Factors and Effects of Attachment

Long Term Effects of Secure vs Insecure

• Securely attached children:
  • Are more joyful, curious, competent, empathic, resilient, and self-confident
  • Interact more positively with parents, preschool teachers, and peers.
  • Are better able to resolve conflicts.
  • Have a more positive self-image.
• Insecurely attached children:
  • Show more fear, distress, and anger.
  • Have inhibitions and negative emotions in toddlerhood.
  • Show hostility toward other children.
  • Show dependency during the school years.

Caregiver Sensitivity and Responsiveness

• Secure attachment in the first year of life provides an important foundation for psychological development later in life.
• Caregiver sensitivity and responsiveness at the core of secure and healthy attachment
  • Caregivers consistently available to respond to infants’ needs – not immediacy but consistency
  • Understand baby’s signals
  • Often let their babies have an active part in determining the onset and pacing of interaction in the first year.
  • Parent does not need to be “perfect” to have secure attachment;
  • Much emphasis is on maternal attachment, however, babies can and do develop secure attachment to other close individuals and caregivers
  • Infant temperament also plays a role in the dyadic relationship (involves two individuals)
• Rather than looking only at the parents or only at the baby, researchers are increasingly looking at how the characteristics and behaviors of the parents and the baby shape each other over time.

Factors that Effect Attachment Security

• Early availability of a consistent caregiver
• Quality of caregiving:
  • Sensitive caregiving
  • Proximal care, in cultures that emphasize interdependence
• Risk Factors:
  • Health Issues (Prematurity, birth complications, and newborn illness )
  • Maternity Leave, Inadequate childcare
  • Family circumstances (stress, parental well-being, PPD)
  • Socio-economic factors & financial stress

The Role of the Maternal Figure

• A substantial body of research has shown that mothers are more likely to respond positively to their babies when they have

  1. Good social support, especially when caring for a difficult infant
  2. A positive relationship with their partner
  3. Adequate economic resources
  4. Good psychological health (for example, lower levels of anxiety,
     depression, and stress, or higher levels of life satisfaction)
  5. A history of good care in their own childhood

• Employment, SES, education, marital status not directly related to maternal sensitivity and responsiveness. However, undue stress in this area can affect the relationship.

Attachment to Multiple Caregivers

• Babies develop attachments to a variety of familiar people, including fathers, grandfathers, siblings, caregivers
• Infants form a hierarchy of attachment that includes primary and secondary attachment figures ordered in strength of preference.
• Paternal sensitive, stimulating play with infants is associated with favorable emotional and social adjustment
• Grandparents as primary caregivers in skipped-generation families forge significant attachment relationships with grandchildren

Attachment and Culture

• Cross-cultural research has looked at whether the proportion of secure versus insecure attachments in infants is similar from one culture to another.
  • Research has found that the proportion of infants classified by the Strange Situation as having a secure attachment does not differ very much by country.
  • Secure infants typically account for about two thirds of the participants in a study.
  • What is more likely to differ across cultures is the proportion of infants in the different categories of insecure attachment.

\