Chapter 3)
Key Terms and Definitions:
Attachment: A strong emotional bond that forms between an infant and their primary caregiver, which influences future relationships.
Attachment Formation: The process by which attachment relationships develop, occurring most actively between seven and ten months of age.
Attachment Parenting Movement: A contemporary parenting approach, promoted by William Sears, which emphasizes practices like baby-wearing, co-sleeping, and immediate responsiveness to a baby’s cries.
Attachment Style: The characteristic way an individual relates to close relationships, shaped by early attachment experiences. The four primary styles are:
Secure
Insecure-avoidant
Insecure-resistant (ambivalent)
Insecure-disorganized.
Attachment Theory: A theory developed by John Bowlby and later expanded by Mary Ainsworth, which explains how early relationships with caregivers shape emotional development and future relationship patterns.
Attachment-Promoting Behaviors: Actions that caregivers take to foster secure attachment, such as being emotionally available, responsive to needs, and providing physical comfort.
Baby-Wearing: A practice associated with attachment parenting, where parents carry infants in slings or carriers to promote closeness and responsiveness.
Birth Bonding: The idea that immediate post-birth contact between a parent and baby is crucial for attachment. However, research indicates that attachment develops over months rather than immediately after birth.
Bonding: The emotional connection that a parent forms with a child, which is distinct from attachment formation as it happens in the caregiver rather than the child.
Consistent Non-Responsiveness: When a caregiver repeatedly fails to respond to an infant’s distress, leading to insecure attachment patterns.
Contact Comfort: A concept from Harry Harlow’s research on monkeys, demonstrating that physical touch and warmth are crucial for attachment rather than just food provision.
Critical Period: A time-sensitive window for attachment formation, where disruptions can have lasting developmental effects. Attachment formation typically occurs within the first two years.
Dismissing Model: A cognitive attachment pattern in which individuals downplay the importance of attachment relationships, often associated with avoidant attachment styles.
Emotional Availability: A caregiver's ability to recognize, understand, and respond to a child’s emotional needs, a key factor in forming secure attachments.
Environment of Evolutionary Adaptedness (EEA): John Bowlby’s term for the environment in which human attachment behaviors evolved, emphasizing the need for close caregiver relationships in early life.
Frightening Parental Behavior: Erratic, threatening, or abusive caregiver behaviors that can lead to disorganized attachment patterns.
Imprinting: The rapid early bonding process seen in some animals, like birds following the first figure they see after birth. Humans do not imprint, as attachment develops gradually over time.
Inconsistent Responsiveness: A caregiving pattern where parents sometimes respond to needs but other times ignore them, often leading to insecure-resistant attachment.
Insecure Avoidant Attachment: A type of attachment where children minimize their need for comfort, often resulting from emotionally distant caregiving.
Insecure Disorganized Attachment: A form of attachment characterized by conflicting behaviors and fear of the caregiver, often resulting from neglect or trauma.
Insecure Resistant Attachment: A pattern where children seek but also resist comfort, often linked to inconsistent caregiving.
Internal Working Model: A mental framework that shapes how individuals view themselves and others in relationships, based on early attachment experiences.
Mutual Sensitivity: The ability of both caregiver and child to respond appropriately to each other's cues, fostering a secure attachment.
Pre-Attachment Phase: The stage from birth to about six weeks, where babies show instinctive behaviors that promote bonding, but do not yet form true attachment relationships.
Preoccupied Model: A cognitive attachment pattern in which an individual is preoccupied with anger or confusion about past attachment relationships, often leading to insecure-resistant attachment with their own children.
Primary Drive: A concept from Freudian psychoanalytic theory, referring to basic survival needs such as hunger and thirst.
Rhythmicity: The degree to which a baby’s daily life follows a structured yet flexible routine, which can influence attachment quality. Highly structured or completely unstructured caregiving can both be insensitive.
Secondary Drive: A learned motivation that is not necessary for survival but is associated with fulfilling a primary drive (e.g., attachment to a caregiver because they provide food).
Secure Attachment: A healthy attachment style where infants use their caregiver as a secure base for exploration, show distress when separated, and are easily comforted upon reunion.
Secure Base Behavior: The behavior of seeking comfort from a caregiver when distressed and exploring independently when feeling safe. It is a hallmark of secure attachment.
Secure-Autonomous Model: A cognitive attachment pattern where adults value close relationships and can talk about past attachments without defensiveness. These adults are more likely to have securely attached children.
Sensitive Responsiveness: A caregiver's ability to recognize, interpret, and appropriately respond to a child's needs, which is critical for forming secure attachment relationships.
Sleep Training/Ferberizing: A method of teaching babies to sleep independently by letting them cry for controlled periods without immediate comforting. Critics argue it may undermine secure attachment by discouraging responsiveness.
Strange Situation: A laboratory procedure developed by Mary Ainsworth to assess attachment styles by observing how infants react to caregiver separation and reunion.
Tender Needs: A term used in attachment theory to describe moments when a child is experiencing fear, sadness, or distress and needs caregiver comfort.
Unresolved Model: A cognitive attachment pattern where an adult’s narrative about their past attachment relationships is disorganized or disoriented, often leading to insecure-disorganized attachment in their children.
Names to Know:
Mary Ainsworth: A developmental psychologist known for creating the Strange Situation experiment, which identified different attachment styles.
Zeynep Biringen: A researcher known for developing the concept of Emotional Availability (EA), which measures the quality of interactions between parents and children.
John Bowlby: The founder of attachment theory, emphasizing that early caregiver relationships are crucial for emotional and social development.
Richard Ferber: A pediatrician known for Ferberizing (sleep training), a method where babies are taught to self-soothe by letting them cry for intervals before responding.
Sigmund Freud: A psychoanalyst whose theories influenced early attachment studies, though his views on mother-child bonds were later replaced by Bowlby’s attachment theory.
Harry Harlow: A psychologist famous for his research on rhesus monkeys, proving that comfort and touch (contact comfort) are more important for attachment than feeding.
Konrad Lorenz: An ethologist who studied imprinting in geese, which influenced early attachment research, though humans do not imprint in the same way.
Mary Main: A researcher who expanded Ainsworth’s work by identifying disorganized attachment and developing the Adult Attachment Interview to assess attachment in adults.
William Sears: A pediatrician who popularized the Attachment Parenting movement, promoting practices such as baby-wearing, co-sleeping, and immediate responsiveness to cries