Chapter 2 Part 2: Attachement

Question 1

Attachement theory

Answer 1

Was formulated by John Bowlby (1907-1990, psychiatrist and psychoanalyst).
Based on the young child’s need to develop a relationship with at least one primary caregiver for effective social and emotional development.

Question 2

Why Bowlby was dissatisfied with psychoanalytical theory?

Answer 2

Because it considered infants’ internal lives as being determined by fantasy rather than real life events.

Question 3

Which fields inspired Bowlby for his understanding ?

Answer 3

• evolutionnary biology
• ethology
• developmental psychology
• cognitive science
• control systems theory

Question 4

What did Harlow and Lorenz described about animals attachement?

Answer 4

They described how animals became attached to the parents that did not feed them.

Question 5

What was the conclusion of systematic observations of human infants developed during the sixties?

Answer 5

Babies become attached to people who do not feed them (in addition to the ones who feed them).

Question 6

Titles of the 3 papers Bowlby presented to the British psychoanalytical Society in London about attachement theory?

Answer 6

• The nature of the child’s Tie to his mother (1958)

- Grief (chagrin) and mourning (deuil) in infancy and early childhood (1960).

Question 7

What did Bowlby contended about children attachement?

Answer 7

• They are predisposed to become attached to their caregivers
• These primary attachement relationships are vital to the child’s survival.

Question 8

How is the infant behavior primarily oriented?

Answer 8

To seeking proximity to an attachement figure in stressful situations.

Question 9

What are the parental responses lead to?

Answer 9

Thes lead to the development of patterns of attachement, these, in turn, lead to internal working models which will guide individuals’ feelings, thoughts, and expectations in later relationships.

Question 10

How a separation anxiety or grief following the loss of an attachement figure considered?

Answer 10

It is considered to be normal and adaptative response for an attached infant.

Question 11

The four attachement patterns emerging from Mary Ainsworth “strange situation”

Answer 11

• Secure
• insecure-avoidant
• insecure-ambivalent
• disorganized

Question 12

The Adult Attachement Interview (Main, Salom, 1990)AAI

Answer 12

Interview-based method of classifying a parents’ state of mind with respect to attachement.
16 question interview that asks parents to describe their early experiences with their parents.

Question 13

What did the Adult Attachement Interview demonstrated?

Answer 13

It was demonstrated that there is a strong association with the infants’ behavior toward the parent during the strange situation.

Question 14

Attachment (Sroufe & Waters, 1977)

Answer 14

Stable affectionate bond to a specific person from which one attempts to derive a sense of security.

Question 15

Attachement figures

Answer 15

Early in life are usually parents, who protect their children from danger and stress, and thus con,tribute to the development of their emotional regulation capacities.

Question 16

On what depends the attachment developed by infants?

Answer 16

It depends on the quality of care they receive.

Question 17

Infancy

Answer 17

approximately refers to the first two years of life, or the period that begins at birth and ends when the child begins to use language.

Question 18

What happens during infancy?

Answer 18

important social and personality development centers on the phenomenon of attachment, the emotional bond between the infant and his primary caregiver.

Question 19

What Bowlby was attempting to understand when developing his theory of attachment?

Answer 19

To understand the intense distress experiences by infants who had been separated from their parents.

Question 20

What do secure attachement encourage?

Answer 20

It helps babies to survive, and also encourages the development of social and cognitive skills by providing the emotional security that allows the baby to interact freely with others and to explorer the world.

Question 21

How does a baby behaves once attachement has developed?

Answer 21

They show separation distress protesting at separation from a caregiver and showing joy at the care giver’s return, and then wariness (prudence) of strangers (i.e. responding to strangers with fear or withdrawal (retrait), looking away, frowning, or even crying at a stranger’s approach).

Question 22

the strange situation (Mary Ainsworth)

Answer 22

laboratory paradigm for studying infant-parent attachment.

Question 23

What was the attachment theory extended to?

Answer 23

It was extended to adult romantic relationships in the late 1980s by Cindy Hazan and Phillip Shaver.

Research on adult attachment is guided by the assumption that the same motivational system that gives rise to the close emotional bond between parents and their children is responsible for the bond that develops between adults in emotionally intimate relationships.

Question 24

Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) developed by Mary Main.

Answer 24

Very Common measure of adult attachment, self-report questionnaires and coded interviews.

Question 25

Styles of adult attachment identified with the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI)

Answer 25

• Secure
• Anxious-preoccupied
• dismissive-avoidant
• fearful-avoidant.

Question 26

Working models (IWMs) Bowlby

Answer 26

IWMs are internalized representations of the “self” and “other” based on a child’s interactions with his/her main caregivers.

Question 27

According to Bowlby, what do the emotional bond between an infant and his caregiver affects?

Answer 27

According to Bowlby, the emotional bond between an infant and his/her main caregiver affects their later social, psychological and biological capacities through the construction of IWMs.*

Question 28

What issues the Research into adult working models has focused on?

Answer 28

• First, how are the thoughts that form working models organized in the mind?
• Second, how stable are working models across time?

Although a secure attachment provides a firm foundation for social competence, negative experiences of infancy can be reversed.

Positive relationship experiences encountered later in life (such as becoming involved with a committed, well-adjusted partner) can counteract negative relationship experiences earlier in life (such as experiencing less responsive or less consistent caregiving during childhood; see (See Film 18).