Attachment

Attachment

An affectional tie between individuals that endures over time, involving physical proximity-seeking, comfort, security, and separation distress.

Theories of Attachment

Various perspectives including learning accounts, psychoanalytic views, Harry Harlow's emphasis on comfort, and Bowlby's ethological theory highlighting the evolutionary advantage of mother-infant attachment.

Development of Attachment

Progression from pre-attachment to clear-cut attachment stages, leading to goal-corrected partnership, with behaviors like separation protest and stranger wariness.

The Strange Situation

A standardized assessment by Mary Ainsworth to evaluate how infants use caregivers as a secure base, categorizing attachment types like secure, insecure-avoidant, ambivalent-resistant, and disorganized.

Predictive Nature of Attachment

Secure attachment linked to positive outcomes like curiosity, social confidence, empathy, and decreased risk of anxiety disorders in later years.

Criticisms of Attachment Assessments

Concerns about mother-centric focus, lack of prediction consistency, and cultural influences on behavior in assessments like the Strange Situation.

Attachment Theory

Emphasizes that sensitive caregiving by caregivers determines attachment security, shaping children's internal working models of relationships.

Infant Social Behavior

Newborns are predisposed to social interactions, with early perceptual capacities promoting mutual relationships and reciprocity during interactions.

Temperament

Individual differences in temperament influence attachment, with traits like surgency, orienting/regulation, and negative affect playing a role in attachment development.

Attachment in Adolescence

Secure attachment associated with positive parent-adolescent relationships, psychological adjustment, and resilience, impacting peer relationships and stress management.

Insecure avoidant

Ambivalent resistant

Secure

Disorganized

Pre-attachment (0-2 months)

Attachment in the making (2-7 months)

Clear cut attachment (7-24 months)

Goal corrected partnership (24 months onwards)