Attachment Theory and Child Psychology Research Paper

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Attachment theory is central to child development, and has been shown to be “biologically-based,” (Gross, Stern, Brett, et al, 2015, p. 2). Children can develop secure, insecure, or disorganized styles of attachment, based largely on parental responses to their emotional needs in times of stress or a perceived threat. Attachment theory shows that attachment is relational, in that attachment style is based on individual responses to stress but also on parental responses to the child’s need for comfort when feeling threatened. Since attachment theory was first proposed in the late 1960s, it has evolved to include a wide range of research on different causes, effects, and interventions. Recent research on attachment theory has focused on how different attachment styles impact prosocial behaviors such as helping, sharing, or caring. In “The Multifaceted Nature of Prosocial Behavior in Children,” Gross, Stern, Brett, et al (2015) show how secure attachment styles are linked to prosocial behavior, but that there are important moderating factors including gender, context, and general temperament. In “Cognitive Behavior Therapy for Children and Adolescents,” Bosmans (2016) shows how attachment theory can be integrated with cognitive-behavioral therapy to provide a more robust and evidence-based treatment intervention for various presenting psychosocial problems.

Article 1: Gross, J.T., Stern, J.A., Brett, B.E., et al (2015). The multifaceted nature of prosocial behavior in children. Social Development 2017: 1-18.

Gross, Stern, Brett, et al (2015) apply attachment theory to the development of prosocial behavior. Prosocial behavior is basically similar to altruistic behavior, which benefits all social relationships. Therefore, understanding how to stimulate prosocial behavior can be an important area of research. Prosocial behaviors include voluntary acts of kindness such as actively helping, or exhibiting empathy. While it seems intuitive that parenting styles and parent-child relationships would have a strong bearing on the emergence of prosocial behaviors, it is important to substantiate intuitive claims with grounded theory and empirical evidence. In the Gross-Stern, Brett, et al (2015) study, the researchers focus on theory development. This is not an experimental or even an empirical study. First, the authors outline the literature on attachment theory in general, and then show how attachment theory shows how children develop cognitive schemas about social situations. In this sense, attachment theory may be closely connected with social learning.

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According to Gross, Stern, Brett, et al (2015), research has shown that when children learn that their distress is met with conscientious caregiving, they generally respond better to stressful social situations, and behave in prosocial ways even when experiencing fear or rejection. In other words, secure attachment styles lead to prosocial cognition, affect, and behaviors. The converse is also true, whereby insecure attachment is linked with insecurity in social situations. Children who learn that caregivers do not provide support during times of stress will “expect peers to dislike or reject them,” or make “hostile attributions about peers’ behavior,” (Gross, Stern, Brett, et al, 2015, p. 2). Research also shows that secure attachment style is correlated with better emotion regulation versus insecure attachment style. Emotion regulation enhances prosocial behavior, as the individual is focused on the needs of others rather than internalized insecurity. Securely attached children also exhibit improved abilities to voluntarily control their emotions and behaviors when under stress. Research also shows that when insecure attached children behave in prosocial ways, they do so for different—and less altruistic—motives versus securely attached children. Insecure attachment causes prosocial behavior motivated more by an eagerness to please or a desire to avoid confrontation (Gross, Stern, Brett, et al, 2015).

Basically presented as an analytical review of literature with potential for theory enhancement, the Gross, Stern, Brett, et al (2015) article does offer indirect empirical support for the claims. For example, the third section of the article is a systematic review of literature on various sub-themes, arranged according to stages of development. During early childhood, between infancy and preschool, the research is inconclusive regarding the link between attachment style and prosocial behavior. Early and middle childhood provide slightly more reliable, but still “varied” results (Gross, Stern, Brett, et al, 2015, p. 5). Even the research on adolescent prosocial behavior does not offer conclusive evidence that attachment style is necessarily inked with prosocial behavior. However, the connection between attachment and prosocial behavior is stronger in the adolescent age cohort even when ethnicity is controlled for. Thus, contrary to expectations, the authors found that attachment style is weakly but still….....

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