Transcript Social and Emotional Development: Two

Developmental Psychology
Week 2: From conception to infancy
Part 2: Attachment
Module leader:
Dr. Antonia Svensson-Dianellou
E-mail: [email protected]
Slides by Dr Liz Kirk (UH)
• Which statement do you agree with?
–Early social experience predestines a
child’s future.
–The effects of early life experience
represent no more than an initial step
in an ongoing life path.
2
attachment
• How important is the child’s first
relationship?
• How do we measure the security of
attachment between mothers and infants, and
can we measure this in the same way for all
children?
• Can security of attachment influence the
child’s future relationships with other people,
even with their own children?
• If so, can this cycle be broken?
3
attachment
– Definition
– Perspectives
– Measurement
– Long-term benefits
– Differences
– Privation
– Evaluation
4
attachment
• Lasting emotional tie between people such that
the individual strives to maintain closeness to the
object of attachment and acts to ensure the
relationship continues.
• Individual experiences pleasure and security in
presence of other but anxiety and distress when
they are gone.
• Emphasis not only on the physical presence but
the “psychological availability” (Sroufe & Waters,
1977)
5
Perspectives on attachment
•
•
•
•
•
Psychodynamic
Psychobiological
Learning Theory
Ethological
Bowlby
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Psychodynamic Theory
• Freud: ‘love has its origin in attachment to
the satisfied need for nourishment’
• Humans motivated by biological drives –
states of arousal that urge us to obtain basic
prerequisites for survival. Attachment caused
by reduction of hunger drive.
• Relationship to mother central to formation of
child’s personality and is a prototype for all
future relationships.
7
Psychobiological Theory
• Psychological and biological processes merge within the mother-infant
interaction. Both infants’ behaviour and physiology are regulated by the
caregiver (Hofer, 1978).
• Certain components of the mother-infant interaction regulate the infants’
behaviour and physiological systems. Loss of these regulators in maternal
separation can produce behavioural and physiological changes in infants
leading to patterns of change known as protest and despair.
Evidence
• Hertsgaard et al (1995) longitudinal study 2m – 18 years children exposed
to severe caretaking problems during infancy frequently exhibited:
– unusually low base cortisol levels with high spikes - associated with
later antisocial behaviour
– or chronically high cortisol levels that were associated with later
anxiety
8
Learning Theory
• Classical Conditioning
– Food (unconditioned stimulus) produces sense of pleasure
(unconditioned response). Food becomes associated with
the person doing the feeding, who then becomes a
conditioned stimulus also producing a sense of pleasure.
• Operant Conditioning
– Hungry infant feels uncomfortable, creates drive to lessen
discomfort. Drive reduction (feeding) is rewarding and
infant learns food is a reward or primary enforcer. The
person who supplies the food is associated with the food
and becomes a secondary (or conditioned) re-enforcer and
a reward.
• Social Learning Theory
– Attachment occurs because children learn to imitate the
affectionate behaviour shown by their parents and parents
teach children how to be affectionate.
9
Ethological Theory
• Ethology = study of animal
behaviour focusing on
importance of innate capacities.
• Imprinting: Konrad Lorenz (19031989) tendency of newborn to
follow first moving objects they
see.
• Behaviour involves the formation
of an attachment between infant
and mother.
• Adaptive behaviour as promotes
survival as leads to proximity
between infant and mother
10
Harlow
• Series experiments 1950s and 1960s
• Separated baby monkeys from real mothers
• Offered them two surrogate “mothers”
– Wire mother providing food
– Soft cloth mother, no nutrition
11
Baby monkeys fed from the
wire mother but cuddled
up to the soft cloth
mothers and ran to her
when scared
Attachment was not due to
satisfaction of ‘primary’
needs (feeding)
Contact Comfort satisfied a
primary need
12
Bowlby
• Bowlby’s (1950s) theories, humans have an
innate ability to bond with another early on in life.
• Attachment as an innate primary drive (rather
than a secondary drive as a by-product of
association of mother with providing for
physiological needs)
• Evolutionary perspective: attachment behaviours
evolved to keep young infants safe from harm.
• Attachment provides a secure base from which
the infant explores its environment.
• Bowlby (1969) identified following key phases in
development of attachment:
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Phase 1: Pre-attachment
Indiscriminate social responsiveness (Birth – 2
months)
• Infants behave in characteristic and friendly
ways towards other people, limited
discrimination between people.
• Equally friendly to inanimate objects.
14
Phase 2: Attachment-in-the-making
Recognition of familiar people
(2 – 6/7 months)
• Continue to be generally social but beginning
to be marked difference of behaviour towards
one primary care giver.
• Relatively easily comforted by anyone, do not
yet show anxiety with strangers.
15
Phase 3: Specific Attachments
Separation protest and stranger anxiety
(7 months – 2 years)
• Infants show attachment to one person by
protesting when that person puts them down
and showing joy at reunion.
• Stranger anxiety
• Mobile – infant will follow caregiver and use
this person as base for safe exploration
16
Phase 4: Multiple attachments
(8 months)
• Very soon after main attachment forms, infant
develops wider circle of attachments
depending on how many consistent
relationships he or she has.
17
Phase 5: Formation of a goalcorrected partnership
(age 2 +)
• Once attachment relationships appear they
undergo further change, which takes place largely
in tandem with cognitive developments;
–
–
–
–
behave intentionally
plan actions in light of goals
take account of feelings and goals of other person.
Infant can consciously influence what the caregiver
does
18
Internal working models
• As children become capable of representing the world
to themselves in symbolic form, they form models of
themselves, of significant others and of the
relationship they have with others.
• Enable the child to anticipate the other person’s
behaviour and guide behaviour.
• Built upon basis of experience with particular
attachment figures and reflect the quality of the
relationship with that figure.
• IWM is ‘Cognitive prototype’ that is imposed onto new
interactions, affecting the child’s expectations of, and
responses to others.
19
Measuring the security of
attachments
• Mary Ainsworth
• Studied attachment in Uganda and North
America. Observed variation in attachment
behaviour.
• All infants attached to their parents but differ
in the sense of security they feel in relation to
the adult
• Investigated individual differences in
attachment, developed effective assessment
20
Strange Situation
• Ainsworth and Wittig (1969)
– Measured the organisation of attachment
behaviours
– Used a standardised laboratory situation
– Identified individual differences
– Potential for forecasting future development
21
Strange Situation
• Takes place in lab with a set arrangement of toys and
furniture. Infants are mobile, 12-18m.
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–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Mother and child are introduced into the room
They are left alone, child can play (up to 3 minutes)
A stranger enters and stays (3 minutes)
Mother leaves, stranger interacts with child (up to 3 minutes)
Mother returns to greet and comfort child, stranger leaves (3 minutes)
Child left alone then the stranger returns.
The stranger tries to engage the child (up to 3 minutes)
The mother returns and stranger leaves (3 minutes)
22
Strange Situation
• Detailed coding scheme:
– proximity/frequency to mother and stranger,
– approach/avoidance behaviours
– assessment of separation/reunion.
23
Classification
• Based on ‘Strange Situation’ behaviours child
is classified according to security of
attachment:
– A = Insecure/avoidant
– B = Secure
– C = Insecure/anxious ambivalent
– Later Main & Solomon (1989) added
• D = Disorganised
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A: Insecure (or anxious)
Avoidant
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



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Do not seek proximity to mother
Avoid contact during reunion
Do not react differently to stranger
May even prefer stranger to mother
Possible parenting characteristics (emphasis on maternal
sensitivity): child used to being independent/on their own,
not always responded to and therefore unlikely to seek help,
implications for postnatal depression (see later slide)
Cortisol studies (Spangler & Grossman, 1993)
25
B: Secure


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
At ease with stranger and mother
Prefer mother to stranger
May cry in mother’s absence and seek proximity to her
on return.
Settle down happily after reunion.
Possible parenting characteristics (in terms of maternal
sensitivity): a synchronised attentive relationship,
security to explore/be with stranger but impulse to gain
comfort from mum when upset.
26
C: Insecure (or anxious)
Ambivalent
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


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Positive and negative reactions to mother
Seek excessive contact when present
Very upset during separation
Contact avoided on reunion: rejection and possibly anger.
Possible parenting characteristics (as related to maternal
sensitivity): inconsistency in attention given, creates feelings
of anger and resentment, want attention but reject it at the
same time.
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D. Disorganised
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Inconsistent behaviour
Confusion
Indecision
Tend to freeze/show stereotyped behaviour/rocking etc.
Possible parenting characteristics (as related to maternal
sensitivity): sometimes result of the abuse, the person you
would naturally seek comfort from may frighten you or have
displayed frightened behaviour/not provided protection.
28
Long-term benefits
• Securely attached infants
– More sociable with peers (e.g. Arend et al.1979)
– Better problem solvers, more persistent and
enthusiastic, more socially competent, fewer
behavioural problems (e.g. Bates et al, 1985).
– Better understanding of how people’s beliefs and
preferences affect their emotional reactions (Meins et
al 1998)
– More likely to remember positive emotional events
that they witnessed in puppet show (insecure
remembered negative events) Belsky et al 1996
29
What causes differences in attachment?
a.
b.
c.
d.
Parental behaviour
Child characteristics
Family influences
Cultural differences
30
a. Parental Behaviour
• Maternal sensitivity
– Mary Ainsworth
Post-natal depression
– Teti et al. (1995) 80 % of infants of depressed
mothers were classified as insecure (with 40
percent insecure-disorganized), compared to only
30 percent (10 percent insecure-disorganized) in
the non-depressed group.
31
The ‘sensitivity’ hypothesis:
Emphasis on caregiver
• Insecure attachments related to sensitivity of mother
(Belsky et al., 1984).
• Sensitivity is the ability to perceive and interpret children’s
attachment signals and to respond to them quickly and
appropriately (Ainsworth 1978)
– Ainsworth suggested a causal link between parental
sensitivity and attachment security.
– Shaped by parents’ own childhood attachment
experiences
– Adult Attachment Interview (George et al., 1985) led to
many confirmatory studies.
32
Adult Attachment Interviews
• Semi-structured interviews, adults asked to describe childhood
relationships with parents and recall times when separated from
them
• Autonomous - coherent, well-balanced account, clear value of
close relationships
• Dismissing - deny importance of attachment experiences, insist
cannot recall childhood events and emotions
• Preoccupied - over involved issues relating to early attachment
experiences
• Unresolved - not been able to resolve feelings relating to death of
loved one or to abuse may have suffered
33
Adult Attachment Interviews
• Intergenerational Transfer The way in which a parent
represents his/her childhood attachment experiences is
related to types relationship formed with his\her own child.
• Autonomous parents (mothers and fathers) more likely to
have infants who are securely attached (e.g. Steele, Steele &
Fonagy, 1996).
• Dismissing = insecure-avoidant
• Pre-occupied = insecure resistant
• Unresolved = insecure-disorganised
Caregivers enable their children to develop good emotional coping strategies
by virtue of their willingness to acknowledge and respond to their infants’
emotional expressions (Cassidy, 1994).
34
Evaluation of Sensitivity
• Meta-analysis of 66 studies found it to be an important
predictor of attachment security (De Wolff & Van Ijzendoorn,
1997).
• Maternal sensitivity not a stable trait. If changes from one age
to another is hardly likely to provide a satisfactory explanation
for attachment security (Isabelle, 1993)
• Several studies support and fail to support sensitivity and
secure attachment link depending on time of assessment
(Belsky et al 1984).
• Sensitivity is statement about interaction, hence meaningless
without reference to both partners. Study of infant
antecedents equally important.
35
Mind-Mindedness
Liz Meins
• Evolved from the original definition of maternal sensitivity
(Ainsworth, 1971)
• Higher levels of mind-mindedness in the child’s first year
of life predict:
– infant-mother attachment security (better than
maternal sensitivity) (Meins,1998;2001)
– infant-father attachment security (Arnott & Meins,
2007; Lundy, 2003)
– children's later understanding of others’ mental states,
i.e. theory of mind. (Meins et al, 2003).
36
b. Child Characteristics
• The ‘temperament’ hypothesis
Temperament refers to the basic disposition of a person
Schaffer (1996) would argue that it is unthinkable that
temperament would have no effect on situations.
Kagan (1984) proposed that the child’s temperament plays a role
in the attachment relationship.
– E.g., temperamental vulnerability to become anxious
– Strange situation IS stressful, more so to some than others.
37
Temperament
• Thomas and Chess categorized infants into 3 temperament
types:
– Easy children are mostly happy, relaxed and agreeable (40
%)
– Difficult children are moody, easily frustrated, overreactive (10 %)
– Slow-to-warm-up children are somewhat shy and
withdrawn, take time to adjust (15 %)
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The ‘temperament’ hypothesis
• EVIDENCE
• Children who at 3m were less sociable and preferred to play
with toys than people more likely to be insecure-avoidant at
12m (Lewis & Feiring, 1989)
• Mothers with ‘fussy’ babies may respond to them less:
Inborn inability to regulate distress and a heightened feeling
of anxiety = Negative cycle
• Link between resistant attachment and neonatal irritability
found by some (Goldsmith & Alansky, 1987) but not others
(van den Boom, 1994).
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Evaluation of Temperament
• Mixed findings and therefore a causal relation is still unclear.
• In relation to the Strange Situation, parental report
measurements and attachment type have either proved nonsignificant (Thompson, 1998) or moderate in terms of a link to
neonatal irritability (Goldsmith & Alansky, 1987).
• It may determine how security/insecurity is expressed but not
the exact type (Belsky & Rovine, 1987)
• Problems with different indices of temperament.
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c. Family influences
• Low socio-economic status (Shaw & Vondra,
1993)
• Marital discord (Belsky & Isabella, 1988)
Why? Difficult family situations:
Lowers parental sensitivity
Adults not reliable sources of comfort and safety
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d. Cultural Differences
80
70
60
50
Secure
40
Resistant
Avoidant
30
20
10
0
Britain/USA
Israel
Japan
West Germany
42
What do these cultural differences tell us?
• Are certain nationalities predisposed to be
more likely to form insecure attachment
relationships?
Or
• Do cultural differences in parenting practices
mean that test is culturally biased?
43
Japanese Mother-Infant Attachment
• SS too stressful for Japanese Infants
– Rarely separated from their mothers (Miyake et al.
1985)
– Mothers sleep with infants and have constant bodily
contact carrying babies in slings
• SS not appropriate/accurate measure as
procedure too far removed from infants’
everyday experiences care giving
• Japanese career women: Infants show typical
American distribution of attachment patterns
44
German mother-infant interaction
• German mothers traditional enforcement of
independence towards end of first year =
heightened number insecure avoidant infants
(Grossman et al 1985)
• German mothers who do not impose care
giving traditions no more likely have insecureavoidant attachment
45
Israeli Mother-Infant Interactions
• High rate of insecure-attachment (Sagi et al
1985)
• Study based on infants raised in Kibbutz:
communally raised.
• Stresses of repeated encounters with a
stranger probably too challenging.
46
What do these cultural differences tell us?
• Are certain nationalities predisposed to be
more likely to form insecure attachment
relationships?
• Do cultural differences in parenting practices
mean that test is culturally biased?
• SS as an appropriate measure of the bond
between mothers and babies everywhere?
47
What causes differences in attachment?
a.
b.
c.
d.
Parental behaviour
Child characteristics
Family influences
Cultural differences
48
Privation
• Bowlby
– Maternal deprivation: separation/loss of mother
also failure to develop attachment
• Rutter: Further distinction
– Privation: never been able to form any
attachments.
– Deprivation: loss or damage to an attachment.
49
Short-term effects of deprivation
• Robertson & Bowlby (1952) The protest-despairdetachment model.
• Observations young children separated from
mothers due to hospitalisation.
• 3 stage response
– Protest (Crying).
– Despair (apathetic, no longer looking for caregiver,
self-comforting).
– Detachment (if situation continues weeks or months,
child unresponsive, may ignore caregiver on return).
50
Long-term effects of deprivation
• Bowlby (1944) Fourty-four juvenile thieves
• 86% delinquent children had, before age of 2,
been in foster homes or hospitals, often not
visited by families. Cause and effect?
• Rutter et al (1976)
• 2,000 boys, aged 9-12. Four times more likely
to become delinquent if separation related to
family discord rather than through illness or
death of their mother.
51
The effects of early privation
• Rutter (1998) looked at 111 Romanian adoptees
–
–
–
–
Adopted in the UK before 2 years old
Follow up was at 4 years old
Compared with a UK sample adopted before 6 months old.
Romanian children adopted before 6m.old had caught up
developmentally by age 4.
– Those placed after 6m.old showed improvements but had not caught up.
• Gross early privation (psychological rather than nutritional)
resulted in cognitive deficits at age 4 if it went on longer
than the first 6 months of the child’s life.
52
Privation
• Clarke & Clarke (1998): examination of the evidence relating to
whether early social experience predestines the child’s future
• Like Rutter, Clarke concludes that the outlook for children
who have had negative experiences need not be totally bleak
and the care they receive subsequently plays a crucial role.
• If children can leave a negative family environment different
socialization experiences may override earlier social learning.
• Importance of person factors: resilience etc.
“The evidence is clear: while there is a range of outcomes, early
social experience by itself does not predestine the future.”
53
Risk factors and interventions
• Prematurity
• Greater risk of insecure attachment for high risk
(<1500 grams, < 30 weeks) premature infants
(Plunkett et al. 1996)
• Plunkett believes that the separation can lead to
anxiety/depression in mothers and combined
with a difficult to soothe child may influence
attachment type.
• Cochrane review (2007). Trend early skin-to-skin
contact improves attachment outcomes in
premature babies.
54
Evaluation of Strange Situation
• Do infants who test as insecure really feel
insecure or is it something about the testing
situation that makes them act insecure in that
situation and not elsewhere?
• Evidence Against:
– Cultural differences
– Infants who spend time in childcare
• No differences in attachment (Clarke-Stewart et al.
1994). If SS valid then infants used to daily separations.
55
Evaluation of Strange Situation
• Evidence for: Stability
– Link between attachment security and cognitive
development (Cassidy, 1986).
– Classifications reliable and stable over time (Waters, 1978;
Main & Cassidy, 1988).
– Stability from 1 to 6 years also shown by Wartner et al.
1994, found 78% of children’s classifications at 1 year still
held at 6 yrs.
• When changes do occur they are often due to changes in the type of care
the children experience/changing life circumstances so could improve or
regress.
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Evaluation cont…
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Should we equate stability with reliability when talking about
development?
Outside events may effect the nature of the relationship.
Only a modest similarity of attachments to mother and father
(Van Ijzendoorn & De Wolff, 1997)
Indeed can have qualitatively different attachments with
different parents (Cox et al. 1992)
57
Summary
• The Strange Situation and to a lesser extent AAI’s have
provided an objective methodology for classifying and
studying infant/caregiver relationships.
• Support has been found for both the sensitivity and
temperament hypotheses although debate still rages.
• However type of attachment as an infant need not determine
a whole life as good subsequent care after early deprivation
can improve prospects considerably (see Clarke, 1998)
58
Questions to consider…
• What evidence is there that attachment
patterns are transmitted from one generation
to another? Does this seem plausible, if so,
can the cycle be broken?
• Which statement do you agree with:
– Early social experience predestines a child’s
future.
– The effects of early life experience represent no
more than an initial step in an ongoing life path.
59
Recommended reading
Core textbooks:
• Chapter 4, Smith et al.
or
• Chapter 6, Slater & Bremner
And at least one article
60
Further reading
• The development of attachment relationships: Infancy and Beyond, in
Exploring Developmental Psychology, 1999
• Chapter 11 in Blackwell Handbook of Infant Development (2004), can be
accessed as an E-book through Voyager
• Clarke, A. (1998), Early Experience and the Life Path, The Psychologist
(September issue), pp. 443 - 436. [On StudyNet]
• Read and Gumley (2008). Can attachment theory help explain the
relationship between childhood adversity and psychosis? New Directions in
Psychotherapy and Relational Psychoanalysis vol. 2, pp1-35.
• Rutter, M. & the English and Romanian Adoptees (ERA) Study Team (1998)
Developmental catch-up and deficit, following adoption after severe global
early privation. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 39, 465-476
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