Attachment
It is the strong emotional/affectionate bond between the infant and one or more of
the regular caregivers that is completed/formed by the second half of the first year
of life.
If securely attached, experience of joy, pleasure when interaction with caregivers
take place and comfort when they are near or in periods of distress.
Visible signs/ Examples of attachment: Warm greetings when parent approach,
smiling, open arms and efforts to make eye contact with parent or explore them
when they pick them up, effort to stay near the parent or crawling back to them in
an unfamiliar situation, distress when they are separated (separation protesting).
Reciprocal Relationship: Between parents and infants, attachment is reciprocal.
Even before birth parents become attached to their babies. Same attachment in
biological and adoptive families.
Interactional Synchrony
Theories of Attachment
1. Psychoanalytic theory (Freud)
Attachment to their caregivers develops because they are associated with gratification of
their inner drive to obtain pleasure through different forms of oral stimulation. E.g.
Breastfeeding, attachment to breast leads to attachment to the mother.
No supportive evidence but inner drives and mother-infant relationship remains
important.
2. Learning theory
Attachment to their caregiver mainly mother develops because the mother provides them
with a primary reinforcement= food, thus she herself becomes a secondary reinforcement
because of the repeated association with food. This ability to satisfy hunger is the basis of
attachment. In general, NOT automatic but learned by satisfaction when interacting with a
responsive caregiver, initially mother, after other caregivers as well.
More support than psychoanalytic theory but again it received criticism, by the
monkey experiment where the monkey was attached to the cloth mother regardless
the presence of food. Babies with unresponsive mothers attached to responsive
fathers.
3. Cognitive developmental theory
In order to form attachment, the infant should be able to differentiate between the mother
and strangers and also understand the existence of others independently from the
interaction with them. E.g. their parents still exist when they are not close to them. That is
, Course 1.5 Changing man
Problem 3 - Attachment
the development of Piaget’s object permanence. It can start from 3,5 moths but mostly 7/8
months fully developed when entering the 4th Sensorimotor substage.
Cognitive development changes the way of attachment’s expression: Physical proximity
becomes less important, reduced separation distress, if they understand the reason of the
parent going away.
4. Ethological theory (Bowlby) \
Attachment is a result of the biological preparation of infant and parents to respond to each
other’s behaviors in such a way that the parents provide care and protection to the infant.
Main points are the reciprocal value and the mutual attachment of both parents.
A more controversial point is that attachment is a preadapted characteristic,
automatic that helps survival and reproduction.
Active role of social signaling system e.g. smiling crying in forming attachment.
Origins: Evolutionary theory and animal studies, mostly Lorenz’s imprinting contributed to
that theory. Lorenz’s experiment with ducks confirmed imprinting as a situation where an
animal develops preference for the first object/human they are first exposed to in a critical
period after birth.
Development of Attachment
Age Range(months) Main features
Indiscriminate social
responsiveness. Social signals help
Pre-attachment 0-2 contact. They recognize their
mother but they are not attached
to her.
Recognition of familiar people and
different response. Develop a
Attachment in the making 2-7
sense of trust but they do not
protest yet.
Attachment is evident. Separation
anxiety & protest, wariness of
Clear-cut attachment 7- 18/24
strangers, intentional
communication. *
Two-sided relationship. Cognitive
development let them understand
Goal-corrected partnership/
18/24 on parents’ feelings, goals, plans.
Reciprocal relationship Negotiating handling the
separation
*Separation anxiety depends on temperament and situation. In many cultures they thing
that babies experience separation anxiety if they know that the caregiver exists
independently from their interaction. If no Piaget’s object permanence not anxiety
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