Lecture 9 - Attached to Others and Development of Self.docx

Lecture 9 - Attached to Others and Development of Self

March 7, 2024

11:56 PM

RECAP

• Nature and Emergence of Emotion
  • Discrete Emotion Theory
    • Emotions - innate
    • Able to express set of discrete emotions well before being taught
    • Emphasis on evolution and adaptation
      • Neurological and biological systems have evolved to allow humans to experience then express set of basic emotions through adaptation
    • First put forward by Charles Darwin
      • Argue - expressions for certain basic emotional states are innate
      • Emotional responses are largely automatic and not based on cognition
  • Functionalist perspective
    • Emotions - vary based on environment
    • Basic function of emotions is to promote action toward achieving goal
    • Individuals experience emotions in order to manage relationship between themselves and environment
    • Emotions and emotional expressions are goal driven

• Levels of babies
  • Easy
    • Adjust readily to new situations
    • Quickly establish daily routines
    • Generally cheerful, easy to calm
  • Difficult
    • Slow to adjust to new experiences
    • Tend to react negatively and intensely to novel stimuli and events
    • Irregular in daily routines and bodily functions
  • Slow to warm up
    • Somewhat difficult at first, becomes easier as they have repeated contact w/ novel stimuli and events

• Mary Rothbart
  • Identified 5 key dimensions of temperament
    1. Fear
       • Tend to experience unease, worry or nervousness to novel or potentially threatening situations
       • "how often during last week did baby startle to sudden or loud noise?"
    2. Distress(infant) or anger/frustration (childhood)
       • Negative emotional response related to having ongoing task interrupted or blocked
       • "when placed on his/her back, how often did baby fuss or protest?"
    3. Attention span
       • Attention to object or task for extended period of time
       • "how often during last week did baby stare at mobile, crib bumper, or picture for 5 mins or longer?"
    4. Activity lv
       • Rate and extent of gross motor body movements
       • "when put into water bath, how often did baby splash or kick?"
    5. Smiling and laughter
       • Positive emotional response to change in intensity, complexity or incongruity of a stimulus
       • "how often during last week did baby smile or laugh when given toy?"

Attachment Theory

• Attachments
  • Emotional bond w/ specific person that is enduring across space and time
• Caregiver-child attachment relationship
  • From behaviorist perspective - food from mother is basic for the bond
    • Believed that infants link food to mother through classical conditioning
      • Food = unconditioned stimulus - experience pleasure
      • Mothers = conditioned stimulus linked w/food
• Harlow's Experiment
  • Infant monkey experiment
    • Cloth mother vs new environment
  • Tested whether pleasure of food or pleasure of comfort was more important
  • WATCH VIDEO

• In unfamiliar situation
  • Self-comforting behaviors
    • Rocking and thumb-sucking
  • Cloth mother introduced - initially cling to cloth mother, then explore room
    • Periodically return to cloth mother
• Conclusion
  • Cloth mother functioned as "source of security, base of operations"
• Importance of physical comfort for infant monkeys
• Infants require more than their physical needs met to thrive
• Criticisms - unnecessarily cruel and unethical
  • Many monkeys in experiment were extremely disturbed and had difficulties later
• Attachment Theory
  • John Bowlby
    • Foundation of attachment theory
    • Influenced by
      • Harlow's work
      • Ethological theories
        • Concept of imprinting - Konrad Lorenz
• Importance of attachment
  • Enhance change of survival
    • Influenced infant's chance for survival by keeping caregiver in close proximity
      • Source for food and protection
  • Support child to explore world without fear
    • Helps infants feel emotionally secure
      • Sense of security - explore environment without fear
  • Serve as form of co-regulation
    • Form of co-regulation
      • Process by which caregiver provides needed comfort/distraction to help child reduce distress
  • Develop internal working model of attachment
    • Child's mental representation of
      • Self
      • Attachment figure(s)
      • Relationships in general
    • Constructed as result of experiences w/caregivers
      • Extent to which caregivers can be depended on to satisfy their needs and provide sense of security
    • Guide children's interactions w/caregivers and others in infancy and older ages
    • WATCH VIDEO

Measurement of Attachment Security

• Factors provide insights into quality of infant's attachment to caregiver
  • Extent to which infant is able to use primary caregiver as secure base
  • How infant reacts to brief separation
  • From and reunions w/caregiver
• Mary Ainsworth
  • Later extended and tested Bowlby's ideas
  • Studied mother-infant interactions during infants' exploration and separations from their mothers
  • Episodes in Ainsworth's Strange Situation Procedure
    1. Experimenter introduced caregiver and infant to unfamiliar room
       1. Shows toys to baby - then leaves
       2. No behavior assessed
    2. Caregiver and child are alone
       1. Caregiver is told not to initiate interaction but to respond to infant as appropriate
       2. Exploration and use of caregiver as secure base
    3. Stranger enters and is seated quietly for 1 min
       1. Talks to caregiver for 1 min
       2. Tries to interact w/infant for 1 min
       3. Reaction to stranger
    4. Caregiver leaves child alone w/stranger - lets infant play but offers comfort if needed
       1. Segment is shortened if infant becomes too distressed
       2. Separation distress and reaction to stranger's comforting
    5. Caregiver calls to infant from outside door
       1. Enter room and pause by door
       2. Stranger leaves
       3. Caregiver lets infant play or may comfort infant if distressed
       4. Reaction to reunion w/caregiver
    6. Caregiver leaves infant alone in room
       1. Segment is ended if infant is too distressed
    7. Stranger enters room
       1. Greets infant and pauses
       2. Sits or comforts infant if infant is upset
       3. Segment is ended if infant is very upset
       4. Ability to be soothed by stranger
    8. Caregiver calls from outside door
       1. Enters and greets infant and pauses
       2. Caregiver sits if infant isnt upset but may provide comfort if infant is distressed
       3. Caregiver allows infant to return to play if interested
       4. Reaction to reunion
    9. After experimenter introduced parent and child to room - child exposed to 7 episodes
       1. 2 separation from, and reunions w/parent
       2. 2 interactions w/stranger
          • 1 when parent is outside room
          • 1 when parent is present
    10. Each episode lasts 3 mins
        1. Unless child becomes overly upset
    11. Observers rate child's behavior
        1. Ex. Attempts to seek closeness and contact w/parent
        2. Resistance to or avoidance of parent
        3. Interactions w/stranger
    12. Particularly important to determining child's attachment is reaction to parent when parent returns after separation
    13. WATCH VIDEO
    14. Ainsworth's Attachment Categories - 4 TOTAL
        1. 3 attachment categories
           • Secure -- 50-60% of children in Canada and US

Uses parent as secure base

Upset at separation

Seeks parent at reunion and is easily soothed by parent

• • • • • Insecure/avoidant -- 15%

Readily separates to explore

Avoids or ignores parent

Doesn’t prefer parent to stranger

• • • • • Insecure/resistant -- 9%

Doesn’t separate to explore

Wary of stranger even when parent is present

Extremely upset at separation

Not soothed by parent and resists parent's attempts to soothe

• • • 1. Extension from subsequent research
         • Disorganized/disoriented -- 15%

Goes to parent reluctantly

Perhaps looking away from parent - may express fear when w/parent

May seem to "freeze" their behavior and expressions for short period

• • • 1. NOTE
         • Characterized child's relationship w/particular caregiver
         • Children can have different attachments w/different caregiver
      2. Criticisms of strange situation
         • Requires substantial resources
         • Not measured along multiple continuous dimensions
         • No longer so "strange"
      3. WATCH VIDEO

Individual Differences

• Sources of individual differences
  • Parental sensitivity
    • Caregiving behavior that involves expression of warmth and contingent responsiveness to children
      • Ex. When they require assistance/in destress
    • Attachment style
      • Secure
      • Parent's behavior
        • Responsive and sensitive to child's signals
        • Affectionate and expressive
        • Initiates frequent close contact w/child
        • WATCH VIDEO
      • Insecure/avoidant
      • Parent's behavior
        • Insensitive to child's signals
        • Avoids close contact and rejects child's bids for contact
        • May be angry, irritable or impatient
      • Insecure/resistant
      • Parent's behavior
        • Inconsistent or awkward in reacting to child's distress
        • Seems overwhelmed w/tasks of caregiving
        • WATCH VIDEO
      • Disorganized/disoriented
      • Parent's behavior
        • Intrusive
        • Emotionally unavailable
        • Confuses or frightens child
        • May be harsh or abusive
        • WATCH VIDEO
  • Genetic predisposition
    • Certain gene may cause differential susceptibility
      • Ex. DRD4 gene
        • Disorganized/disoriented attachment when infant is in stressful environment but associated w/greater attachment security in less stressful context

• Culture variations in attachment style
  • Infants' behavior in strange situations are similar across different cultures
    • Avg percentages of different attachment styles are similar to those established in Canada and US
  • Behavioral differences
    • Ex. Children in Columbia and Peru least likely to reminan close physical proximity to their mothers
    • Children in Italy and Portugal much more likely to maintain physical contact
• Interventions to improve attachment
  • Circle of security intervention
    • Parents are encouraged to reflect on their own mental representation of how parents and children should interact
    • Guided by trained therapists to change maladaptive representations
    • WATCH VIDEO
  • Attachment and biobehavioral catch-up (ABC) intervention
    • Specifically for mothers identified at risk for maltreating
    • Focuses on changing parents' behaviors
  • 3 goals
    • Provide nurturance to child
    • Follow child's lead
    • Avoid frightening behaviors

Social Emotional Development

• Attachment and social emotional development
  • Securely attached
    • Ex. Higher in self-regulation, social competence
    • Better academic performance
    • Less anxious, less depressed
    • Predicts positive peer and romantic relationships and emotional health in adolescence
    • Predicts better physical health in adulthood
  • One of the reasons
    • More likely to develop positive and constructive internal working model of attachment
  • Only few studies w/attachments to both parents were assessed
  • Insecure father-child attachment more strongly correlated w/conduct problems than insecure mother-child attachment
  • Most at risk if they have insecure attachment to both mother and father
    • Ex. Prone to aggression and defiance in elementary school

The Self

• Self-concept
  • Conceptual system made up of one's thoughts and attitudes abt oneself
    • Physical being
    • Social characteristics
    • Internal characteristics
  • In infancy
    • 2-4 months
      • Sense of their ability to control objects
    • 8 months
      • Separation anxiety
        • Me vs mother = separate entities
    • 18-24 months
      • Self-recognition
        • Ex. Look into mirror and recognize themselves
    • 2-3 years
      • Exhibit embarrassment and shame - emotions require self-concept
        • More self-assertion
  • In childhood
    • 3-5 years
      • Understand self in terms of concrete, observable characteristics
        • Simple understanding

Ex. "im 3 yrs old, my name is, I live w/mommy and daddy"

Blue eyes

Run really fast

• • • 6-13 years
      • Social comparison
        • Social understanding

Ex. "im in gr. 4, im pretty popular, they are cooler than everyone"

I see how lots of other kids are doing

Im better than others

• • In early adolescence
    • Abstract self-descriptions, personal fable, imaginary audience
      • More in depth knowledge abt self
        • Ex. Im extroverted, cheerful and funny
        • I spend lots of time worrying abt what others think of me
        • Anxiety
  • Late adolescence
    • More integrated, less determined by what others think
      • Free thinking
        • Ex. I don’t care what others think of me anymore
        • I have to live w/myself as a person and to respect that person, which I do now
• Self-esteem
  • Individual's overall subjective evaluation of his/her worth and feelings he/she has abt evaluation
  • Doesn’t emerge until - age 8
  • Low self-esteem is associated w/problems
    • Ex. Anxiety and depression
  • Sources
    • Age
      • Childhood = high
      • Adolescence = decline
      • Adulthood = rebound
    • Physical attributes
    • Approval and support they receive - particularly from parents
      • Should praise children for their effort and avoid inflated praise
    • Peer acceptance - particularly from adolescence
    • School and neighborhood environment
  • Identity
    • Description of self
      • Often externally imposed
        • Ex. Through membership - student/daughter/teammate/coworker
    • Earliest theory of identity by Erik Erikson
      • All adolescents experience identity crisis
      • Identity achievement = successful resolution of crisis
        • Integration of various aspects of self - coherent whole
    • 4 groups of identity status - James Marcia
      • Researchers rejected idea that individuals must go through identity crisis
      • James Marcia
        • Developed alternate way of describing adolescents' identity development

Adolescents' identity development relates to where individual falls on dimensions of identity exploration and identity commitment

• • • • 4 groups
        • Identity achievement

Exploration

Commitment

Individual has explored potential identities

Has committed to one

• • • • • Identity foreclosure

No exploration

Commitment

Individual hasn't explored potential identities

Has chosen identity based on choices of value of others

• • • • • Moratorium

Exploration

No commitment

Individual is exploring various identities

Hasn't yet made clear commitment to any

• • • • • Identity diffusion

No exploration

No commitment

Individual isn't making progress towards exploring or committing to identity