Developmental Psychology I: infancy and childhood part 4.2 Flashcards
(47 cards)
Attachment theory short
🔍 Explanation:
Attachment theory (developed by John Bowlby) is like a blueprint for how babies and caregivers build emotional bridges. An attachment relationship is a special bond between a child and someone who provides comfort, safety, and care (usually a caregiver).
Analogy: Imagine the caregiver is like a Wi-Fi router, and the child is a device. The “attachment relationship” is the invisible signal that connects them. When the signal is strong, the device (child) feels safe to explore. If the signal drops (the caregiver isn’t available), the child panics or searches for reconnection.
Attachment is often referred to as an affectionate bond or emotional tie, which is strong and enduring, that we have with significant people.
💡 Explanation:
This emotional bond isn’t fleeting — it’s long-lasting. Think of it like a strong rope connecting you to your anchor. It keeps you from drifting into emotional chaos when the seas of life get stormy.
Attachment relationships are seek in times of potential alarm or discomfort.
🧠 This means: When you’re scared, sick, tired, or sad, your brain tells you to look for your attachment figure. That’s the person who calms you down — like how a baby cries for their mom when they fall.
The quality of provided care does not necessarily determine whether or not an attachment relationship develops, but rather shapes its quality.
📌 Key point: A baby will usually form an attachment no matter what, but the type of attachment (secure vs. insecure) depends on the quality of care.
Analogy: Think of cement hardening. The mold (caregiver interaction) doesn’t stop it from becoming cement, but it does shape what kind of structure it turns into — stable or cracked.
A child may form multiple attachment relationships with different attachment figures.
👶 This means: A child doesn’t bond with just one person. They can have attachment relationships with both parents, grandparents, teachers, etc.
Motivational Attachment System
The attachment system is an innate motivation system, which is believed to be activated when an individual is distressed, scared, tired, sick, etc.
🔧 Your brain comes pre-installed with this system from birth. It’s like a biological alarm system. When something goes wrong — pain, fear, hunger — it activates and pushes you to seek your caregiver.
The goal of the attachment system is to achieve and maintain the availability of the attachment figure as a safe base, the caregiver receptivity and the consequent satisfaction of needs.
Experiences with the attachment figure determine whether, when, and how the system is effectively activated and deactivated by seeking contact with the attachment figure.
💭 So: If the child learns that crying = comfort, the system works well. But if comfort doesn’t come, the system malfunctions. The child may stop crying or become hypervigilant.
The attachment system will work with internal operating models, which can also be called expectations.
🧠 Internal Operating Models are like mental maps. Based on past experience, the child starts predicting how the caregiver will act in the future.
Based on their experiences in an early attachment relationship, children develop expectations (or internal operating models) about their attachment figure’s future behaviour.
🌍 This means: A child whose caregiver is loving will expect future love. A child who is ignored will expect future rejection.
These models function as maps, based on expectations, that help any individual predict the behaviours of the attachment figure in alarming situations. These expectations will be relevant to attachment.
📈 These “maps” help the child decide: Should I cry? Should I go to them? And this shapes the child’s future relationships.
John Bowlby and the Origins of Attachment Theory
John Bowlby’s Attachment Theory (1958) is regarded as one of the landmark theories of developmental psychology
📚 John Bowlby used a mix of psychoanalysis and ethology (animal behavior science). He was one of the first to say: “Attachment is a biological need — not just an emotional thing.”
It suggests that the tendency to form an attachment is a biological trait, which promotes adaptation and survival: it satisfies physiological (nourishment and security) and psychological (comfort, feeling secure) needs.
🧬 That means: We’re wired to form attachments because they help us survive. Babies that stay close to caregivers get food and protection. Emotionally, they also feel secure and confident.
During his clinical practice, he realised that isolation, emotional distancing and interpersonal difficulties were most of times a consequence of early mother-child bond ruptures.
💔 When the early bond is broken — maybe the mother dies or is unresponsive — the child may struggle later in life with closeness, relationships, or emotions.
Critical Period and Imprinting
Bowlby considered the formation of a successful attachment to operate according to a critical period.
🕒 A critical period is a biological window where something must happen — or it may never happen properly again.
Successful attachment should be achieved between 6 months to 3 years, as it is highly difficult to form an attachment (even with good parenting) after this period.
The concept of a critical period for forming a relationship between infant and caregiver came from ethology studies on imprinting.
📖 Bowlby borrowed this from animal research…
Imprinting: when newborns recognize and seek proximity with the first object they encounter.
🐥 Lorenz’s ducklings imprinted on him. They followed him around like he was their mom.
The Attachment System
Bowlby concluded that the instinct to attach oneself to an attachment figure in times of need is ever-present in human beings, from birth to old age.
❤️ This system isn’t just for babies. Adults still turn to partners or friends when they’re in pain or fear. The attachment system stays online for life.
It has an evolutionary and primary basis and is related to a hypothetical attachment system:
Behavioural system = actions like crying, clinging, following (to get attention).
Motivation system = the drive to seek closeness for protection.
” It’s called “hypothetical” because it can’t be directly observed, but its effects (like crying, clinging, following) can be seen.”
Internal Operating Models
Secure attachment: the self deserves love, and the other is loving and attentive.
Insecure attachment: the self is worthy of rejection and the other is unavailable.
🎭 These are core beliefs a child forms:
“I am lovable and others will help me” → Secure.
“I am not good enough, and people will abandon me” → Insecure.
Dual Drive – Attachment vs. Exploration
🔹 “Forming a successful attachment to satisfy psychological needs is important given that the tendency to explore and learn develops in opposition to the tendency to form attachment”
🔍 This means: Babies have two competing motivations — the need to stay close (attachment) and the need to explore (learn, grow).
🔹 “I.e., infants want to discover new things as well as feel close to the caregiver”
✔️ If attachment is secure, the baby feels safe enough to explore the world — a sign of healthy psychological development.
🔹 “During exploration, the caregiver functions as a safe base: the infant returns to the caregiver in moments of threat or distress caused by objects, events, illness, strangers, etc.”
🏠 A “safe base” is the emotional home base the child runs back to when something unfamiliar feels scary.
System Activation, Development, and Monotropism
🔹 “Bowlby first conceptualised attachment as a goal-driven system in the infant to promote optimum proximity with the caregiver”
🎯 The child’s goal is staying close to the caregiver. Bowlby saw attachment as a kind of biological GPS, always trying to keep the infant within a safe range of their “base.”
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Optimum proximity means the ideal physical closeness between a child and their caregiver that makes the child feel safe and secure — close enough for comfort and protection, but far enough to allow exploration.
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🔹 “Separation activates this system, which serves to restore proximity”
🚨 When the caregiver leaves, the infant’s attachment alarm goes off. This causes crying, reaching, crawling toward the caregiver — all to restore closeness.
🔹 “The development of this system depends on the cognitive and physical development of the infant: they must first be able to recognise the caregiver and distinguish them from other people and be able to vocalise and move reasonably independently.”
📈 The system doesn’t work unless the infant’s brain and body are mature enough to:
Tell people apart
Know when someone’s gone
Use signals (cry, crawl) to get them back
🔹 Monotropism – the idea that any child only forms a strong attachment to one person
❤️ Bowlby originally believed that infants form one special bond (usually with the mother). This is monotropism: “mono” = one.
👉 Later research showed that children can form multiple attachments, but Bowlby emphasized the primary one as the most crucial.
Separation Protest & Stranger Anxiety
🔹 “By the time the infant is able to explore the environment (~6 months), it shows signs of separation protest:”
At around 6 months, the infant starts understanding that the caregiver can leave — and that’s distressing!
🔹 “The infant may cry or reach out to prevent the caregiver’s departure and may continue this behaviour in the caregiver’s absence.”
🧲 The baby’s behaviors — crying, clinging — are attempts to prevent separation or restore proximity.
🔹 “Stranger anxiety: wariness or fear of unfamiliar people”
🔹 “The infant will often try to maintain proximity to the caregiver in the presence of strangers as a source of protection.”
The Four Phases of Attachment Development
- Pre-Attachment (Birth to 2 months)
- Early Attachment (2–7 months)
- Attachment/Separation Protest (7–9 months to 2 years)
- Partnership/Goal-Corrected (2–3 years onwards)
Phase 1: Pre-Attachment (Birth to 2 months)
🔹 “The infant shows little differentiation in responses to caregiver and other people”
👶 In the beginning, babies don’t really know who’s who — they cry and coo to anyone.
🔹 “The baby shows little or no recognition of the caregiver”
🧠 They don’t yet recognize the caregiver’s unique role — they respond similarly to familiar and unfamiliar people.
Phase 2: Early Attachment (2–7 months)
🔹 “Infant begins to recognise caregiver and is gradually more likely to be comforted by their presence”
🧩 Now the infant starts recognizing their main caregiver and feels calmer around them.
🔹 “Still lacks object recognition and is unable to recognise the caregiver as a human social object”
🧠 The brain hasn’t developed the full mental representation of people as “ongoing” entities who still exist even when they’re out of sight.
🔹 “If you can’t recognise something as an object, you can’t recognise its absence”
💬 That’s why there’s still no separation protest. The baby doesn’t fully realize someone’s gone, just that things feel different.
Phase 3: Attachment/Separation Protest (7–9 months to 2 years)
🔹 “From around 7 months, the infant will show clearer signs of proximity seeking, separation protest and stranger anxiety”
🔓 All the key attachment behaviors are now active:
Proximity seeking: crawling toward caregiver
Separation protest: crying when left
Stranger anxiety: wariness of unfamiliar faces
🔹 “These behaviours will become increasingly clearer as the child enters into the 2nd year of his life.”
Phase 4: Partnership/Goal-Corrected (2–3 years onwards)
🔹 “The infant explores the environment with greater independence”
🌍 The child now trusts the caregiver’s return and feels safe to explore for longer periods.
🔹 “Attachment becomes an abstract, internal representation with an understanding of others’ needs”
💡 The child starts forming internal models — “Mom is busy, but she’ll come back” — instead of reacting emotionally every time she’s gone.
🔹 “The infant develops the concept of trust, and an understanding of the caregiver’s needs in relation to availability”
🧠 This is empathy + patience: the child realizes caregivers have their own tasks but still care.
🔹 “Attachment behaviours do not occur at the same time or with the same intensity for all infants. Despite this variation, the goal of seeking proximity is presumed to be the same for all infants”
📌 Individual timelines differ (some cry more, some explore earlier), but the underlying drive — staying close when in need — is universal.!!!!!!!
Maternal Deprivation Hypothesis
🔹 “Abnormal social development that results from severe parental neglect or long-term separation from parental figures”
This means: If a child doesn’t have consistent emotional closeness (due to neglect or separation), they can develop unhealthy social behaviors later — like trouble bonding with others.
🔹 “Maternal deprivation”
= Long-term disruption in attachment to the mother figure, often causing:
Emotional or physical illness
Abandonment issues
Or effects from being raised in institutional settings (e.g. orphanages)
🔹 “Maternal deprivation hypothesis”
= Bowlby’s theory that if a child is deprived of a close bond with their mother in early life, it can cause lasting emotional, cognitive, and social damage.
Goldfarb’s 1947 Study on “Maternal Deprivation Hypothesis”
🧪 30 children who were “given up by their mothers before 9 months of age”:
Half → foster care
Half → institutionalized, then foster care at 3.5 years
❗ “Intelligence, reading and arithmetic measures at 10–14 years”
→ Institutionalized kids performed worse than those placed in foster care from the start.
Also more: fearful, restless, less popular, and more needy with adults.
🧠 Goldfarb concluded:
“Maladaptive development was due to institutionalisation and the lack of attachment with a caregiver”
It wasn’t poverty or bad foster care — it was the absence of a strong emotional bond in early development.
🩺 Bowlby added (1951):
“Adequate care… can correct the disruptive effects if it is given before ~2.5 years of age**”
— Only within a critical (or sensitive) period can the brain still build healthy attachment.!!!!!!!
Harlow & Zimmerman’s Monkey Experiments (1959)
Experimental Setup:
Rhesus monkeys raised in isolation were given two fake mothers:
Wire model with food (milk bottle)
Cloth model without food
Monkeys’ Behavior:
Chose the soft cloth model as their main source of comfort — even though it didn’t feed them.
Why is this important?
✔️ It showed that emotional security > basic needs like food when it comes to forming attachment.
Key points:
Monkeys clung to the cloth model when scared
Used it as a “secure base” (just like human infants do!)
Preferred it even outside feeding times
Lack of real attachment led to:
Social withdrawal
Fear or even aggression
Poor maternal behavior later in life
🔹 “Lack of any real attachment had caused psychological damage”
Conclusion: Physical nourishment isn’t enough. Emotional warmth and bonding are essential.
Critiques of Bowlby’s Maternal Deprivation Hypothesis
🔹 “Child rearing and parenting” + “social policy”
Bowlby’s work changed public thinking, influenced parenting norms, and even policy on childcare and orphanage systems.
BUT – new research showed:
“Environmental enrichment later in life may compensate for early deprivation.”
🧠 Meaning: It’s not a total lost cause — good later experiences can reverse some early damage.
🔄 Bowlby’s update:
Replaced critical period with sensitive period
= A time window that’s ideal (but not rigidly fixed) for forming attachment.
❓ “Maternal deprivation or the effects of the characteristics of institutions”?
Tizard & Hodges (1978) challenged Bowlby’s conclusion.
They found children:
Adopted between 4.5 and 16 years
Showed normal cognitive and language development
But still had some issues (e.g. over-friendly with strangers)
Another key study (Pace et al., 2012):
Children adopted at 4–7 years still formed secure attachments if adoptive parents helped them process trauma.
Takeaway:
“Effects of institutionalisation can be mitigated”
→ Damage can be healed with the right support.
Second Phase – Mary Ainsworth
🔹 Ainsworth’s Focus:
Measuring the child’s emotional state through observation of real behavior with the caregiver.
Bowlby focused on ruptures (separation, loss)
Ainsworth looked at everyday communication — the small back-and-forth signals
🔹 She was especially interested in:
“What behaviour the child displayed when the mother was absent, and when the parent returned”
This led to the:
Strange Situation Study (SSP) – a structured observation test created by Ainsworth.
In SSP:
Child and parent enter a room
Stranger enters
Parent leaves
Parent returns
Child’s reactions are observed
🔹 Ainsworth focused on:
“The quality of attachment rather than the intensity or duration”
👉 So not how strong or long the bond is — but how healthy and secure it is.
🧪 What is the Strange Situation Study?
The Strange Situation Study is a classic experiment developed in 1978 by Mary Ainsworth to observe attachment behavior in children aged 1–2 years, a critical time when attachment is developed. This includes signs like:
Stranger anxiety – fear of unfamiliar people
Separation protest – distress when the caregiver leaves
Proximity seeking – desire to be physically close to the caregiver
🧩 The Setup and 🧠 What’s Measured?
⚙️ Structure:
The study has 7 phases, each lasting 3 minutes.
Conducted in a room with toys, a caregiver, and a stranger.
Observed through a one-way mirror or video.
Think of it like a social “stress test” for infants, designed to see how the child reacts when their secure base (the parent) is removed and then returns.
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Ainsworth used 5 behavioral scales to assess attachment:
Proximity and contact seeking – Does the child want to be near or hug the parent?
Contact maintaining – Do they hold on to the parent and not let go?
Avoidance of proximity and contact – Do they ignore the parent or avoid touch?
Resistance to contact and comfort – Do they resist being comforted even though upset?
Search behaviour – Do they search (look around, go to the door) when the parent is gone?
Every 15 seconds, behaviors were recorded and placed into behavioral categories.
🧱 The 7 Phases
🔹 Phase 1: Parent + child play together.
Baseline for child behavior.
🔹 Phase 2: Stranger enters → talks to parent → then plays with child.
Tests stranger anxiety.
🔹 Phase 3: Parent leaves. Stranger plays with child.
Tests separation protest and reliance on parent vs. stranger.
🔹 Phase 4: First reunion. Parent returns, stranger leaves.
Key test: How does the child react to reunion?
🔹 Phase 5: Parent leaves child completely alone.
Tests how they cope solo.
🔹 Phase 6: Stranger re-enters, comforts the child.
Tests if the child accepts comfort from stranger.
🔹 Phase 7: Parent returns (second reunion).
Second big test of attachment behavior.
📏 Duration and Observations of the Strange Situation Study?
The experiment normally lasts 20 minutes, but:
Phases are cut short if the child is particularly distressed.
🔍 Ainsworth’s Insight:
Infants displayed willingness to use the parent as a safe base to derive a sense of security, especially during parent-child reunions (stages 4 and 7).!!!!!!!!!
This observation led to the classification of four parent-child attachment types.
🧠 Attachment Types in the 7 phases
- Secure Attachment (the goal!)
If the child shows a secure attachment with the parent, in stages 1, 2, and 4, the child will use the parent as a secure base to explore the room and toys.
E.g., the child might explore, then check back with the parent.
When a stranger enters → stranger anxiety appears.
In stages 3, 5, and 6, child becomes distressed (crying, searching) → separation protest.
Reunion (stage 4 or 7) → child seeks comfort and settles quickly.
Reunion with the parent should restore the sense of a safe base, to provide comfort and allow the child to continue exploring and playing.
