PSY 3102 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Speed Dating, John Bowlby, Confounding

• School: University of Ottawa
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSY 3102
• Professor: Yaroslav Konar

Document Summary

Bowlby was the seminal researcher who studied childs attachments to caregivers. Evolutionarily, an infant has the best chance of surviving by being close to its mother. The child can summon the mother by voicing its distress. Although all children develop an attachment to the caregiver, there are individual differences in the level of attachment. Mother and child (12-18 months old ) and a stranger interacting. Mother leaves child with stranger, then comes back to comfort infant. Mother leaves infant alone; stranger tried to comfort infant. It is a complex interaction of 3 factors: the mother/caregiver, child"s innate characteristics, the cultural context. This problem also introduces a dilemma; unclear which of these factors is the primary causative factors of a child"s attachment style, and later the adult"s attachment style. Found that shared and nonshared environmental aspects were the primary factor behind the twins" attachment styles, not genetics.