Psychology 2410A/B Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Mary Ainsworth, Attachment Theory, John Bowlby

• School: Western University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: Psychology 2410A/B
• Professor: Lynne Zarbatany

Document Summary

Attachment is an enduring emotional bond that unites two or more people across time and context: purposes of attachment relationship. Helps infant regulate negative emotions (fear, distress); reduces stress. Enables development of competence and self-efficacy: attachment behaviours. Distress at separation from attachment figure (af) Selectively go to af for comfort and assistance when hurt, sick, distressed, fearful. Use af as a secure base for exploration. Ethological theory of attachment: john bowlby, influenced by: Freud: infant-mother relationship is first and strongest love-object and prototype of all later love relations. Learning theories could not explain (orphanage, primate students) [hull, drive reduction] Ethologists: bonding studies involving ducklings (lorenz); if he could take away the mother, he could get the ducklings to treat him as their mom. Spitz: infants socially deprived in orphanages; failure to thrive. Problems with cognition, locomotion, extreme fear of novelty, self- stimulation, high mortality rate. Harlow: monkeys raised without mothers behave similarly to deprived human infants.