DEV Lecture 6 - Attachment

Attachment Theory Overview

• Attachment is the close relationship infants form with caregivers, driven by an innate need.
• Bowlby proposed this theory in 1958.

Bowlby's Early Work

• Infants display social releaser behaviors like sucking, clinging, crying, and smiling to elicit care from caregivers.
• The initial bond serves as a model for future relationships.
• Only the mother does this, which is called monotropy.
• In 1969, Bowlby looked at the stages of attachment.

Maternal Deprivation Hypothesis

• Breaking the bond in the first 5 years can lead to cognitive, social, and emotional issues like aggression, depression, or delinquency.
• This internal working model shapes beliefs about trustworthiness, self-value, and social effectiveness.

Stages of Attachment

• Birth to 6 weeks: Preattachment phase where infants orient and signal to anyone.
• 6 weeks to 6-8 months: Attachment in the making where infants orient and seek comfort from primary caregivers.
• 6-8 months to 18-24 months: Clear-cut attachment, staying close to the primary caregiver, showing separation protest, and fearing strangers.
• 18-24 months: Formation of reciprocal relationships, reduction in immediate proximity-seeking, and development of an internal working model.

Harlow's Research

• Harlow conducted research on this in primates in 1961 and 1962.
• Monkeys need contact comfort not just food.

Ainsworth's Shift

• Ainsworth is a leading figure in attachment theory from 1963 to 1967.
• Initially working with Bowlby in London, she studied different cultures, such as Uganda.
• Studies led Bowlby in 1969 to change his ideas to infants having more than one attachment figure.
• By 18 months, 87% of infants in the UK had multiple attachments, according to Shafer & Emerson in 1964.
• Ainsworth introduced the concept of attachment styles.

The Strange Situation

• Ainsworth's study in 1970, used to explore attachment styles in infants around 12-24 months.
• The procedure involves a series of separations and reunions with the mother and a stranger.
• The reunions are steps 5 and 8 of the procedure.

Measuring Infant Behavior

• Infant reactions are scored every 15 seconds on a scale of 1-7.
• Measurements include proximity and contact seeking, contact maintaining, avoidance, and resistance.
• Behavior is also measured by if the infant uses the mother as a base to explore and how the infant behaves when the mother is absent.

Type A: Insecure Avoidant

• An infant doesn't play much with the mother.
• The infant is not distressed by her absence and plays happily with a stranger.
• The infant avoids interactions with the mother during reunions and can be comforted by anyone.
• This behavior results in children operating independently of their attachment figure.

Type B: Secure

• The infant uses the mother as a secure base for exploration.
• The infant plays with a stranger when the mother is present.
• The infant is distressed when the mother leaves, but is easily soothed upon her return.
• It means the infant has a "representational model" of attachment figures being available, responsive, and helpful.

Type C: Insecure Resistant/Ambivalent

• The infant does less exploration than average.
• The infant is distressed by the mother's absence, is afraid of a stranger, seeks contact, but also resists it when the mother returns.
• The infant demonstrates clingy and resistant behavior.

Type D: Insecure Disorganized

• Was later introduced by Main & Solomon in 1986.
• There is no consistent strategy for seeking contact or comfort.
• The infant shows contradictory and misdirected behavior.

New Data

• A meta-analysis done by van IJzendoorn in 1999 used an ABCD system and had non-clinical middle.
• Original study done by Ainsworth & Bell in 1970, used an ABC system and non-clinical middle class US families.
• It was found that 70% of children were secure in the original study, but only 62% in the newer data.
• 20% of child were avoidant originally compared to 15% in the new data.
• 10% of children were resistant/ambivalent in the original study, but 9% in the new data.
• Disorganized attachment was only measured in the new analysis with 15%.

Genetic Influence

• Genetics only explain about 14% of individual differences according to research with 110 twin pairs (O'Connor & Croft, 2001).

Cultural Differences

• Different cultural norms can lead to different classifications
• Ijzendoorn's studies showed Higher Type A for avoidant in Germany.
• Higher Type C in Japan & Israel.
• Intracultural variation is 1.5 times higher.

Early Experience

• Infants whose mothers provided "continuous relationship", especially from 6 months to 3 years have better outcomes.
• Children in institutions in postwar Europe lacked sensory stimulation and social contact.
• Currently, children attach normally to a parent (Clarke-Stewart et al 1994) and securely to a caregiver that's more sensitive (Goose Ijzendoorn 1990).
• Continuous maternal attachment is not necessary.

Childcare Research

• High quality care is related to better linguistic and cognitive scores until 11 years according to the NICHD in 2006.
• More childcare is related to more aggression, still significant by 12 years.

Maternal Sensitivity Hypothesis

• Bowlby/Ainsworth say that a mother's responses determine attachment.
• This includes promptness, appropriateness, and completeness of responses.
• These ratings of maternal sensitivity correlate somewhat with attachment by r=.24 in 1997 by De Wolff & van Ijzendoorn.
• Interventions to improve sensitivity improve attachment according to Bakermans-Kranenburg, van Ijzendoorn & Juffer in 2003.

Mind-Mindedness

• Meins et al 2001 says sensitivity is a broad measure and not predictive enough.
• Mind-Mindedness focuses on the content of the responses, indicating if the mother understands her infant as "a mental agent".
• It allows her to make appropriate infant-directed responses and actions.

Measuring Mind-Mindedness

• Maternal responsiveness to change in infant's direction of gaze.
• Maternal responsiveness to infant's object-directed action.
• Being able to look at, pick up, or talk about object of infant's attention.
• Imitation; Encouragement of autonomy
• Interpreting infant as an intentional agent

Mind-Mindedness Impact

• Appropriate mind-related comments strongly related to attachment security.
• More so than sensitivity, and discriminates between insecure avoidance and insecure ambivalent groups.

Later Effects

• Secure attachment at 12 months predicts curiosity & problem solving at 2 yrs.
• Social confidence at nursery at 3 yrs.
• Empathy & independence at 5 yrs according to Oppenheim et al in 1988.
• SS classification isn't stable across 6 months (Belsky et al 1996).
• 46% stability from 15 to 36 months (NICHD Early child Care Research Network 2001).

Discontinuity

• Adult attachment interview classifies adults as Autonomous, Dismissing, Preoccupied, and Unresolved.
• 72% of the time childhood SS classification predicts Adult Attachment, but there is a 22% change.
• 44% of those experiencing negative life events changed classification (Waters et al 2000).
• In another test it was 77% (Hamilton, 2000)
• Changes are linked to maltreatment, maternal depression, and family functioning at age 13 (Weinfeld 2000).

Summary

• Different styles of attachment have been proposed.
• Mostly all attachment styles are based on the Strange Situation.
• Early attachment styles are predictive of later behaviors.
• Genetics do not have a big role.
• The environment may have a bigger influence.