HAS121 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Longitudinal Study, Stamen, Psychoanalysis
22 Jun 2018
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Lecture 4
HAS121
Attachment and relationships
What is attachment and why is it important?
The theory of relationships:
-The capacity to form and maintain emotional relationships
-An affectional tie that binds a person to an intimate companion
-Safety and security within context of this relationships
-Loss or threat of loss of special person results in distress
Think….
Take a minute to think of an important attachment "figure from your early childhood.
Maybe it’s your mum, dad, a grandparent, or another caregiver. You’ll have an
opportunity to think about an important attachment relationship in your second reflection
on attachment and relationships.
Attachment has evolved for human survival
-infant attachment has roots in instinctual infant responses, important for survival and
protection: crying, sucking, clinging
-Adaptation designed to protect the baby by keeping it closer to the caregiver
Attachment is vital to human development
-We develop a ‘sense of self’ through our relationships with other people
-Attachment is central to emotional development and self-regulation
-Attachment is the foundation for socialisation
!1
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Lecture 4
Key thinkers/ researchers in attachment theory
-The biological bases of attachment: Evidence from Lorenz’s experiment imprinting in
geese (1930s)
-Spit and maternal deprivation (1940s-1950s)- catastrophic effects of sensory and
social deprivation at certain critical periods in early childhood
-Harlow and the cloth and wire surrogates (1950s-60s)- Harlow studied under
experimental conditions whether feeding or contact was more important to attachment
in rhesus newborn monkeys
John Bowlby
-British psychoanalyst
-Discovered and formulated the theory of attachment
Bowl by and the development of attachment theory (1950s-60s)
-Bowlby argued that the infant’s emotional tie with the primary caregiver evolved
because it promotes survival
-Infants make signals to their caregivers and adapt to the responses they receive (if no
response, signals wane) – interaction of biological and environmental force
-The quality of the caregiver-child attachment has lasting impacts on future
relationships through the Internal Working Model
Core characteristics of attachment:
-Proximity maintenance
-Safe haven
-Secure base
-Seperation distress
!2
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find more resources at oneclass.com
Lecture 4
Forming an attachment:"
- Have a need
-baby cries
-Need given by person
-Trust develops
Internal working models:
-Attachment strategies re#ect ways of processing and dealing with emotion. These
models of self and others come from thousands of interactions, and become
expectations and biases that are carried forward into new relationships
Attachment types and behaviours:
Type
Child behaviours
Caregiver behaviours
Secure
Distressed when caregiver
leaves, happy when caregiver
returns, explores when caregiver
is around and uses caregiver as
a secure base, seeking comfort
Responds sensitively , positively
and promptly to child’s needs,
continually adjusts behaviours
to infant
Insecure avoidant
Does not show distress when
caregiver leaves. Avoids or slow
to greet caregiver upon return
Unavailable, rejecting or
unresponsive to child’s needs.
Intrusive rather than sensitive in
dyadic interaction
Insecure ambivalent
Distress when caregiver leaves ,
does not explore much, seeks
but resists comfort at the return
of caregiver, often showing
anger
Inconsistently available to
child’s needs. Unresponsive to
child’s needs, unresponsive or
uninvolved in dyadic interaction
Insecure disorganised
Disorientated, dazed or repetitive
behaviours in response to
caregiver suggests confusion
and anxiety
Responds to child in frightened
ways (associated with trauma or
abuse and neglect)
!3
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
