Week 7: Ch.10: Emotions & Attachment Flashcards
Attachment
A lasting emotional tie between two individuals who strive to maintain closeness and act to ensure that the relationship continues
Avoidant Attachment
Infants show little interest in the mother and busily explore the room during the strange situation. The infant is not distressed during the strange situation and is not enthusiastic upon reuniting with the mother
Basic Emotions
Emotions that are universal in humans, appear early in life, and are thought to have a long evolutionary history.
–Happiness
–Interest
–Surprise
–Fear
–Anger
–Sadness
–Disgust
Contact Comfort
Close physical contact between baby and caregiver
Daily Hassles
Small stresses that quickly accumulate to influence adults’ mood and abilities to cope
Disorganized Attachment
First identified by Mary Main and Judith Solomon in 1986
Infants show inconsistent, contradictory behavior. Shows conflict between the approaching and fleeing the caregiver, suggestion fear.
Abuse is thought to play a role in insecure disorganized attachment
Emotion Regulation
The ability to adjust and control our emotional state to influence how and when emotions are expressed
Emotional Display Rules
Unstated cultural guidelines for acceptable emotions and emotional expression that are communicated to children via parents’ emotional behavior, expressions, and socialization
Goodness of Fit
The compatibility between a child’s temperament and their environment, especially the parent’s temperament and child-rearing methods; the greater the degree of match, the more favorable the child’s adjustment
Hardiness
Personal qualities, including a sense of control, orientation towards personal growth, and commitment to life choices, that influences adults’ ability to adapt to changes and life circumstances
Harlow’s Monkey Studies
Baby rhesus monkeys were reared with two inanimate surrogate “mothers”: one made of wire mesh and a second covered with terrycloth.
The baby monkeys clung to the terrycloth mother despite being fed only by the wire mother, suggesting that attachment bonds are not based on feeding but rather on contact comfort
Internal Working Model
A set of expectations about one’s worthiness of love and the availability of attachment figures during times of distress
The internal working model influences the development of self-concept, or sense of self, in infancy and becomes a guide to later relationships throughout life
Resilience
The ability to adapt to serious adversity
Resistant Attachment
Show a mixed pattern of responses to the mother. The infant remains preoccupied with the mother throughout the procedure, seeking proximity and contact, but the infant’s behavior during reunions suggest resistance as well as signs of anger and distress
Secure Attachment
The attachment pattern in which an infant uses the caregiver as a secure base from which to explore, seeks contact during reunions, and is easily comforted by the caregiver
Secure Base
The use of a caregiver as a foundation from which to explore and return to for emotional support
Self-Conscious Emotions
Emotions that requires cognitive development and an awareness of self, such as empathy, embarrassment, shame, and guilt
Sensitivity of Caregiving
The most important determinant of infant attachment
Infants become securely attached to mothers who are sensitive and responsive to their signals, who accept their role as caregiver, are accessible and cooperative with infants
Success is determined by the response and not the specific person responding
Separation Anxiety
(Separation Protest)
Occurs when infants respond to the departure of a caregiver with fear, distress, and crying
Social Referencing
Seeking information from caregivers about how to interpret unfamiliar or ambiguous events by observing their emotional expressions and reactions
Spitz’s Orphanage Observations
Rene Spitz
Filmed infants living in Romanian orphanages
Infants were properly fed and received good health care, but there was little emphasis on emotional caregiving
–Infants were physically & developmentally stunted
–37% died over 2 years
Children who received parental love did better than the best orphanages
Strange Situation
Developed by Mary Ainsworth
A structured laboratory procedure that measures the security of attachment by observing infants’ reactions to being separated from the caregiver in a an unfamiliar environment
–Exploration of the toys and room
–Reaction during separations
–Reaction during reunions
Temperament
Characteristic differences among individuals in emotional reactivity, self-regulation, and activity that influences reactions to the environment and are stable, and appear early in life
Easy: regularity in biological rhythms, tendency to adapt easily, cheerfulness
Difficult: irregularity in biological rhythms, slow adaption to change, intense negative reactions
Slow-to-warm-up: mild irregularity in biological rhythms, slow adaption to change, mildly negative mood
Consistency of Caregiving
The degree to which a child receives care from the same person over time
