winnicott’s transitional objects?
The toddler’s ability to symbolize the attachment relationship helps them cope with separations from parents and other stressful situations.
Think of a teddy bear that a child takes with them. It symbolizes the relationship of the primary caregiver; the child embodies it with magical powers to soothe, protect, and empower them, and it’s under the child’s control. (much less common in non-western cultures.
What is Mary Ainsworth’s Strange Situation?
it was designed to create a more stressful situation in order to generate an attachment response.
12-18 month olds would enter into an unfamiliar room with their mothers, and the strangers would chat briefly with the mother.
The mom would leave for a short period and return.
They found that the infant response became the most sensitive indicator for attachment (very reliable and easily replicated).
What are factors that influence parental responsiveness?
- Caregivers’ own early experience of being cared for.
There’s parental risk factors such as mental illness or substance abuse
-Whether the caregiver is receiving outside support from other adults
What are the four styles of attachment?
1) Secure
2) Insecure/Avoidant
3) Insecure/ Ambivalent
4) Insecure/ Disorganized
What is Secure Attachment?
- Shows confidence in the attachment relationship
- Tended to greet mother positively on her return.
- Wants to be close to mom and, if distressed, asks to be picked up.
- explores when mom is in the room, does it less when she is absent
- Mother is responsive, loving, and emotionally available, and infants are able to openly express their feelings.
What is important about Secure Attachment?
_ These types of children are more confident about exploring their environment
- More open to learning
- shows less negative affect
-Shows a capacity for empathy
- Does not lead to immediate resilience. Can still suffer trauma or other negative experiences that can affect attachment
Describe Insecure/Avoidant Attachment
Higher levels of hostility and unprovoked aggressive behavior
- More negative interactions with other children
-Generalize the defenses of avoidance and self-reliance to other relationships
-Does not ask for help
- Tends to be viewed more negatively and therefore are subject to more discipline
Describe Insecure/ Ambivalent/Resistant Attachment
- Behavior conveys a strong need for attachment but a lack of confidence in its availability
- Very intense reaction to the separation
- Anxious in the pre-separation stage of the relationship
- Desperate for the mother in the reunification stage, but also resisted her efforts
- COULD NOT BE SOOTHED
- Wants contact but is angry with mom for being inconsistent
What are the Implications for Insecure Ambivalent/Resistant
- Low level autonomous behavior
- Remain preoccupied with attachment at the expense of exploring their world
- Unable to master normative separation fears
- Linked with behavioral inhibition
-Lack of assertivness
-Social withdrawn and poor social skills
Describe Insecure-Disorganized/Disoriented Attachment
- Much less organized compared to the other insecure attachment types
-Contradictory behavior upon reunification, i.e., smiling while looking fearful
-Infant appears confused and disorganized and attempts to reestablish attachment are disrupted by internal conflicts
- May go to a stranger for comfort
- Unable to self-regulate
-AFRAID OF CAREGIVERS
-associated with unresolved trauma and maltreatment at the hands of the caregiver
What are the implications of Insecure Disoriented/Disorganized
- Poor self-confidence
- Poor academic achievement
- Poor overall outcome
- Increased aggressive behavior
- Dissociation as a preferred defense
What are the attachment styles for Adults?
-Secure/autonomous
- Insecure: Preoccupied
- Insecure: Dismissive
- Disorganized/Unresolved
What are Cultural Considerations for Attachment Styles
- Link between parental sensitivity and attachment security has been replicated and validated cross-culturally
-various depending on environmental stressors
- Rates of secure attachment is between 65-70%
Attachment Interference?
Insecure attachment is developed by 70-100% of neglected, abused and traumatized children
- Neglected children receive insufficient sensory stimulation
How can you tell child will be insecurely attached?
Mothers with severe and chronic depression are likely to be insecurely attached (55-85%)
Depressed parent shows less physical affection
What is Criteria A for Reactive Attachment Disorder.
- A consistent pattern of inhibited, emotionally withdrawn behavior toward adult caregivers, manifested of the following:
1) The child rarely or minimally seeks comfort when distressed.
2) The child rarely or minimally responds to comfort when distressed
What is criteria B for RAD
A persistent social and emotional disturbance characterized by at least two of the following:
1) Minimal social and emotional responsiveness to others
2) Limited positive affect
3) Episodes of unexplained irritability, sadness, or fearfulness that are evident even during nonthreatening interactions with adult caregivers.
What is Criteria C for RAD?
The child has experienced a pattern of extremes of insufficient care as evidenced by at least one of the following:
1) Social neglect or deprivation in the form of a persistent lack of having basic emotional needs for comfort, stimulation, and affection met by caregiving adults
2) Repeated changes of primary caregivers that limit opportunities to form stable attachments (e.g., frequent changes in foster care)
3) Rearing in unusual settings that severely limit opportunities to form selective attachments (e.g., institutions with high child-to-caregiver ratios)
What is the criteria D for RAD?
The care in criterion C is presumed to be responsible for the disturbed behavior in criterion A
What is Criteria E for RAD?
The criteria are not met for autism spectrum disorder
What is criteria F for RAD
The disturbance is evident before age 5
What is criteria G for RAD?
The child has a developmental age of at least 9 months
Describe Indiscriminate Sociability
- Wanders off without distress
-Approaching strangers
-Going off with strangers without checking back with a parent
- Never being shy with new adults
- Being friendly with new adults
What’s the difference between RAD and DSED?
- RAD has only been linked to children who lack secure attachments. DSED has been linked to children who lacked secure attachments but have experienced some recovery
-DSED is also treatment-resistant. Do not see much improvement with healthy caregiving as opposed to RAD, where massive improvement with healthy caregiving as opposed to RAD where massive improvement is also noted.
- RAD, you see the absence of expected comfort-seeking behaviors and response to the efforts of others to comfort
What is DSED linked to?
Linked with higher rates of externalizing disorders (RAD is linked with Internalizing disorders)
-Children with DSED are prone to intrusiveness and attention-seeking behavior.
What is RAD misdiagnosed for?
Autism Spectrum Disorder
Is attachment stable?
No! It can be altered by experience
