developmental psychology ch9

Infancy: Trust vs distrust -

Primary task/conflict of babies (0-1.5 years): strong dependency on parents.

If caregiver is reliable and responsible → trust

If parenting is insecure, unreliable → distrust (insecure attachment)

Attachment:

Strong emotional bond between caregiver (parent) and child (or any two people).

Attachment can influence through life

Attachment: Nature

According to ethnologists (Lorenz), forerunner of today’s evolutionary psychologists, attachment is a biologically programmed response taking place early after birth.

but also: influence of stimulus from environment

Attachment: Nurture

According to behaviourists, attachment is caused by association with food (maternal reinforcement stimulus).

• Watson: Baby must be treated like a small adult to turn out independent, keep distance.

• Behaviourism still influences our everyday thinking about upbringing.

Attachment: Harlow experiment

How do babies get attached?

• What is more important: Food or love?

• (Ethically) difficult to test in humans!

Experiment with newborn monkeys:

• A. Wire mother with milk

• B. Soft, warm artificial mother without milk

→ Which mother did the monkeys prefer?

Short-term effects:

• Most monkeys stayed with the warm mother, but would take a drink from the metal mother when necessary

• When a scary stimulus was placed in the cage:

  • The monkey would go to the warm mother for comfort

  • Shows the monkey got attached to the warm mother

• Proximity-seeking behavior occurs with survival threat

Long-term effects:

• Monkeys who grew up “motherless” showed deviant social behavior in later life:

  • No sexual behavior

  • Fear of peers

  • No caring behaviour for offspring

Conclusion:

→ Warm relationship of infant with parents (secure base) is crucial for development!

Bowlby: Attachment theory

“Maternal love in childhood is as important for mental health as vitamins for physical health”

Nature → Inborn tendency to attach to primary caretakers, critical period for attachment response.

But: Proximity-seeking behaviour when feeling threatened at any age.

Nurture → Primary caretakers influence the child’s development.

Sensitive period for attachment is when baby is most vulnerable - starts being mobile. Fear bias kicks in then.

Attachment figure provides:

• Secure base from which to explore world

• Safe haven to return to for comfort

• Evolutionary explanation: Attachment is good for survival

• Relationship with primary caretaker forms basis for future relationships.

Development of attention:

Phase	Description
Undiscriminating social responsiveness (0-months)	- No obvious attachment yet, but infant smiles back at others, this is called the social smile.
Discriminating social responsiveness (4-6 months)	- Shows a slight preference for the primary caregiver as the cortex develops
Active proximity seeking or true attachment (7-8 months to 3 years)	- Clear preference for primary caregiver

Development of attachment - detail

Undiscriminating social responsiveness (0–3 months)

• no obvious attachment, but smiles back: ‘social smile’

Discriminating social responsiveness (4–6 months)

• slight preference for primary caregiver (developing cortex)

Active proximity seeking or true attachment (7–8 months to 3 years)

• Clear preference for primary caregiver, social reference, separation and stranger anxiety (cognitive abilities to miss caregiver)

• Anxiety peaks at 1–2 years of age

Goal-corrected partnership (from 3 years)

• Take into account parents’ goals and adjust behaviour

Attachment styles: test

The strange situation - Mary Ainsworth: How does a child respond?

1. Mother and child play together

2. Stranger enters room (picture)

3. Mother leaves room (alone w stranger)

4. Mother returns, stranger leaves

5. Mother leaves (child alone)

6. Stranger returns

7. Mother returns

Responses in the strange situation when parent returns:

1. Secure attachment - Child responds happily to parent or can be easily comforted by parent. Parent = safe base.

2. Insecure attachment - Child doesn’t respond happily and can’t be comforted. Parent is not a safe base.

Attachment experiences affects internal working models = cognitive representations of others/self - important for processing social information and behaviour in relationships.

Types of insecure attachment:

• Avoidant: shows no separation anxiety and little emotion upon return.

• Resistant/Ambivalent: Much anxiety and stress after separation, ambivalent emotions when parent returns, inconsolable.

• Disorganised/dissociated: No consistent way of coping - confused or contradictory behaviour.

Attachment vs working models:

• Safely attached children = positive internal working models = “I am loveable”

• Insecurely attached children = Negative internal working model = “I am unloveable”

Criticism attachment styles/strange situation:

Categories of attachment may be overly simplified.

Children with disorganised attachment style mixed group.

20 minutes not sufficient.

Cultural differences may impact results.

How does a child get attached?

1. Sensitive parenting

2. Intergenerational transfer (grandparents on parents) - modeling + genes

3. Match between child’d needs and environmental support

How does attachment develop over time?

• Stable environment - change in environment can change attachment style.

What are the effects of secure attachment?

Securely attached kids are more likely to grow up to be socially competent adults, higher self-esteem and friendship number.

Is infant attachment universal?

Attachment to primary caregiver is universal - worldwide similar % securely attached, but some cultural differences.

• In Japan infants more likely to be distressed

• In Germany more insecure-avoidant

Early life deprivation and emotional/physical neglect - attachment. (Romania)

Secure attachment still possible, but timing and level of neglect matter.

Adopted prior/at 20 months: 60% secure

Adopted at 24 months: 30% secure

Attachment and daycare:

No negative effect, but quality of daycare matters - too much kids and no stability/routine is bad.

Play behaviour:

= the main activity in early childhood → important influence on cognitive skills.

Two major changes in play before infancy and age 5:

1. More social.

2. More imaginative - beginning pretending (emerges in later infancy), collaborative pretend play around age 4, after age 5 more serious.

Type of play:

• Solitary: play alone

• Parallel: play next to each other no cooperation, little communication

• Associative: Side by side, separate goal, but communication and interactions

• Cooperative play: Joining forces, common goal

Function of play:

Allows children to develop and practice many skills:

Motor: Physical and locomotor play supports neural maturation and refinement of motor skills.

Cognitive: Pretend play enhances performance on tests of cognitive development, executive function, and creativity.

Language: Pretend play directly develops language skills.

Social: Social pretend play builds children’s understanding of others’ perspectives, social skills, and popularity.

Emotional: Play promotes healthy emotional development by providing opportunities to act out or express bothersome feelings, regulate emotions, and resolve emotional conflicts.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Friendships:

Essence of friendship is similarity - in age, gender, but also values and interests.

Developmental theories: A best friend..

…fulfils the need for self-validation and intimacy that emerges around 9, training ground for romance → Protecting factor of having a friend, friends also teach emotions.

Popularity:

Popularity becomes an absorbing question in later elementary school - social status = primary goal.

Entering concrete operations makes kids sensitive to social comparisons.

Related to:

• Attractiveness, intelligence, social competence, emotion regulation abilities

Sociometric status:

Peer nominations - liking/disliking, bullied/helped etc.

1) Continuous outcome measure - social preference score = acceptance minus rejection

2) Categorical Outcome Measure: Social Status Types

Based on peer nominations measuring social preference (liked most vs. liked least) and social impact (total nominations received):

• Popular (high positive/low negative) - 11%

• Rejected (low positive/high negative) - 13%• Neglected (low positive/low negative) - 9%

• Controversial (high positive/high negative) - 7%

• Average (medium on both dimensions) - 60%

Social exclusion and peer rejection: reasons

1. Interpersonal: individual differences - ex. attractiveness, social skills

2. Intergroup: bias or prejudice regarding group membership

Consequences can reinforce social exclusion:

lower levels of well being/self esteem, academic issues, less prosocial behaviour, internalising = depression, externalising = aggression

Bullying:

Repeatedly inflicting harm through words or actions on a targeted peer.

• Includes many forms: physical aggression + more indirect or covert forms like cyberbullying.

• 26% of 11-15 year olds are bullied/bully 2/3 times a month - different rate by culture (10% Scandinavian and 40% Baltic)

• Not limited to childhood

• Main motivation to bully: gaining status

Effects 1 bullying:

Effects 2 bullying:

Interventions for bullying:

1. Social skill training for victims/kids at risk for bullying → Mixed results or no positive outcomes for 50% studies, not efficient if bullying based on something else.

2. Antibullying programs in schools: combat bullying and encourage students to intervene.

• Olweus Bullying Prevention Program: focuses on broader community - successful in reduction and fostering inclusive school environment.

Social relationships in adolescence:

Peers surpass parents as sources of intimacy and support → Change of internal working models for attachments from parents to friends/partner.

Supportive parents provide security and encouragement to become independent and autonomous → Balance of exploration and attachment.

Secure attachment during adolescence:

Sense of identity, high self-esteem, high social skills, high emotional adjustment, less behavioural problems, attachment to friends and later parents

Friendships with peer who are similar in:

• physical characteristics, behaviour, psychological qualities → Increasingly cross-sex friendships, connecting in groups.

Three stages of dating in adolescence:

1. Entry to romantic attractions and affiliations (11 to 13 yrs)

   • Triggered by puberty → interest in romance, dominates conversations

   • Developing a crush on someone, often sharing a crush, dating in group setting .

2. Exploring romantic relationships (14 to 16 yrs) = both casual and group dating.

3. Consolidating dyadic romantic bonds (17 to 19 yrs)

   • More serious romantic relationships - closely resemble adult ones, more stable and enduring.

Types of relations by school age:

• At entry to middle school: Unisex cliques

• Late middle school/early high school: Crowds

• High school: Mixed-sex cliques

• Emerging adulthood: Romantic partners

How easy is it to influence adolescents?

Standard hypothesis: Power of influence increases during early adolescence, decreases in late adulthood (curvilinear)

Steinberg and Monahan hypothesis: Power of influence decreases linearly during adolescence

How easy is it to influence adolescents? Questionnaire study:

Tested by using resistance to peer influence scale:

Result (in 3 large samples): Power of influence decreases linearly between age 14 and 18. (→ resistance increases)

How easy is it to influence adolescents? Experiment

Simulated driving task in the lab

Group: adolescence, young adults and older adults

Condition: alone vs with peer

Results: Adolescence make riskier decisions in front of their peers, not so with adults.

→ Peer influence decreases

Research suggests that being with peers has enormous effect on young teens, e.g., binge drinking.

Attachment and autism spectrum disorder:

• One meta-analysis (Rutgers et al., 2004): based on four samples → 53% of children with ASD securely attached → children with autism significantly less securely attached to their parents than comparison children (moderate effect size)

• Effect moderated by mental development: no difference to controls for ASD children with higher mental development and less severe ASD symptoms

• More recent systematic review (Teague et al., 2017): based on seven samples → 47% of children with ASD securely attached→ Children with ASD can form secure attachments, security of attachment does not differ from TD controls

• Insecure attachments more likely if:

• ASD + intellectual disability/developmental delay

• Greater severity of autism symptoms

• Poorer parent-child interaction

• Fewer pro-social responses to caregivers (difficulties in social-communication experienced by children with ASD pose a challenge for caregivers to tune-in to their child's subjective state, and for children to understand and predict caregiver's behaviour)

• Neurobiological studies: comparable to children without ASD, significant increases in cortisol during stressful separation episodes and increases in oxytocin during interactions with caregivers in children with ASD

• → despite lower hormone levels at baseline, children experience similar hormonal changes linked to separation and reunion