Afds

Post-Infancy Attachment

• Phase 4 (Early Childhood)

• Starts at about age 2
• Their attachment behaviors become less observable (we’re less needy)
• They aren’t sending out as many signals because they aren’t as needy
• It doesn’t mean that they are less attached, it means that they have found other ways of coping

• Because they are able to form mental representations of their attachment figure, they are able to self-soothe more often and are less frightened by separation
• They can also use social referencing in scary situations

• If Mom looks okay, then the situation is probably not scary
• If Mom looks scared, then maybe this is a scary situation

• They can also engage in collaborative planning

• They and the parent make contracts/deals together
• Parents will tell their child, “I’ll be back in x time” and the child will understand that their parent is coming back
• They can use the child’s ability to use mental representation to make new/scary situations less frightening by making deals/agreements

• Middle Childhood (starts at ages 4-5)

• Attachment behaviors are even less observable
• But they still seek physical proximity when under stress
• Attachment never stops, it continues throughout the lifespan

• They are your template for how relationships with people go and your sense of value

Attachment Style

• Attachment style refers to individual differences in the quality of attachment

• Given that you have attached to a figure, what does that tell you about yourself and your relationships?

• Internal working models of relationships

• Form by about age 5 and stay with you throughout life

• Developing until age 5, so if they start out bad and get better you will be okay
• But if they stay bad, then that bad model will stick with you

• An internal working model is a cognitive construction of how relationships work
• It reflects a child’s confidence or lack thereof that an attachment figure will be reliable, available, and is a safe base

• In some cases, these things aren’t true

• Our working models of relationships are based on experience with parents
• If you have a model that’s bad, that tells you that you are not worth of love and affection
• Internal working models show us what to expect from relationships with others and give us rules for interacting with others
• The model tells us if something goes badly with someone else how we should interpret it and move forward
• Quotation talks about how attachment styles will affect how children will act in social situations

• If one child gets rejected to play by another, one might sulk, while the other might happily move onto another child and ask to play
• The same rejection will be interpreted very different by different children

• Children with a secure attachment to their parents will handle rejection well, they will uphold a positive sense of self and value
• Children with an insecure attachment will not handle rejection well, and will feel that the experience validates their feelings of worthlessness and not worth love
• Internal working models shape and explain experiences

• Information processing biases

• Rejection example

• Interpretation of encounters of others

• Rejection example

The Strange Situation

• In Harlow’s experiment, we saw how the monkey reacted to the “strange” environment/situation
• This idea was taken up by Mary Ainsworth and modified to experiment with toddlers

• Eight short episodes during which the baby is separated from and reunited with Mom
• Sometimes the baby will be put with a stranger, sometimes not
• We look at how baby reacts to these situations
• We look most closely at how baby reacts when mom comes back
• Then we rate infant’s behaviors on several scales from 1 (no effort) to (very active) effort

• Proximity and contact seeking

• Finding contact with mom

• Contact maintaining

• Keeping contact with mom

• Resistance

• Pushing away from and squirming from adult who offers contact, or rejecting toys that an adult uses to try and interact with the child

• Avoidance

• Baby’s actively avoid proximity and interaction with mom
• Common response is to seek proximity and interaction usually
• A “whatever” attitude to seeing Mom come back

• Search

• Behavior through which the baby tries to regain proximity with mom (other than crying)

• e.g. crawling to mom

• Ainsworth’s method has become a standardized way of investigating attachments between children and their parents
• Looking for the type of balance the child strikes between interacting with the parent and exploring the new environment
• Once the child is playing, a stranger enters and starts reading a magazine
• Then the stranger tries to interact with the child
• Then mom leaves the room and the baby tries to follow her. When the baby can’t follow her, the baby cries
• The stranger tries to comfort the baby, but the baby is having none of it
• Mom comes back and settles the baby down
• Then, Mom and the stranger leave together and the baby is quite distressed
• The stranger returns and tries to comfort the baby but the baby has a basically “screw you” attitude
• When Mom comes back, the baby calms down right away
• The video shows a secure attachment between the baby and mom
• The internal working model of secure attachment says that:

• The attachment figure is available and loving
• Complementary model of worthy of that love from attachment figure

• Second child:

• Doesn’t try to regain proximity with Mom, just keeps playing with ball even though she’s distressed
• Insecure avoidant attachment:

• A mother who has communicated to the child that if they are distressed they should try to “have a stiff upper lip” and try to be independent and deal with it on your own

• Some psychologists have reservations about this method:

• It’s a strange situation so is it a good way of inferring a relationship between the child and mother?
• For a child used to going to daycare for example, this situation may represent something completely different to them than to a child who is with mom all the time
• But, most situations are strange to children since most experiences are new

• Seems like the experiment is a pretty good indicator of what the relationship is like between parents and children

• Children with secure attachments are able to resolve difficult tasks without help from teacher, work better with peers, have better problem solving skills, etc. when they get a little older  

• Secure attachment (about 60-65% of children)

• Mom is a safe base
• Prefer mom to a stranger
• Cope well with separation
• Happy reunion with Mom
• Kids who are securely attached have a great relationship with Mom, and it predicts having good relationships with other people in the future

• Insecure attachments (35-40% of children)

• Three types

• 1. Avoidant/detached

• Little preference for mom over a stranger
• At reunions, the kid will avoid Mom
• If Mom tries to seek contact, the kid is very passive – they don’t resist but they aren’t seeking much contact
• The child isn’t getting much comfort from proximity with Mom
• Says something about their relationship with Mom:

• Mom didn’t want to be with the child when they are upset
• Mom isn’t helpful in distressing times
• Sometimes this could be a bad parent, but also perhaps someone dealing with depression or other stressors

• 2. Ambivalent/resistant

• they are more upset by the stranger than a child with a secure attachment
• They get very upset when Mom leaves, but can’t be comforted by Mom
• Mom can’t comfort the child when they are upset, no matter what Mom does

• Cuddling, cooing, giving toys, etc. doesn’t work

• In this case, the childhood involved times when Mom was a secure base and times when mom was rejecting

• The ambivalent child doesn’t know when Mom will be a secure attachment or when they will be rejected
• It makes them very anxious and they don’t know what to expect
• They can be very histrionic when they are upset and they get confused about whether they are angry at Mom, whether they want comfort from Mom, etc.

• Usually this is also a Mom who has been depressed

• Sometimes you are able to be a good parent, sometimes you aren’t when you are depressed

• 3. Disorganized/disoriented

• Usually children of abusive parents or are children of parents who were abused and don’t seem confident of their relationship with their child (they seem almost afraid of their child)
• The children seem dazed, confused, and afraid in the strange situation
• They behave strangely with Mom, they will seek proximity with Mom but won’t look at the in the strange situation
• They want contact but also don’t
• This style is a bit more rare, because it is a somewhat newer classification
• There are very negative outcomes for children that are abused

• You can still live a normal life, but it isn’t great for success for most children

Predictors of Attachment Style

• Emotional availability of the parent

• Absolutely critical
• Is the parent willing and able to be emotionally available for the child when they are distressed?

• Willing to soothe them when they are upset, but also have happy moments with them as well

• Might be more likely in impoverished families or families with depressed parents

• Might be stressed for time or don’t have the emotional energy

• Synchrony

• Are there parents responding properly to the child’s signals?
• They need the opportunity to engage in useful interactions with their parents where they feel that parents understand their needs
• Van den Boom (1994) on training sensitivity

• Trained parents to learn child’s signals
• Got 100 low SES moms
• These moms had been rated as low in the hospital for responsiveness
• The babies were rated high in irritability, which makes things even harder for mom
• Difficult to be emotionally available and sensitive with babies that are very irritable or have a difficult temperament
• Randomly assigned the Moms to some training on how to be responsive to signals

• What to do when the child does certain things

• Some did not get the training initially, but all were trained eventually

• Hopefully this did not have negative effects on the children

• The trained Moms improved in their relationships, they had more secure relationships with their child when observed at home 12 months later
• The moms that were trained had more secure attachments at 12 months, and the more secure attachment lasted when they were observed again at 18 months
• The babies had difficult temperaments, and most people will have more trouble with this type of child

• We can teach parents what the difficult temperaments means
• It’s hard to respond a child that is always angry with you
• Once parents understand that the child is not angry at them, they can develop better responsiveness and create secure attachments with their babies