PSYC10004 Lecture 7: PSYC10004 Week 3 Lecture notes
29 Jun 2018
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PSYC10004 Mind, Brain & Behaviour 2
LECTURE 7 (3.1) – Social-Emotional Development: Attachment
Attachment
Eysenck: “A close emotional relationship between two persons,
characterised by mutual affection and a desire to maintain proximity"
Siegler: “An emotional bond with a specific person that is enduring
across space and time. Usually, attachments are discussed in regard to the relation
between infants and specific caregivers, although they can also occur in adulthood."
Attachment in development
Emotional bonds children form with their primary caregivers,
including:
oDesire for proximity; sense of security; distress when person absent
Ties endure beyond infancy
Critical features of interaction
Bonding infant & parent/caregiver: primary needs; intimate contact
Harlow’s work with infant rhesus monkeys
oIV: aspect of mother available to infant
oDV: amount of time with ‘mother’, feeding time, returning when
threatened
oEffects on later development
As adolescents: aggressive interaction - no normal play
As adults: isolated monkeys, abnormal sexual behaviour
Length of deprivation experience
< 3 months: no problem
6+ months: more dramatic disturbances
Importance of interaction with other members of the species
Bowlby: Attachment theory
A bunch of baby chicks
Ethology: imprinting (Konrad Lorenz)
Close contact with an adult is essential for development
Attachment behaviour pre-wired in humans
oKeeps immature infants close to their parents
Traits and behaviours are part of an evolutionary, adaptive system
Review of findings of studies of institutionalised children for WHO
Concept of Maternal Deprivation emphasising the biological
mother’s role
Breaking the maternal bond with a child during their early years of life
is likely to have serious effects on intellectual, social and emotional development
oInfant responds in similar way to everyone
o~5 months: discriminate among people, prefer primary caregiver
o~7 months: stays close to primary caregiver, separation protest
o3 yrs +: goal corrected partnership, some sensitivity to caregiver needs
o5 yrs: internal working model of child, caregiver relationship
Ainsworth: The Strange Situation
1
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PSYC10004 Mind, Brain & Behaviour 2
Research strategy to investigate attachment behaviour
Attachment behaviour observed in company of parent, and in
separation & reunion episodes
Patterns on attachment behaviour
oAnxious-avoidant; secure-attachment; anxious-resistant
oDisorganised-disoriented
Fourth type identified by Main, Kapan and Cassidy (1985)
Faley & Spieker (2003) stated oversimplification to assign children’s
attachment patterns to 3 or 4 categories
oPreferred using 2 dimensions
Avoidance/withdrawal v proximity seeking
Angry & resistant v emotional confidence
Parenting factors and attachment
Key parent behaviours
oSensitive responsiveness from carer, responsive to signals of infant
Key feature of interaction: secure base to explore the world
Exercise caution when generalising sensitivity-security link cross-
culturally
How early attachment influences later behaviour
Internal working model of relationships
oHabituation paradigm: lets us know babies recognise faces
Early experience persists child’s expectations about responses from
carers
Evidence for internal working model
Habituation paradigm
oInfant behaviour is pre-verbal
oEvent repeated until it becomes ‘expected’
oNew event: looking time recorded
oPredictions
Expected: shorter looking time, unexpected: longer looking time
oTest trials: parent return to distressed child OR continued to move
away
oResults
Children previously identified as securely attached looked longer when
parent continued moving away from distressed child
Insecurely attached showed little discrimination between events
LECTURE 8 (3.2) – Emotions as Interactive Developmental Processes
Deprivation or privation?
Bowlby: deprivation hypothesis
Rutter: distinguishes the two
oDeprivation: child has an attachment and loses attachment figure
oPrivation: child never had a close relationship with anyone
2
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Document Summary
Eysenck: a close emotional relationship between two persons, characterised by mutual affection and a desire to maintain proximity" Siegler: an emotional bond with a specific person that is enduring across space and time. Usually, attachments are discussed in regard to the relation between infants and specific caregivers, although they can also occur in adulthood. " Emotional bonds children form with their primary caregivers, Desire for proximity; sense of security; distress when person absent. Bonding infant & parent/caregiver: primary needs; intimate contact. Dv: amount of time with mother", feeding time, returning when threatened o. As adolescents: aggressive interaction - no normal play. Importance of interaction with other members of the species. Close contact with an adult is essential for development. Traits and behaviours are part of an evolutionary, adaptive system. Review of findings of studies of institutionalised children for who. Concept of maternal deprivation emphasising the biological mother"s role.
