Child Attachment Theory and Its Analysis Essay

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Theory

Attachment is defined as a deep and enduring emotional bond usually that links an individual to another across space and time. Attachment is at times not reciprocal, in other words it may not be shared between the two. Attachment is characterized especially in children by specific behaviour, whereby a child seeks proximity with the individual to whom they are attached when they are threatened or upset (McLeod, 2009). Attachment-linked behaviour in parents towards their children encompasses responding appropriately and sensitively to the needs of their children. Such behaviour is seemingly universal across different cultures. Attachment theory offers an explanation of the manner in which the relationship between the parent and the child emerges and how it impacts subsequent development (McLeod, 2009; Bretherton, 1992).

Attachment theory is the field of psychology emerged from the influential work of John Bowlby in 1958. In the 1930's, Dr. Bowlby worked as a psychiatrist at the London Child Guidance Clinic, where he had worked to treat quite a number of children who were emotionally disturbed. This experience led Bowlby to want to further investigate the importance of the mother-child relationship especially in terms of the child's cognitive, emotional and social development. Specifically, his experience at the clinic shaped his belief about the relationship between early child separations with the mother and eventual maladjustment, and led him to come up with his attachment theory (McLeod, 2009).

Development of attachment theory

In 1964, Peggy Emerson and Rudolph Schaffer carried out a longitudinal study is which they studied sixty babies at monthly intervals for the initial eighteen months of their lives. The studies were conducted at the children's homes and the relationship/interactions between the babies and their carers were observed. The carers were also interviewed. The two found a pattern in the development of attachment. The evidence of the development of an attachment or a bond was that the babies showed some sort of separation anxiety each time a carer left (Prior & Glaser, 2006; McLeod, 2009).

Emerson and Schaffer discovered that the development of an attachment followed a particular sequence:

• Up to three months of age-non-discriminate attachments. The baby is predisposed to attach to any person they interact with. Most babies will respond in the same way to any caregiver.

• After four months-preference for particular individuals. Babies learn to differentiate between their primary and secondary caregivers; however they still accept care from anyone.

• After seven months-there is special preference for a specific attachment figure. The infant looks to specific individuals for protection, security and comfort. Babies display a fear of strangers and unhappiness when separated from the specific attachment figure (also known as separation anxiety). At this age some babies show more separation anxiety than others, however both cases are interpreted as proof that the baby has already formed an attachment. Intense attachment often develops at 12 months of age (Prior & Glaser, 2006; Bretherton, 1992).

• After nine months -- Multiple attachments. The baby becomes increasingly independent and forms many different attachments.

The study also revealed that there was a much higher likelihood of attachments being formed between the baby and those who responded appropriately to the infant's signals, and not the individual they spent most time with. Emerson and Schaffer called this sensitive responsiveness (McLeod, 2009).

Many of the babies in the study had formed multiple attachments by the time they were ten months of age, including attachments to their parents, grandparents, siblings and neighbours. The mother, however, remained the main attachment figure for about 50% of the children at eighteen months old and the father for the majority of the rest. The child will most likely form an attachment with the person who communicates and plays with them and not the one that changes or feeds them (Prior & Glaser, 2006).

Formation of attachment

There are two main theories associated to the formation of attachments;

Behaviorist / Learning theory of attachment argues that attachment is a set of specific learned behaviours. According to this theory the basis of learning of attachments is through the provision of food. A baby will at first form an attachment to the person who feeds them. Infants learn to associate the feeder (often the mother) with the act or comfort of being fed and thus learn attachment though classical conditioning. Infants also learn that certain behaviours (e.g. smiling or crying) bring about desirable responses from others (e.g. comfort or attention) and thus learn to repeat those behaviours through operant conditioning so as to get what they want (O'Gorman, 2012; Vandevivere, Braet, Bosmans, Mueller & De Raedt, 2014).

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Evolutionary theory of attachment argues that babies come into the world when they are already pre-programmed biologically to form attachments with others, since these attachments will help them survive. The baby produces in-born behaviours such as smiling or crying that stimulate caregiving responses from adults around them. These behaviours are known as 'social releasers'. The determinant of attachment in this case is not the provision of food but rather care and responsiveness. According to Bowlby the child at first forms one primary attachment known as monotropy and that this particular attachment figure acted as a base through which the children explored the world. The attachment relationship acts as a model for all other future social relationships and hence interfering with or trying to alter it can lead to difficulties for the child. This theory also argues that there exists a critical period for developing an attachment and that is between the age of 0-5 years. If an attachment is not formed by the end of this period, the child will suffer irreversible developmental consequences including increased aggression and reduced intelligence (Vandevivere et al., 2014; McLeod, 2009).

The internal working model and information processing

The main assumption of the attachment theory is that repeated experiences with various attachment figures are stored in the form of Internal Working Models (IWM) or mental representations. This internalizing process begins early in life and provides the baby with a script or a prototype of how people behave, feel and think in close relationships. Observations during the Strange Situation procedure revealed that there were 3 different attachment categories inferred in infants, 1) secure attachment, 2) insecure-avoidant attachment, 3) insecure-ambivalent attachment (Colmer, Rutherford & Pam, 2011). Later on in the procedure self-reports and interviews were developed to show forms of attachment in older age sets, leading to categories that were comparable to those of infants. Dimensional models were also utilized to categorize forms of attachments. An example of the dimensional models is the one that was formed by Shaver, Brennan and Clark which assumes that individuals vary on the avoidance and anxiety dimension. Attachment anxiety is the extent to which an individual worries that the figure they are attached to will not be adequately available in their times of need. Attachment avoidance shows the degree to which an individual distrusts the availability of their attachment figure and the degree to which they strive to maintain an emotional distance from that figure. These personal differences in the form of attachment show both the internalized expectations from the caregiver and the manner in which information is processed (Colmer et al., 2011; Vandevivere et al., 2014).

Attachment theorists have come up with models on the manner in which attachment expectations might already impact the earlier phases of information processing -- the attentional processing of information related to attachment. The hypothesis of defensive exclusion supposes that individuals who are insecurely attached will exclude all information associated with their attachment figure, since this information is linked to psychological pain. Even positive information related to attachment is seen as painful, as it would remind the individual that he or she had little or no positive encounters with their caregiver. This type of selective processing is known as bias, and its function is to help the individual off re-experiencing the past distress. Conversely, persons who are securely attached are thought to openly process all manner of attachment related information, including those that are negative (Bretherton, 1992).

This kind of negative information is much less distressing for securely attached individuals compared to the insecurely attached ones. When receiving this information, securely attached persons still trust in the future availability of the attachment figure. Furthermore, if such information returns to them, securely attached individuals, via their prior interactions with their attachment figures, have developed adaptive regulation behaviours or skills to cope independently with the distress. Even though this seems like a well researched theory, the notion that insecurely attached babies suppress and allow some types of attachment related information has not been properly studied (Colmer et al., 2011; Vandevivere et al., 2014).

Role of mother in attachment

The mother is the first other human that the baby encounters since her body is the primary landscape that the baby experiences and thus the infant develops a secure attachment. The infant also develops through the mother a capacity to process emotional states. The baby is also able to process the mother's psychological state (Allen,….....

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