Attachment Flashcards
(52 cards)
1
Q
What is attachment?
A
- an emotional bond with a specific person that is enduring across space and time
2
Q
What is the behaviourist view of attachment?
A
- pleasure derived from food is the basis of mother-infant bond
3
Q
What did Harry Harlow discover with his monkey surrogates experiment?
A
- monkeys spent most of their time on the cloth mother
- evidence that infants needed comfort provided by the cloth mother
- it is not just about food
4
Q
Who is John Bowlby?
A
- psychoanalyst who studied intense emotional distress of children orphaned during WWII
5
Q
What did Bowlby recognize?
A
- distress due to separation from parents and not having emotional needs met
- behaviours observed (crying, clinging, searching) are adaptive responses to separation from an attachment figure
6
Q
What is Bowlby’s attachment theory?
A
- 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
7
Q
What is the attachment system?
A
- biologically based
- not always on
- distress from a threat or separation from caregiver motivates children to seek proximity to a caregiver
8
Q
What happens when the attachment system is inactive?
A
- caregiver is close
- life is good
9
Q
What happens to make the attachment system active?
A
- separated from caregiver
- bad event
10
Q
What happens when the attachment system is active?
A
- seek proximity
11
Q
What are the features of the attachment system?
A
- proximity maintenance and seeking
- separation distress
- safe haven
- secure base
12
Q
What is proximity maintenance and seeking?
A
- children are biologically motivated to stay close to caregiver
13
Q
What is separation distress?
A
- children become distressed when separated from caregiver
- activates attachment system, motivating child to seek proximity to caregiver
14
Q
What is safe haven?
A
- 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
15
Q
What is secure base?
A
- caregiver provides child with a sense of security from which they can explore the environment
- cannot explore the environment if attachment system is activated
16
Q
What did Mary Ainsworth do?
A
- provided empirical evidence of attachment theory by developing the strange situation procedure
17
Q
What is the strange situation procedure?
A
- paradigm designed to systematically assess children’s attachment to a specific caregiver
- caregiver with child, then stranger, then caregiver leaves room
- reaction to caregiver coming back is most important to assessing attachment
18
Q
What are the attachment styles?
A
- secure
- avoidant
- resistant
- disorganized
19
Q
What is the secure style?
A
- 60%
- child uses the parent as secure base, is distressed at separation, seeks the parent at reunion and is easily soothed
20
Q
What is the avoidant style?
A
- 15%
- readily separates to explore, avoids or ignores the parent when they return after separation, and has no preference for the parent to the stranger
21
Q
What is the resistant style?
A
- 10%
- does not separate to explore, wary of the stranger even when the parent is present, extremely upset at separation, but not soothed by the parent and resists the parent’s attempts to soothe
22
Q
What is the disorganized style?
A
- 15%
- often freezes and dissociates, behaviour is confusing and contradictory, seem to want to appraoch caregiver but also see them as a source of fear
23
Q
What is the legacy of the strange situation?
A
- attachment styles replicated in several studies
- attachment styles are universal across cultures 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
24
Q
What is the development of attachment (timeline)?
A
- pre attachment phase
- attachment in the making phase
- clear cut attachment phase
- formation of reciprocal relationships
25
What is the pre attachment phase?
- birth - 3 months
- infant shows behaviours that help attract a caregiver but do not prefer a specific caregiver
26
What is the attachment in the making phase?
- emerges around 3 months
- start to distinguish between familiar and unfamiliar people, preferring to receive care from a familiar person, but infants still accept care from strangers
- don't protest or show separation distress when separated from a parent
27
What is the clear cut attachment phase?
- 6-12 months
- infants display clear attachment behaviours and a preference for a particular caregiver
28
What is the formation of reciprocal relationships phase?
- 3 years +
- toddlers understand their parents motivations and actions more
- are better able to tolerate distress that comes with separation
29
What are the implications of the development of attachment?
- a baby's age influences their attachment behaviours
- attachment seems to follow somewhat of a sensitive period
30
What is the sensitive period for attachment?
- around 6 months
31
What is the case of the Romanian orphanages?
- during the cold war, many Romanian orphanages were characterized by profound neglect
- children in these orphanages were unable to form a primary attachment relationship
- the extend of negative effects of these experiences depend on how long children had spent in the orphanages
- if adapted after 6 months, tended to show profound, lasting cognitive, emotional, and social problems
32
What are the determinants of attachment style?
- parenting
- temperament and genetics
33
What are the parents' behaviour of a securely attached child?
- generally supportive/sensitive reactions to child
- affectionate and express frequent positive emotions towards child
- initiate frequent close contact with the child
34
What do securely attached children learn from their parents' behaviour?
- proximity seeking is a good strategy to soothe distress
- intact attachment system
35
What are the parents' behaviour of an avoidantly attached child?
- consistently incentive to the child's signals or physically unavailable
- avoids close contact or rejects child's bids for contact
- can be angry/impatient or dismissive
36
What do avoidantly attached children learn from their parents' behaviour?
- proximity seeking is not a good strategy to soothe distress
- deactivates attachment system
- avoid proximity of caregiver when distresses 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
37
What are the parents' behaviour of a resistantly attached child?
- inconsistently supportive/sensitive in reacting to child's distress
- seems overwhelmed with caregiving
38
What do resistantly attached children learn from their parents' behaviour?
- proximity is sometimes a good strategy to soothe distress
- hyperactivates attachment system
- hyperviligance to threat
- excessive proximity seeking of caregiver when distressed
- cope with distress by heightening it
39
What are the parents' behaviour of a disorganizedly attached child?
- confuses or frightens child
- may be harsh or abusive
- often struggle with severe mental health issues
40
What do disorganizedly attached children learn from their parents' behaviour?
- proximity seeking often results in feeling scared
- caregiver is extremely unpredictable and cannot be trusted
41
How do temperament and genetics influence attachment?
- temperament influences attachment behaviours
- temperament also influences the degree of responsiveness from a caregiver
- no evidence that specific genes are related to attachment styles
- evidence for differential susceptibility
42
What is genetic differential susceptibility of attachment?
- 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
- the children with at least one S allele would be the more sensitive ones (orchids)
43
What are the implications of the determinants to attachment style?
- suggests that genes related to environmental sensitivity and parenting work together to affect vulnerability to insecure attachment
- caregiving experiences and temperament jointly shape a child's level of attachment security
44
What are the benefits of secure attachment?
- are more emotionally expressive (in appropriate ways)
- experience more positive emotions
- are less anxious and depressed
- are less likely to have behavioural problems, like aggression and delinquency
- have closer relationships with peers
- 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
45
How many secure attachments does the child need?
- 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 behavioural problems than children with insecure attachment to just one parent
46
What are 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 caregiver and other attachment figures are interpreted and guide expectations and behaviours in relationships through life
47
If a child is positive in model of others and self, what attachment style?
- secure
- expect relationships to be rewarding
- comfortable with closeness
- feel worthy of love
48
If a child is positive in model of others and negative in model of self, what attachment style?
- resistant
- strong need for closeness but worried about rejection because "not good enough"
49
If a child is negative in model of others and positive in model of self, what attachment style?
- avoidant
- disinterested in closeness and intimacy but very self reliant
50
If a child is negative in model of others self, what attachment style?
- disorganized
- distrustful of others but also sees self as deserving of rejection
51
Do caregivers experiences in childhood predict adult attachment style?
- less supportive parenting and family instability predict attachment insecurity in adulthood
- avoidance is predicted by lower maternal sensitivity and not consistently living with father
- anxiety is predicted by higher maternal depression
- there is an association between childhood caregiving experiences and attachment in adulthood
52
Does daycare interfere with attachment?
- attending childcare has no effect on attachment security
- maternal support/sensitivity was the strongest predictor of children's attachment security
- quality of daycare only had an affect on attachment security if child experienced low maternal sensitivity
- low maternal sensitivity + poor quality childcare = less secure
- low maternal sensitivity + high quality childcare = more secure
- childcare does not undermine parent-child attachment security
- childcare can compensate for negative parenting experiences at home by promoting attachment security
