Attachment Flashcards
Attachment history
Attachment
* An emotional bond with a specific person that is enduring across
space and time
Behaviourist View of Attachment
* Pleasure derived from food is the basis of mother-infant bond
- Food = unconditioned stimulus
- Mother = conditioned stimulus linked with food
Harry Harlow and Monkey Surrogates
* Tested whether pleasure of food or pleasure of comfort is most important to infant monkeys
* Separated monkeys from their mothers and
offered them 2 “surrogate mothers”:
- Wire “mother: with food
- Cloth “mother”: without food
*Results:
- Monkeys spent most of their time on the cloth mother
- Evidence that infants needed comfort provided by cloth mother
John Bowlby
* Psychoanalyst who studied intense emotional distress of children orphaned during WWII
* Recognized that:
- Distress due to separation from parents and not having emotional needs met
- Behaviours observed (e.g., crying, clinging,
searching) are adaptive responses to separation from an attachment figure
Bowlby’s Attachment Theory
Bowlby’s Attachment Theory
* Children are biologically predisposed to develop attachment to
caregivers as a means of increasing chances of their survival
* Development and quality of child’s attachments are highly
dependent on their experiences with caregivers
1. Attachment System Inactive: Caregiver is close, life is good
2. Separated from caregiver or bad event
3. Attachment System Active: Seek proximity
* Distress from a “threat” or separation from caregiver motivates
children to seek proximity to a caregiver
Features of an attachment system:
1. Proximity maintenance and seeking
* Children are biologically motivated to stay close to caregiver
2. Separation distress
* Children become distressed when separated from caregiver
* Activates attachment system, motivating child to seek proximity to caregiver
- E.g. Looking for caregiver, seeking physical proximity, crying, clinging
3. Safe haven
* Caregiver provides comfort and a sense of safety when child feels distressed
* Caregiver helps manage arousal through co-regulation
* Once proximity and reassurance have been achieved, attachment system deactivates
4. Secure base
* Caregiver provides a child with a sense of security from which they can explore the
environment
* Cannot explore the environment if attachment system is activated
See the graph slide 51
Mary Ainsworth’s Strange Situation
Bowlby’s graduate student
* Provided empirical evidence of attachment theory by developing the Strange Situation
procedure
- Paradigm designed to systematically assess children’s attachment to a specific caregiver
SEE GRAPHS! SLIDES 34-35
***Reaction to reunion episodes most important to assessing attachment
*Secure 60%:
-Uses parent as secure base
-Upset at separation
-Seeks parent at reunion and is easily soothed by the parent
*Insecure / Avoidant 15%:
-Readily separates to explore
-Avoids or ignores the parent when they return after separation
-Does not prefer the parent to the stranger
*Insecure / Resistant (Anxious) 10%:
-Does not separate to explore
-Wary of the stranger even when the parent is present
-Extremely upset at separation
-Not soothed by the parent and resists the parent’s attempts to soothe
*Insecure/ Disorganized 15%:
-Often freezes and dissociates
-Behaviour is confused and contradictory
-Seem to want to approach caregiver but see them as source of fear
Legacy of the Strange Situation
* Attachment styles replicated in several studies
* Attachment styles are universal with approximately the same
frequencies
* Remains standard measure of children’s attachment style
* Attachment styles in Strange Situation strongly correlated with
attachment behaviour at home
Determinants of Attachment Style:
1. Parenting
- Parenting
* Correlation between parental sensitivity/support and child’s
attachment style
Parents of Securely Attached Children
* Parents’ behaviour:
- Generally supportive/sensitive reactions to child
- Affectionate and expresses frequent positive emotions towards child
- Initiate frequent close contact with the child
* Child learns that:
- Proximity seeking is a good strategy to soothe distress
Security based strategy
Parents of Avoidantly Attached Children
* Parents’ behaviour:
- Consistently insensitive to the child’s signals
- Avoids close contact or rejects child’s bids for contact
- May be angry or impatient
* Child learns that:
- Proximity seeking is not a good strategy to soothe distress
*Deactivation of the attachment system
- Avoid proximity of caregiver when distressed and instead rely on self-soothing - Cope with distress by hiding it or avoiding situations that elicit distress
- BUT biological signs of stress when separated from caregiver
Parents of Resistantly (anxiously) Attached Children
* Parents’ behaviour:
- Inconsistently supportive/ sensitive in reacting to child’s distress
- Seems overwhelmed with caregiving
* Child learns that:
- Proximity is sometimes a good strategy to soothe distress
* “Hyperactivates” attachment system
- Hypervigilance to threat
- Excessive proximity-seeking of caregiver when distressed
- Cope with distress by heightening it
- Crying louder, throwing a tantrum, clinging
Parents of Children with Disorganized
Attachment
* Parents’ behaviour:
- Confuses or frightens child
- May be harsh or abusive
- Often struggle with severe mental health issues
* Child learns that:
- Proximity seeking often results in feeling scared
- Caregiver is extremely unpredictable and cannot be trusted
Determinants of Attachment Style:
2. Genetics
- No evidence that specific genes are related to attachment styles
- BUT evidence for differential susceptibility
Genetic Differential Susceptibility
* Study: Conducted in Ukrainian preschoolers
* Examined relationship between:
- Attachment
- Caregiving environment
(Raised in orphanage or with family)
* Variations in serotonin transporter gene
- Short allele = orchid (vs. Long allele = dandelion) associated with greater reactivity to stress
- Biological marker of greater sensitivity to environment
* Results: Children with at least one
S allele (vs. 2 L alleles) had:
* More attachment disorganization if
raised in institution
* BUT less attachment
disorganization if raised with family
* Suggests that genes related to
environmental sensitivity and
parenting work together to affect
vulnerability to insecure
attachment
Implications of attachment
Benefits of Secure Attachment
Children that are securely attached vs. insecurely attached:
* Are more emotionally expressive (in appropriate ways)
* Experience more positive emotion
* Are less anxious and depressed
* Are less likely to have behavioural problems, like aggression and delinquency
* Have closer relationships with peers later in childhood
* Show more empathy and helping behaviour
* Are more socially competent in general
* Do better in school
* Have more positive romantic experiences in adolescence and adulthood
One Secure Attachment is Enough
* Having at least one secure attachment seems to buffer against the
negative effects of insecure attachment
* Children with insecure attachment to both parents had more behaviour
problems than children with insecure attachment to just one parent
Internal Working Models
Internal Working Models
* Mental representations of the self, of attachment figures, and of
relationships in general
* Constructed as a result of experiences with caregivers
* Once constructed,
- Act as a filter through which interactions with the caregiver and other
attachment figures are interpreted
- Guide expectations about relationships throughout life
- Guide child’s behaviour in interactions
MODEL OF OTHERS
Can others be relied on for support?
positive or negative
MODEL OF SELF
Am I worthy of love?
positive or negative
See where they are on the graph:
-Secure: positive positive
Expect relationships to be
rewarding, comfortable with closeness, and feel worthy of love
-Resistant/ Anxious: positive negative
Strong need for closeness but
worried about rejection because
“not good enough”
-Avoidant: negative positive
Disinterested in closeness and
intimacy but very self-reliant
-Disorganized: negative negative
Distrustful of others but also
sees self as deserving of rejection
Summary
- According to Bowlby, attachment is biologically based and rooted in evolution
- Using the Strange Situation, children can be classified into 4 attachment styles:
secure, avoidant, resistant, disorganized - Attachment styles are primarily shaped by experiences with caregivers
- Secure attachment is associated with sensitive, responsive parenting
- But, research also shows that children are differentially susceptible to negative
parenting - Attachment style has a profound impact on children’s social and emotional
development - Secure attachment is associated with many positive outcomes
- The quality of children’s attachments shape their internal working models which
guide their expectations and behaviours in relationships throughout life
Does daycare interfere
with attachment?
Study of Early Child Care and Youth
Development (SECCYD)
* Longitudinal study conducted across 10 cities in the USA examining
the effects of daycare on attachment
* Studied 1364 children from birth to adolescence
* Measured:
- Childcare setup and quality
- Children’s attachment to mother using Strange Situation
- Quality of mother’s interactions with children
- Children’s social behaviour and cognitive development
Results of the SECCYD
* Attending childcare had no effect on attachment security
- 15-month olds in childcare were just as likely to be securely attached to
their mothers as children not in childcare
* Maternal sensitivity was the strongest predictor of children’s attachment security
* Aspects of childcare only had an effect on attachment security if child experienced “risks” in home
- Low maternal sensitivity + poor quality childcare = less secure
- Low maternal sensitivity + high quality childcare = more secure
Implications
* Childcare does not undermine parent-child attachment security
* Childcare can compensate for negative parenting experiences at
home by promoting attachment security
