Lecture Outline: Attachment Definitions and Importance Normative Development of Attachment Ethological Attachment Theor

1. Lecture Outline: Attachment • Definitions and Importance • Normative Development of Attachment • Ethological Attachment Theory (J. Bowlby) • Individual Differences in Attachment Security • Infancy: Strange Situation

2. Attachment: An enduring emotional tie that unites one person to another, over time and across space

3. Attachment Behaviors: • Behaviors that function to bring the infant/child physically closer to the caregiver • Exs: crying, following, clinging

4. Why is parent-child attachment important? • First relationship that infants experience • May serve as a model for other relationships • May affect the development of self-concept

5. Normative Development of Attachment: Ethological Attachment Theory (J. Bowlby) • Attachment behavior evolved because it is adaptive for survival • Keeps infants physically close to caregivers and away from danger • Increases the chances of infant survival and reproductive success

6. Evidence (Ethological Attachment Theory): • Animals that stray from a group are much more vulnerable to attack • Attachment behavior in animals (including humans): • Occurs more frequently in those most vulnerable to predators (e.g., the young) • Increases in frightening situations

7. Individual Differences in Attachment Security Infancy: Strange Situation • Mother and infant in laboratory playroom • Stranger enters, talks to mothers, engages infant • Mother leaves (stranger stays) • Mother returns (stranger leaves) • Mother leaves (baby alone) • Stranger returns • Mother returns

8. Secure (B) • About 60-65% of American middle-class samples • May or may not be distressed by separation • Respond positively to parent’s return • If distressed by separation, easily comforted by parent and able to return to play (parent = secure base)

9. Insecure-Avoidant (A) • 15-20% of American middle-class samples • Usually not distressed by separation from parent • Avoid the parent during reunion (to different degrees)

10. Insecure-Resistant or Ambivalent (C) • 10-15% of American middle-class samples • Usually distressed by separation • Show a combination of angry, resistant behavior and proximity-seeking behavior during reunion with parent • Have difficulty being comforted by parent and returning to play

11. Insecure-Disorganized (D) • 10-15% of American middle-class samples • More common in infants who have been maltreated • Infants’ behavior does not reflect an organized strategy for dealing with the stress of separation • Contradictory behaviors • Expressions of fear or disorientation when caregiver returns

12. Influences on Infant Attachment Security • According to attachment theory, the major influence is parental behavior (especially sensitivity) • Sensitivity: Consistent, prompt, and appropriate responses to infant signals

13. Infants develop expectations about how caregivers are likely to respond to their signals • Expectations form the basis of an internal working model • IWM: Expectations about the nature of relationships and beliefs about the self

14. Expectations result from the quality of mother-infant interaction: • Sensitive Care: Infants expect caregiver to be available and responsive • Insensitive Care: Infants expect caregiver to be unresponsive/inconsistent or rejecting

15. Infants’ behavior in the Strange Situation reflects their expectations (early IWM) • Secure infants expect caregiver to be responsive • Insecure infants expect caregiver to be unresponsive/inconsistent or rejecting

16. Evidence for Parental Behavior as the Major Influence on Infant Attachment Security: • Parental sensitivity is correlated with infant attachment security, but the correlation is not strong • Disagreement about the importance of parental sensitivity in influencing attachment security • Other factors also affect attachment security

17. Temperament and Attachment Security • Some studies find that insecure infants are higher in distress during the first year of life • Difficult to know if this reflects temperament or parental behavior • In general, temperament is not strongly related to attachment security

18. Goodness-of-fit: Degree to which a child’s temperament is compatible with the expectations of the social environment (e.g., the family environment) • Goodness-of-fit may be a better predictor of attachment security than either parental behavior or infant temperament alone

19. Study: Mangelsdorf et al., 1990 • 9-month-old infants: Measured “proneness to distress” (temperament dimension) • Mothers: Measured personality characteristics • “Constraint”: High scores indicate rigidity, inflexibility

20. If infants were high in proneness-to-distress and mothers were high in constraint, infants were more likely to be insecurely attached • Other combinations did NOT increase the probability of insecure attachment: • High constraint/low proneness-to-distress • Low constraint/low proneness-to-distress • Low constraint/high proneness to distress

21. Attachment and Later Development • A secure attachment in infancy is related to: • More positive interactions with parents in the second year of life • More positive relationships with others (e.g., day care teachers, peers) when children are toddlers and preschoolers

22. Is not strongly related to the quality of older children’s relationships

23. Why does infant attachment security predict later behavior (at least short-term)?

24. Attachment Theory Perspective: • Attachment security reflects infants’ internal working models

25. IWM generalizes to new relationships • Children with secure attachments: • Expect others to respond positively to them • Children with insecure attachments: • Expect others to respond negatively to them (e.g., by ignoring or rejecting them)

26. IWMs tend to be self-perpetuating • Children behave in ways that elicit certain responses from others • Others’ responses confirm children’s internal working models

27. Continuity of Care Perspective: • Parents who are sensitive in infancy are likely to remain sensitive as children grow older • Sensitivity is related to secure attachment in infancy and to more positive adjustment as children get older

28. Secure attachment in infancy does not CAUSE more positive later adjustment (no IWM)