Early Childhood: Attachment, Personality

Psychoanalytic Perspective on Attachment

• Freud proposed that infants and their birth parent experience a symbiotic relationship thru nursing

  • infants assume they are one with the caregiver

  • the weaning process (introducing solid food) should be managed such that the infant’s need to suck is neither frustrated nor overgratified

  • consequence of either: fixation in oral behaviors like nail biting and swearing

• Erikson extended this perspective in recognition that an infant’s social world is more than nursing

  • eg. interactions w/ caregivers → to trust or not trust the environment (trust versus mistrust stage)

Ethological Perspective: Attachment

• thru evolution, humans have predispositions that strongly influence their development thru forming emotional connections with caregivers to ensure survival

  • aka attachment theory

• infants create internal models

  • developed thru attachments with other ppl

  • viewing interactions as good/bad

  • understanding how to treat others

• early life attachment may affect later relationships

Attachment Theory

• argues that infants are genetically predisposed to form emotional bonds with their caregivers

• this predisposition exists because infants are totally dependent on their caregivers for survival

• first 2 years of life is a sensitive period for forming such relationships

  • those who fail to form a close relationship before age 2 are at risk for future social and personality problems

Attachment

• thru caregiver responsiveness, most infants develop a positive attachment 

  • i.e. lasting emotional connection between two people leading to trust/security

  • they learned that the caregiver will ensure their safety and care

• caregivers don’t have to be biologically related

• attachment depends on quantity and quality of interactions (eg. responsiveness, predicting needs)

• the baby’s attachment emerges gradually and is based on her ability to discriminate between her parents and other people

Bowlby’s Attachment Development: Phase 1

Non-focused orienting and signaling

• 0-3 months

• proximity promoting behaviors directed at anyone

Bowlby’s Attachment Development: Phase 2

Focus on one or more figures

• 3-6 months

• signals directed at fewer people, often those who they are most familiar with

Bowlby’s Attachment Development: Phase 3

Secure Base Behavior

• 6-24 months

• genuine attachment develops as evidenced by proximity seeking to their safe base to have their needs met

Bowlby’s Attachment Development: Phase 4

Internal model

• 24+ months

• development of an internal model of attachment allows children to predict how specific actions will impact their connection with caregivers

Assessing Infant Attachment

• cannot be directly observed (often internal), and therefore inferences made about the quality of attachment thru observing infants and caregivers

• stranger anxiety, separation anxiety, social referencing

Stranger Anxiety

• expressing negative feelings around strangers

• don’t know if they should feel comfortable around new people

• not limited to strangers, includes ppl who they don’t see every day but have met

Separation Anxiety

• being away from caregiver

• involves removal of touch, or out of eyesight

Social Referencing

• process of using others’ facial expressions for information about how to react to a situation (usually caregiver)

• infants can wander into situations that are new and strange

  • because they don’t know how to respond to these situations, they rely on other people for guidance

Attachment Styles

• Secure, avoidant, ambivalent, disorganized/disoriented

• can have diff. attachment styles w/ diff. ppl

• depends on caregiver responsivness

Secure Attachment

• infant readily separates from the primary caregiver

• seeks proximity when stressed

• uses the caregiver as a safe base for exploration

Avoidant Attachmet

• infant avoids contact with primary caregiver

• shows no preference for that caregiver over other people

• an insecure attachment style

Ambivalent Attachment

• infant shows little exploration

• greatly upset when separated from the primary caregiver

• not reassured by the caregiver’s return or effort to comfort them

• an insecure attachment style

Disorganized/Disoriented Attachment

• infant seems confused or apprehensive

• shows contradictory behavior such as moving toward the primary caregiver while looking away from them

• type of insecure attachment

Caregiver Charactersistics on Attachment

• emotional responsiveness: recognize and respond to child’s emotions

  • willing and able to form an emotional attachment to the infant

• contingent responsiveness: how appropriately and promptly caregivers respond to a child’s signals or needs

  • matching the energy

• tactile responsiveness: the caregiver’s touch and physical contact

• caregiver relationship factors: the relationship between parents

  • if good: likely secure w/ both

  • if poor: less likely to be secure w/ both

• mental health: if caregivers are unable to take care of themselves, how can they take care of a child?

Caregiver Charactersistics on Attachment: Emotionally Distressed Parents

• economically or emotionally distressed parents, psychological or medical health problems, might be distracted by their own problems that they can’t invest emotion in the parent-infant relationship

• such parents may be able to meet the baby’s physical needs, but unable to respond emotionally

Stability and Change in Attachment

• when an infant’s environment is relatively consistent, their attachment is likely to remain consistent

• infant attachment can change if the relationship changes

  • often due to circumstances (eg. divorce, abuse)

• avoidant style: likely if the mother rejects the infant or regularly withdraws from contact with them

• ambivalent style: likely when the primary caregiver is inconsistently or unreliably available to the child

• disorganized style: when the child has been abused in which either parent had some unresolved trauma in their own childhood

Proximity

• pleasurable for both parents and babies

• mother/father usually has to carry out other duties while simultaneously caring for a baby

• keeping babies close by helps parents protect them from harm

• proximity contributes to the development of strong emotional bonds between infants and caregivers

Marital Status

• infants whose parents are married are more likely to be securely attached than babies whose parents are either cohabiting or single

  • married parents typically have more education and are less likely to be poor

• infants who are exposed to marital conflict and arguments are more likely to display signs of emotional withdrawal

Mental Health

• depression diminishes parent’s capacity to interpret and respond to important infant signals such as crying

  • more likely to describe their infants as difficult or emotionally negative

  • infants are more likely to develop insecure attachments, and later emotional problems

Long-Term Consequences of Attachment Quality

• attachment theory proposes that early emotional relationships shape later ones

  • both psychoanalysts and ethologists are correct in their assumption that attachment relationships serve as the foundation for future social relationsips

• children with secure attachment are more socially skilled, have more intimate friendships, more likely to be leaders, higher self esteem and better grades

• children with insecure attachment have less positive and supportive friendships in adolescence but also are more likely to become sexually active early and to practice riskier sex

• an adult’s internal model of attachment affects their parenting behaviors

  • secure: more responsive and sensitive 

  • insecure: more likely to view their infants negatively and lack confidence in their ability to perform effectively in the parenting role

Personality

Children and adults’ pattern of responding to people and objects in their environment

• individual differences in personality appear to develop throughout childhood and adolescence

Temperament

• characteristic differences among individual in emotional reactivity, self-regulation, and activity that influences reactions to the environment

• appears early in life

• relatively stable in infancy, becomes more consistent in early childhood and can be predictive of later behavior (even in adulthood)

  • not solidified until first year of life

• how we view temperament varies w/ culture

• not all infants can be classified into the three temperaments below (doesn’t add to 100%)

• individual differences in temperament are inborn

Easy Temperament

• 40% of infants

• approach new events positively

• display predictable sleeping and eating cycles

• generally happy

• adjust easily to change

• generally positive mood and even tempered

Difficult Temperament

• 10% of infants

• irregular sleeping and eating cycles

• emotional negativity and irritability

• resistance to change

Slow to Warm Up Temperament

• 15% of infants

• few intense reactions (either negative or positive)

• appear non responsive to new people

5 Dimensions of Temperament

• helps to not classify an infant as a single temperament

• trait based approach

5 Dimensions of Temperament: Activity Level

A tendency to move often and vigorously, rather than to remain passive or immobile

5 Dimensions of Temperament: Approach/ Positive Emotionality/ Sociability

A tendency to move toward rather than away from new people, situations or objects, usually accompanied by positive emotion

5 Dimensions of Temperament: Inhibition and Anxiety

Tendency to respond with fear or to withdraw from new people, situations or objects

• opposite of the one above

5 Dimensions of Temperament: Negative Emotionality/ Irritability/ Anger/ Emotionality

Tendency to respond with anger, fussiness, loudness or irritability; a low threshold of frustration

• often assigned with “difficult children”

5 Dimensions of Temperament: Effortful Control/Task Persistence

An ability to stay focused, to manage attention and effort

Factors that Influence Temperament

• heredity: eg. identical twins are more alike in temperament than fraternal twins

• long-term stability: some aspects are stable across infancy and into children’s later year 

• neurological processes

• environment: eg. niche picking, our choices reflect our temperaments

  • goodness of fit: the compatibility b/w a child’s temperament and their environment (like the parenting methods)

    • the better the match, the more favorable the child’s adjustment

Gender Differences

• temperamental differences between boys and girls are much smaller than the differences perceived by parents and other adults

• temperamental stereotyping may affect the quality of the parent-infant relationship

  • eg. parents displaying more affection for a girl they perceive to be more feminine than one whom they view as masculine

Self-Concept

The set of attributes, attitudes and characteristics that a person uses to describe and define themselves

• how we view ourselves will impact how we interact with others and/or environment 

• some researchers argue than infants are born with the capacity to differenciate themselves from others

  • others argue that self-awareness isn’t innate and instead starts to emerge at a basic level at ~3 months

Subjective Self

• an infant’s awareness that they are a separate person from others and can act on their environment, and that this separate self endures over time and space

• infants as young as 2-3 months begin to learn they can have an effect on the things around them 

• a sense of “I” begins to emerge

• subjective self often fully emerges once infants understand object permanence around 8-12 months

• eg. social smile, a facial expression that is directed at another person to elicit a response

Objective Self

• for the toddler to understand they are also an object in the world

• the “self” has qualities or properties, such as gender, size, name, etc.

• begin to show “Mine!” attitude toward toys or other treasured objects

• begin to refer to themselves by name, and near the end of 2nd year, label themselves as boy or girl

• understand they belong to the “child” category

Emotional Self

• provides the infant the ability to decipher emotional cues, such as facial expressions and to relate others’ feelings to their own

• around 12 months, infants’ perceptions of others’ emotion help them anticipate others’ actions and guide their own behavior

Self-Concept: Self-Recognition

Ability to identify the self, usually with mirror recognition

• ~3 months, infants my begin to react positively to their mirror image

• ~8-9 months, infants are aware movements in the mirro coincide to their own movements

• ~18-24 months, most infants touch their noses if they see that there is something on it’s mirror image

• ~ age 2, advances in self-awareness allows toddlers to begin to experience more complex emotions  (eg. secondary emotions like shame, guilt or embarassment)

  • comparing their actions to how others will react and judge themselves based on that 

• ~1.5-2.5 years, toddlers move beyond self-recognition to include development of objective self

Non Parental Care: Physical Development

• more likely to be overweight both early in life and when they reach school age than children who are cared for exclusively by their parents

• children who are overweight attain motor milestones slower and are less physically active than their peers

  • a pattern that continues into the middle childhood years and contributes to lifelong weight problems

Non Parental Care: Cognitive Development

• school readiness is the primary goal of parents who choose nonparental care for toddlers and preschoolers

• some evidence that high quality daycare has beneficial effects on many children’s overall cognitive development, but not in all cases

• level of stimulation at home vs daycare:

  • if more enrichment at daycare than home, then daycare attendance has beneficial cognitive effects

  • if home has more enrichment, then daycare has negative effects

Non Parental Care: Stress Hormones

• levels of cortisol increase from morning-afternoon in infants who are enrolled in center-based care, especially in children under 3 years old

• cortisol levels decrease over the course of the day in home-reared infants

• some developmentalists argue that the higher levels of cortisol experienced by center-care infants affect their rapidly developing brains in ways that lead to problem behaviors

• studies also suggest that stress hormones have both positive and negative effects on young brains 

Non Parental Care: Quality and Quantity of Care

• nonparental care arrangements probably vary in the degree to which they induce stress in infants and children

• quality of care may be just as important as quantity of care 

Non Parental Care: Gender Differences

• individual and gender differences have been found to interact with non parental care

• boys in non parental care are more likely than girls in similar care settings to be insecurely attached to their caregivers

Non Parental Care: Small Differences

• on average, the differences between children in non parental care and their home-reared peers, both positive and negative, are very small

• family variables are more important than the type of daycare arrangements a family chooses

  • the kind of daycare parents choose is an extension of their own characteristics and parenting styles (eg. choosing a day care that doesn’t emphasize infant learning)

    • daycare effects are parenting effects in disgused