CHAPTER 14 ATTACHMENT AND SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS

CHAPTER 14ATTACHMENT AND SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS

Learning Objectives • How do relationships with others contribute to development? • How did Bowlby explain the development of attachment? • In Bowlby’s model, how do nature and nurture contribute to the development of attachment? • What is the function of peer relationships in childhood?

Perspectives on Relationships – Attachment Theory • Attachment theory was formulated by British psychiatrist John Bowlby and elaborated by American developmental psychologist Mary Ainsworth • Included concepts from ethological theory and psychoanalytic theory • Bowlby defined attachment as a strong affectional tie that binds a person to an intimate companion • Attachment also is a behavioral system through which humans regulate their emotional distress when under threat and achieve security by seeking proximity to another person

Perspectives on Relationships – Attachment Theory • The ethological concept of imprinting was incorporated into attachment theory • An innate form of learning in which the young will follow and become attached to a moving object (usually the mother) during a critical period early in life • According to more recent research, • The “critical” period is more like a “sensitive” period • Imprinting can be reversed • Imprinting does not happen without the right interplay of biological and environmental factors

Perspectives on Relationships – Attachment Theory • Both adults and infants have behaviors that promote the formation of attachments • Babies will • Follow (proximity-seeking behavior) • Suck and cling • Smile and vocalize • Express negative emotions such as fretting and crying • Adults respond to infants’ signals • The hormone oxytocin promotes attachment

Perspectives on Relationships – Attachment Theory • Attachment is the product of nature and nurture interacting over time • Bonding is a more biologically-based process in whichparent and infant form a connection in the first hours after birth when a mother is likely to be exhilarated and her newborn highly alert • Klaus and Kennell (1976) highlighted the importance of early bonding through skin-to-skin contact immediately after birth • Subsequent research has shown that early contact is not necessary for a secure attachment to form (witness adopted parents and their children) and does not seem to have as much significance for later development as originally believed

Perspectives on Relationships – Attachment Theory • Bowlby proposed that through their interactions with caregivers, infants construct expectations about relationships in the form of internal working models • Cognitive representations of themselves and other people that guide the processing of social information and behavior in relationships • Securely attached infants who have received responsive care will form internal working models suggesting that they are lovable and that other people can be trusted to care for them • Insecurely attached infants subjected to insensitive, neglectful, or abusive care may conclude that they are difficult to love, that other people are unreliable, or both

Perspectives on Relationships – Peers and the Two Worlds of Childhood • Some theorists believe there are “two social worlds of childhood” • One world involves adult-child relationships • The other involves peer relationships • The two worlds contribute differently to development • A peer is a social equal, someone who functions at a similar level of behavioral complexity, often someone of similar age • Peer relationships have developmental value • Peers help children learn that relationships are reciprocal • Peers force children to hone their social perspective-taking skills • Peers contribute to social-cognitive and moral development in ways that parents cannot

Perspectives on Relationships – Peers and the Two Worlds of Childhood • NeoFreudian theorist Henry Stack Sullivan believed that social needs change as we get older and are gratified through different kinds of social relationships at different ages • Until about age 6, the parent-child relationship is central for providing tender care and nurturance • Then peers become increasingly important • At first, children need playmates • Then they need acceptance by the peer group • Then around age 9 to 12, children begin to need intimacy in the form of a close friendship

Perspectives on Relationships – Peers and the Two Worlds of Childhood • Sullivan stressed the developmental significance of these chumships, or close childhood friendships • Having a close friend or chum teaches children to take others’ perspectives, validates and supports children, and can protect them from the otherwise harmful effects of a poor parent-child relationship or rejection by the larger peer group • Chumships also teach children how to participate in emotionally intimate relationships and can pave the way for romantic relationships during adolescence

Learning Objectives • In what ways are infants emotional beings? • How are infants’ emotions socialized and regulated?

The Infant – Early Emotional Development • Researchers have traced the development of primary emotions • At birth, babies show contentment (by smiling), interest (by staring intently at objects), and distress (by grimacing in response to pain or discomfort) • By approximately 3 months of age, contentment becomes joy or excitement at the sight of something familiar such as a big smile in response to Mom’s face • Interest becomes surprise, such as when expectations are violated in games of peek-a-boo • Distress soon evolves into a range of negative emotions, such as disgust (in response to foul-tasting foods) and sadness • As early as 4 months, angry expressions appear • As early as 5 months, fear is displayed

The Infant – Early Emotional Development • The secondary or self-conscious emotions require an awareness of self and begin to emerge around 18 months of age • At 18 months, infants begin to show embarrassment • Around age 2, when they are able to judge their behavior against standards of performance, the self-conscious emotions of pride, shame, and guilt emerge • Feel pride if they catch a ball or feel guilty if they spill milk

Caption:The emergence of different emotions. Primary emotions emerge in the first six months of life, secondary or self-conscious emotions emerge starting about 18 months to 2 years.

The Infant – Early Emotional Development • Primary or basic emotions such as interest and fear seem to be biologically programmed • These emotions emerge in all normal infants at roughly the same ages and are displayed and interpreted similarly in all cultures • The timing of their emergence is tied to cognitive maturation • Basic emotions probably evolved to help our ancestors appraise and respond to new stimuli • Babies’ emotional signals prompt caregivers to respond

The Infant – Early Emotional Development • Nurture also contributes to emotional development • Caregivers help shape infants’ predominant patterns of emotional expression • Mothers serve as models of positive emotions and elicit positive emotions from their babies • Mothers also respond selectively to their babies’ expressions: they become increasingly responsive to their babies’ expressions of happiness, interest, and surprise and less responsive to negative emotions

The Infant – Early Emotional Development • At approximately 1year, infants begin to use social referencing • They monitor their companions’ emotional reactions in ambiguous situations and use this information to decide how they should feel and behave • If their mothers are wary when a stranger approaches, so are they; if their mothers smile at the stranger, so may they • Infants are able to understand what triggered their mother’s emotions and to regulate their behavior accordingly • Infants are especially attentive to stimuli that provoke negative emotional reactions such as fear or anger in their caregivers, as if they know that these emotions are warning signals

The Infant – Early Emotional Development • Infants must develop strategies for emotional regulation • The processes involved in initiating, maintaining, and altering emotional responses • Infants develop the capacity for emotional regulation over time • Very young infants are able to reduce their negative arousal by turning from unpleasant stimuli or by sucking vigorously on a pacifier • By the end of the first year, infants can also regulate their emotions by rocking themselves, moving away from upsetting events, or actively seeking attachment figures who will calm them

The Infant – Early Emotional Development • By 18 to 24 months, toddlers will try to control the actions of people and objects (for example, by pushing the offending person or object away) • They are able to cope with the frustration of waiting for snacks and gifts by playing with toys and otherwise distracting themselves • They have been observed knitting their brows or compressing their lips in an attempt to suppress their anger or sadness • Finally, as children gain the capacity for symbolic thought and language, they become able to regulate their distress symbolically (for example, by repeating “Mommy coming soon”)

The Infant – Early Emotional Development • The development of emotion regulation skills is influenced by both an infant’s temperament and a caregiver’s behavior • When infants are very young and have few emotion regulation strategies of their own, they rely heavily on caregivers (who can stroke or rock them when they are distressed) • With age, infants gain control of emotion regulation strategies first learned in the context of the parent-child relationship and can regulate their emotions on their own • Children who are not able to get a grip on their negative emotions tend to experience stormy relationships with both caregivers and peers and are at risk to develop behavior problems

Learning Objectives • What types of attachment relationships can develop between infants and caregivers? • What infant, caregiver, and contextual factors determine the quality of early attachments? • How do early relationships relate to later development? • What are the consequences of early social deprivation?

The Infant – An Attachment Forms • The caregiver forms an attachment to the infant • Often before birth • Because the infant possesses a repertoire of behaviors such as sucking, grasping, rooting, and smiling • Because babies are responsive • Caregivers and infants develop synchronized routines in which they take turns responding to each other • Parent-infant synchrony contributes to a secure attachment relationship and to later self-regulation and empathy

The Infant – An Attachment Forms • The infant forms an attachment to the caregiver in the following phases • Undiscriminating social responsiveness (birth to 2 or 3 months) • Infants respond to voices, faces, and other stimuli, especially humans • They do not yet show a clear preference for any one person • Discriminating social responsiveness (2 or 3 months to 6 or 7 months) • Infants begin to express preferences for familiar companions, but they are still friendly toward strangers • Active proximity seeking or true attachment (6 or 7 months to about 3 years) • Infants form their first clear attachments, most often to their mothers • Goal-corrected partnership (3 years and older) • Children adjust their behavior in order to maintain proximity to the attachment figure

The Infant – An Attachment Forms • Infants experience attachment-related fears • Separation anxiety • Once attached to a parent, a baby often becomes wary or fretful when separated from that parent • Separation anxiety normally appears when infants are forming their first genuine attachments, peaks between 14 and 18 months, and gradually becomes less frequent and less intense • Stranger anxiety • Once attached to a parent, a baby often experiences a wary or fretful reaction to the approach of an unfamiliar person • Anxious reactions to strangers become common between 8 and 10 months, continue through the first year, and gradually decline in intensity over the second year

The Infant – An Attachment Forms • The formation of an attachment to a caregiver facilitates exploratory behavior • The attachment figure serves as a secure base for exploration • A point of safety from which an infant can venture and to which she can return for affection and security

The Infant – Quality of Attachment • Ainsworth and her associates developed the Strange Situation as a procedure for measuring the quality of an attachment • Infants are subjected to eight episodes of gradually escalating stress as adult strangers approach and as a caregiver departs and returns

The Infant – Quality of Attachment • On the basis of an infant’s pattern of behavior during the Strange Situation, the quality of attachment to a parent can be characterized as one of four types • Secure • Resistant • Avoidant • Disorganized-disoriented

The Infant – Quality of Attachment • Secure attachment • About 60-65% of 1-year-olds in our society are securely attached to their mothers or primary caregivers • The securely attached infant actively explores the room when alone with his mother because she serves as a secure base • The infant may be upset by separation but greets his mother warmly and is comforted by her presence when she returns • When his mother is present, the securely attached child is outgoing with a stranger

The Infant – Quality of Attachment • Resistant attachment (also called anxious/ambivalent attachment) • About 10% of 1-year-olds show a resistant attachment, an insecure attachment characterized by anxious, ambivalent reactions • The resistant infant does not venture off to play even when his mother is present, probably because she is not a secure base for exploration • Yet this infant becomes distressed when his mother departs, perhaps because he is uncertain whether she will return • When his mother returns, the infant is ambivalent: he may try to remain near her but seems to resent her for having left, may resist if she tries to make physical contact, and may even hit and kick her in anger • Resistant infants are also wary of strangers, even when their mothers are present

The Infant – Quality of Attachment • Avoidant attachment • Up to 15% of 1-year-olds have avoidant attachments • They seem uninterested in exploring, show little apparent distress when separated from their mothers, and avoid contact or seem indifferent when their mothers return • Insecurely attached infants are not particularly wary of strangers but sometimes avoid or ignore them, much as they avoid or ignore their mothers • Avoidant infants seem to have distanced themselves from their parents

The Infant – Quality of Attachment • Disorganized-disoriented attachment • Up to 15% of infants (more in high-risk families) display a disorganized-disoriented form of attachment • This form of attachment seems to be associated with later emotional problems • When infants with disorganized-disoriented attachment are reunited with their mothers after a separation, they may act dazed and freeze or lie immobilized on the floor • Alternatively, they may seek contact but then abruptly move away as their mothers approach them, only to seek contact again • Infants with a disorganized-disoriented attachment appear to have been unable to devise a consistent strategy for regulating negative emotions such as separation anxiety

The Infant – Quality of Attachment • Early learning theorists believed that an infant learns positive emotional responses to her mother by associating her with food • In the classic study conducted by Harry Harlow and Robert Zimmerman (1959), infant monkeys were fed by a wire “mother” or by a cuddly, cloth-covered “mother” • All the infant monkeys demonstrated preference for the foam rubber and terrycloth “mother,” even when their food came from the wire mother • Harlow’s research demonstrated that contact comfort is a more powerful contributor to attachment in monkeys than feeding

Caption: The wire and cloth surrogate “mothers” used in Harlow’s classic research

The Infant – Quality of Attachment • Styles of parenting strongly influence the infant attachment styles • Securely attached infants have parents who are sensitive and responsive to their needs and emotional signals

The Infant – Quality of Attachment • Styles of parenting strongly influence the infant attachment styles (continued) • Babies with a resistant pattern of attachment often have parents who are inconsistent in their caregiving • They may react enthusiastically or indifferently and are frequently unresponsive • Mothers who are depressed often have difficulty responding sensitively to their babies’ signals and do not provide the comforting that helps babies regulate their negative emotions

The Infant – Quality of Attachment • Styles of parenting strongly influence the infant attachment styles (continued) • Infants with an avoidant attachment have parents who tend to provide either too little or too much stimulation • The parents may be rejecting or impatient, unresponsive, and resentful when the infant interferes with their plans • Some parents may provide intrusive, overzealous levels of stimulation

The Infant – Quality of Attachment • Styles of parenting strongly influence the infant attachment styles (continued) • The disorganized-disoriented style of attachment is evident in as many as 80% of infants who have been physically abused or maltreated • It is common among infants whose mothers are severely depressed or abuse alcohol and drugs • The parents of infants with a disorganized attachment pattern have been described as frightening and frightened • They are fragile and fearful adults who are not up to the challenge of caring for an infant and create an unpredictable, scary environment for their babies

The Infant – Quality of Attachment • Infants contribute to the formation of the attachment relationship, too • Infants must acquire some concept of person permanence (a form of Piaget’s object permanence concept) before they can form an attachment • An infant’s temperament influences attachment • Attachments tend to be insecure when infants are by temperament fearful, irritable, or unresponsive • The caregiver’s style of parenting and the infant’s temperament often interact to determine the attachment outcome

The Infant – Quality of Attachment • The broader social context affects how infant and caregiver respond to each other and influences the formation of attachment • Poverty and marital difficulties are stressful, can interfere with parents’ abilities to provide sensitive care, and may contribute to insecure attachments • The cultural context also influences parenting and the meanings of attachment • In Western, individualistic cultures, such as Germany, optimal development means becoming an autonomous being • In Eastern, collectivist cultures, such as Japan, the goal is to become integrated into the group

The Infant – Implications of Early Attachment • Some infants experience social deprivation and never have an opportunity to form an attachment • Researchers have found that infants who spent their first 6 months or more in deprived orphanages displayed eating problems and medical problems and showed delays in physical, cognitive, and social-emotional development • Rapid recovery was evident once the children were adopted, and some children overcame their developmental problems • However, many children institutionalized for more than 6 months never achieved normal levels of cognitive development, possibly because they lacked the intellectual stimulation necessary for normal brain development

The Infant – Implications of Early Attachment • Studies of Romanian children who experienced early deprivation showed that the longer the deprivation, the less likely were they to form secure attachments and the more likely they were to show a disturbed pattern of behavior called disinhibited attachment • Involves indiscriminate friendliness, lack of appropriate wariness of strangers, and difficulty participating in real, reciprocal social interactions

The Infant – Implications of Early Attachment • Research supports Bowlby’s claim that infancy is a sensitive period for the formation of attachments • A meta-analysis of many studies of institutionalized and otherwise maltreated and neglected children concluded that those who are adopted before one year of age are likely to become as securely attached to their caregivers as nonadopted children, but that high rates of insecure and disturbed attachment are observed in children adopted after their first birthday

The Infant – Implications of Early Attachment • What is it about deprived early environments that damages development? • Lack of stable caregivers and stable attachment relationships • Lack of proper nutrition, hygiene, and medical care • Lack of stimulation • The negative effects of living in a large residential institution can be prevented by placing institutionalized children in small groups with a few, consistent caregivers who interact with the children in a caring manner

The Infant – Implications of Early Attachment • Many infants experience separation from their caregivers • Infants who are permanently separated from a caregiver normally recover if they are able to maintain or form an attachment with someone else • The earlier the separation takes place, the better • Children who experience a series of separations from caregivers (such as children in foster care) may be permanently affected by their repeated experiences of loving and losing people

The Infant – Implications of Early Attachment • More than 60% of mothers in the U.S. work outside the home, and many of their children are in daycare or family care homes • The best source of evidence about the effects of alternative care upon attachment is the major longitudinal study supported by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) and involving teams of researchers in 10 U.S. cities – the Early Child Care Research Network (ECCRN)

The Infant – Implications of Early Attachment • Results from the NICHD ECCRN study include the following • Infants who experienced routine care by someone other than their mothers were not much different than infants cared for almost exclusively by their mothers in the various developmental outcomes studied • Infants who received alternative forms of care (even 20+ hours per week) were no less securely attached to their mothers overall than infants who were tended by their mothers • Quality of parenting was a much stronger influence on these infants’ attachment security and development than daycare experience

The Infant – Implications of Early Attachment • Results from the NICHD ECCRN study include the following (continued) • Children’s developmental outcomes were affected by the quality of their daycare, as measured in terms of sensitive caregiving and cognitive and language stimulation • Children who spent a good deal of time in quality daycare performed better than home-reared children on measures of cognitive and language skills and some measures of social skills • However, they also tended to display more behavior problems

The Infant – Implications of Early Attachment • Results from the NICHD ECCRN study include the following (continued) • “Quality” daycare is characterized by for a reasonable child-to-caregiver ratio (up to three infants, four toddlers, or eight preschoolers per adult); caregivers who have been well trained and who are warm and responsive; little staff turnover so that children can become attached to their caregivers; and planned, age-appropriate stimulation activities

CHAPTER 14 ATTACHMENT AND SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS