Attachment Behaviors:

• Attachment: An enduring emotional tie that unites one person to another, over time and across space

• Attachment Behaviors:

– Behaviors that function to bring the infant/child physically closer to the caregiver

• Exs: crying, following, clinging

• Why is parent-child attachment important?

– First relationship that infants experience

• May serve as a model for other relationships

• May affect the development of self-concept

Individual Differences in Attachment Security

Infancy: Strange Situation

Mother and infant in laboratory playroom Stranger enters, talks to mothers, engages infant Mother leaves (stranger stays) Mother returns (stranger leaves) Mother leaves (baby alone) Stranger returns Mother returns

• Secure (B)

– About 60-65% of American middle-class samples

– May or may not be distressed by separation

– Respond positively to parent’s return• If distressed by separation, easily

comforted by parent and able to return to play (parent = secure base)

• Insecure-Avoidant (A)

– 15-20% of American middle-class samples

– Usually not distressed by separation from parent

– Avoid the parent during reunion (to different degrees)

• Insecure-Resistant or Ambivalent (C)

– 10-15% of American middle-class samples

– Usually distressed by separation

– Show a combination of angry, resistant behavior and proximity-seeking behavior during reunion with parent

– Have difficulty being comforted by parent and returning to play

• Insecure-Disorganized (D)

– 10-15% of American middle-class samples

– More common in infants who have been maltreated

– Infants’ behavior does not reflect an organized strategy for dealing with the stress of separation

• Contradictory behaviors

• Expressions of fear or disorientation when caregiver returns

Influences on Infant Attachment Security

• According to attachment theory, the major influence is parental behavior (especially sensitivity)

– Sensitivity: Consistent, prompt, and appropriate responses to infant signals

• Infants develop expectations about how caregivers are likely to respond to their signals

• Expectations form the basis of an internal working model

– IWM: Expectations about the nature of relationships and beliefs about the self

• Expectations result from the quality of mother-infant interaction:

– Sensitive Care: Infants expect caregiver to be available and responsive

– Insensitive Care: Infants expect caregiver to be unresponsive/inconsistent or rejecting

• Infants’ behavior in the Strange Situation reflects their expectations (early IWM)

– Secure infants expect caregiver to be responsive

– Insecure infants expect caregiver to be unresponsive/inconsistent or rejecting

• Evidence for Parental Behavior as the Major Influence on Infant Attachment Security:

– Most studies use correlational designs

– Parental sensitivity is associated with infant attachment security, but the average association is not strong

• Ex: A meta-analysis by DeWolff & van IJzendoorn (1997) found an overall effect size of r(1,097) =.24

van den Boom (1994)

• Designed a parenting intervention for low SES families with irritable infants

• Experimental design

• N = 100 mother-infants dyads– Observed at 6, 9, and 12 months

• Irritability assessed neonatally (10 and 15 days post-birth) using a structured observation (NBAS)

• Dyads were randomly assigned to the intervention and control groups – Three post-treatment assessments (two

immediate and one delayed)– Half the participants in each group received a

pre-treatment assessment

• Pretreatment and Immediate Posttreatment Assessments (6 Months, 9 months)

– Structured observation (free play) used to code infant exploratory behaviors

– Naturalistic observation used to code mother and infant interactive behaviors

– Questionnaire assessing stressful life events

• Delayed Posttreatment Assessment (12 months)

– Strange Situation

• Intervention began 3 weeks after the pretreatment assessments – 3 sessions between 6 and 9 months– Focused on improving maternal

sensitivity/responsiveness to infant signals

Results:

• Mothers in the intervention group became more responsive, stimulating, visually attentive, and controlling between 6 and 9 months relative to mothers in the control group

• Infants in the intervention group became more sociable, more self-soothing, and engaged in greater (and more complex) exploration between 6 and 9 months relative to infants in the control group

• Infants in the intervention group were more likely to be securely attached at 12 months relative to infants in the control group (62% versus 28%)

Temperament and Attachment Security

– Some studies find that insecure infants are higher in distress during the first year of life

• Difficult to know if this reflects temperament or parental behavior

– In general, temperament is not strongly related to attachment security

Attachment and Later Development

• A secure attachment in infancy is related to:

– More positive interactions with parents in the second year of life

– More positive relationships with others (e.g., day care teachers, peers) when children are toddlers and preschoolers

• Infant attachment security is not strongly related to the quality of older children’s relationships (in most studies)

• Why does infant attachment security predict later behavior (at least short-term)?

Attachment Theory Perspective:

• Attachment security reflects infants’ internal working models

• IWM generalizes to new relationships

– Children with secure attachments:

• Expect others to respond positively to them

– Children with insecure attachments:

• Expect others to respond negatively to them (e.g., by ignoring or rejecting them)

• IWMs tend to be self-perpetuating

– Children behave in ways that elicit certain responses from others

– Others’ responses confirm children’s internal working models

Continuity of Care Perspective:

• When attachment security is related to later adjustment, it is because parental behavior has remained stable over time

• NOT because of an IWM that generalizes to new relationships and is self-perpetuating

• Both attachment theory and the continuity-of-care perspective hold that early experience and current experiences can both influence children’s adjustment

• However, attachment theorists (e.g., Sroufe) have argued that early experience may hold special significance because later experiences are “filtered” through early experience (the initial IWM)

• Researchers emphasizing continuity-of-care (e.g., M. Lamb) tend to weight current experiences more heavily than early experiences

Issues/Challenges/Ideas (Thompson, 2000)

• Stability of attachment security varies widely and so do relations between attachment security and later adjustment

• Why?

– Attachment theorists: Changes in parental sensitivity (e.g., due to family stressors, changes, etc.) affect attachment security and later adjustment

– But limited and inconsistent evidence linking attachment instability to changes in family circumstances or parental behavior

– Some data indicate that when parental sensitivity changes, early attachment security does not predict children’s later adjustment

• The development of internal working models is not well-understood

– To the extent that IWMS change, early attachment security may not predict later adjustment

– As children’s cognitive capacities expand, IWMS likely become more complex as well

• In addition to parental sensitivity, parent-child conversations about the child’s experiences may influence IWM development

• The attachment relationship is only one component of the parent-child relationship

– Parental sensitivity may be particularly relevant to attachment security, but other aspects of parental behavior may be equally important for children’s adjustment

• e.g., parental control in the face of children’s emerging autonomy