Attachment and Early Social Development Notes

Attachment and Early Social Development

• This document outlines the core aspects of attachment theory and early social capacities, focusing on learning objectives provided by the University of Aberdeen.

• Learning Objectives:     - LO1: Demonstrate an understanding of the main influences on Attachment theory.     - LO2: Describe the stages of development of Attachment bonds.     - LO3: Outline the concept of ‘Working Models’ of Attachment.     - LO4: Describe the early social capacities of infants.     - LO5: Describe determinants of attachment.

• Foundation and Key Issues in Developmental Psychology:     - Continuity vs. Discontinuity: Whether development follows a smooth curve or distinct stages.     - Nature vs. Nurture: The role of genetics versus environment.     - Mechanisms of Development: What specific factors drive development.     - Individual Differences: Variations in developmental milestones (e.g., ‘Why doesn’t Andrew’s child do that?’).

Origins and Influences of Attachment Theory

• Ethological Input:     - Imprinting: Defined as an automatic and irreversible process observed in some animals.     - Critical Period: A specific timeframe during which imprinting or certain developments must occur.     - Pre-adapted Characteristics: Features evolved to ensure survival and care.     - Kewpie Doll Effect: Physical features of infants (large eyes, round face) that elicit care-taking behaviors.     - Elicited Behaviors: Crying and smiling are mechanisms to trigger caregiver interaction.

• Harlow’s Rhesus Monkey Studies:     - Experimental Design: Rhesus monkey infants were provided with two surrogate mothers: a wire mother that provided food and a cloth mother that provided comfort.     - Findings: Infants preferred the ‘comforting’ cloth mother over the feeding wire mother.     - Significance: Provided evidence against primary drive theorists (such as Freud) who argued mother-infant bonds were based on feeding. When frightened, monkeys sought the cloth mother for solace and security.     - Model of Attachment: Defined as ‘organic affection’ involving contact and food. Comfort and security allow the infant to be more mobile, as the goal shifting toward comfort over mere sustenance.

• Freud’s Insights (Waters et al., $1991$):     - Human infants are recognized to lead exceedingly complex cognitive and emotional lives.     - Early attachment relationships are viewed as prototypes for later love relationships.     - The loss of a loved one is always painful and represents a major challenge to an individual’s adaptive resources.

Bowlby’s Theory of Attachment

• Definition: Attachment is a ‘lasting psychological connectedness between human beings’ (Bowlby, $1969$, p. $194$).

• Proximity Seeking: A behavioral system focused on maintaining closeness to key attachment figures.

• The Secure Base: A central concept where the caregiver provides security for the child to explore.

• Working Models (Internal Working Models):     - Children’s internalized models of their relationship with the Primary Caregiver (PC).     - Built up over infancy and childhood and related to the quality of attachment to the PC.     - While they are stable representations, they can be changed over time.     - Function: These models guide future behavior in close relationships and influence how children interpret how they are treated.

Stages of Development of the Attachment Bond

• Phase $1$ (0-$6$ weeks):     - Presentation of attachment behaviors and reflex actions.     - Behaviors are indiscriminate (not directed at a specific person).     - Marks the beginnings of social interaction.

• Phase $2$ ($6$ weeks - $6$ months):     - The infant begins to discriminate between different people, specifically toward the caregiver.     - The attachment bond begins to form.

• Phase $3$: The Secure Base ($7$-$9$ months):     - Attachment becomes focused on a specific caregiver.     - Appearance of separation anxiety and a wariness of strangers.     - Key Quote: ‘The provision of a secure base from which the child … can make sorties into the outside world and to which he can return knowing for sure that he will be welcomed when he gets there, nourished physically and emotionally, comforted if distressed, reassured if frightened’ (Bowlby, $1988$, p. $11$).

• Phase $4$: Reciprocal Relationship (Beyond $2$ years):     - Known as the Goal Corrected Partnership.     - Decline in the fear of strangers and the beginning of mutual understanding.     - Key Quote: ‘In the case of [older] children and adolescents we see them as they get older, venturing steadily further from base and for increasing spans of time. The more confident they are that their base is secure .. The more they take it for granted’ (Bowlby, $1988$, p. $11$).

Classification of Attachment Relationships

• Ainsworth’s Strange Situation Procedure ($1978$): A standardized laboratory assessment to observe infant responses to separation and reunion with caregivers.

• Attachment Styles:     - Secure: Shows healthy balance between exploration and seeking proximity; comforted by reunion.     - Insecure Avoidant: Appears indifferent to caregiver; avoids or ignores them upon reunion.     - Insecure Resistant: Clingy but angry or resistant upon reunion; difficult to comfort.     - Insecure Disorganised: Lacks a coherent strategy for dealing with stress; shows confused or fearful behaviors.

Precursors of Attachment: Recognition of Self and Others

• Recognition of Self:     - Explicit Self-Awareness:         - Mirror Tests (‘rouge test’; Amsterdam, $1972$): Placing a mark on an infant's face to see if they recognize themselves in a mirror.         - Criticism (Asendorpf et al., $1996$): Pre-test doll cleaning showed different results.         - Infants around $10$ months old will grasp a hat lowered onto their head, suggesting early awareness (Bertenthal & Fischer, $1978$).     - Implicit Self-Awareness:         - Body Perception: Studied via ‘enfacement’ in neonates (Filippetti et al., $2013$).         - Social Agents: The ‘Still Face’ paradigm (Tronick et al., $1975$) demonstrates infants’ awareness of social interaction by their reaction when a caregiver suddenly becomes unresponsive.

• Recognition of Others:     - Piaget’s Perspective: Object permanence coincides with ‘person permanence’.         - Below $8$ months: No search for missing mother.         - $9$-$12$ months: Infants exhibit the A-not-B error with people just as they do with objects.     - Face Recognition (Bushnell et al., $1989$):         - Infants at $5$ days old preferred their mother's face over others.         - This advantage disappeared if the subjects wore wigs, indicating dependence on external features like hair.     - Intermodal Recognition (Spelke & Owsley, $1979$):         - $3$-month-olds were played tapes of their mother’s and father’s voices.         - They looked longer at the parent whose voice was being played, showing cross-sensory recognition.

Determinants of Attachment Styles

• Parental Responsiveness:     - Crying: ‘Secure’ mothers are more responsive to a crying child.     - Affection: ‘Secure’ mothers tend to be more affectionate and playful.     - Interaction: Based on synchronicity, mutuality, and the contingency of responses.

• Temperament (Thomas and Chess, $1986$):     - Easy Baby: Follows regular patterns of behavior; generally positive and happy.     - Difficult Baby: Less predictable patterns; cries often; has a negative mood.     - Slow to warm-up Baby: Shows difficulty in new situations; responds to situations with low intensity.

• Effects of Temperament:     - On Testing: Fearful children might appear hesitant in tests like the Strange Situation Procedure (SSP).     - Goodness of Fit: The compatibility between the child’s temperament and the environment/parental style.     - Conclusion: Personality/temperament does not have a large effect on the overall attachment style compared to parental responsiveness.

Academic References and Readings

• Mains, E. ($2011$). Emotional Development and Attachment Relationships (Chapter $6$). In Slater, A., and Bremner, G. (Eds). An Introduction to Developmental Psychology, BPS Blackwell, p $185$-$215$.

• Waters, E., Kondo-Ikemura, K., Posada, G., & Richters, J. E. ($1991$). Learning to love: Mechanisms and milestones.

• Easterbrooks et al. ($2012$). Social and Emotional Development in Infancy (Chapter $4$). In Weiner, I. B., et al. (Eds). Handbook of Psychology, Developmental Psychology, Wiley & Sons (p $91$-$120$).