Psych 2aa3 - Child Development Review

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Psychoanalysis:

- Attachment occurs through the satisfaction of Id impulses (Freud)

- Freud also discusses how babies are fixated on some reflexes- the need to suck (breastfeeding) is satisfying their need

- The baby is getting satisfied in the ID, through breast feeding

Learning Theory:

- Attachment occurs through the satisfaction of hunger

- Attachment occurs b/c of hunger- mom provides food to baby so the baby loves mom

- The baby is hungry, the baby is satisfied, and the breast if primary reinforcement, the mom is attached to breast which shows that mom is the trigger

Debunking Learning Theory

- Harlow (1958)

- Food or comfort?

- Applying Harlow to humans

- Feeding schedules do not predict quality of infant attachment. Responsiveness and amount of stimulation provided predicted attachment

- (Schaffer & Emerson, 1964)

- Behavioral approach

- If the emotional bond b/w baby monkey and mom monkey is driven by food

- If a baby monkey is raised by 2 moms, and one provides food, and the other doesn’t provide food but she’s warm and cuddly

- He found that the baby monkey Is more attached to the mom who is more warm and cuddly- as opposed to being more attached to the mom who is giving you food

- How children should be provided with a comfortable and warm environment- in the old days parents were told not to raise their children as wimps- esp. boys b/c they wanted to raise them as men

- This expt. Shows early on how love and warmth is needed during that critical period in a child’s life- and the ability to later form relationships in adult life

- Since these exot. People have accepted that love and warmth is how you should raise children

- Learning theorists- say that babies are attached to mom b/c she feeds baby- this expt. Shows that there is no scientific proof that proves that is true

Cognitive Dev Approach

- Importance of being able to recognize difference between mom and others

- Importance of object permanence in attachment formation

- Importance of ability to form mental representations of mom in how attachment is expressed

- Recognize mom’s voice from day one and mom’s face

- Object permanence- that mom continues to exist even after she leaves the room, the baby knows she continues to exist so the baby can think of her when she isn’t there

- 9 mos. Old infants who scored high on object permanence task got upset when mom left, and the one’s who don’t have object p. were not phased when mom left

- If the mom leaves and babies get upset then there is an attachment there that’s why the babies get upset

- We have to have mental representation of mom before attachment is measured

Evolutionary Approach

- Attachment is adaptive

- Biological preparedness

- Instinctual signaling by baby elicits parental care

- Sensitive parental responding leads to mutual bond

- We’re biologically prepared to form attachments

- They need someone else to take care of them, so they this is called instinctual signaling that the baby performs (crying) and the parent will feed the baby in order to stop the crying

- Babies who are cuter looking get more attention

- Reactions of the parent are also more adaptive- if parent is responding to babies cues to take care of baby- then it forms a mutual bond

Modern attachment theory: Concepts

Affectional bond

- the love the parent has towards child, consistent feeling of love

- Emotional relationship with the person, you want to remain with that person, and you are upset when you are not around that person

- Affectional bond can be b/w 2 adults but in this case its mom + baby, or dad+ baby

Attachment

- Safe base

- Person is seeking security and comfort in relationship

- We’re talking about child’s attachment to parent

- If baby is distressed they go to mom b/c mom is safe base or whoever they are attached to

Attachment behaviours

- What are they?

- When are they exhibited?

- What are they? Wanting to be close, decreasing distance from the person, their going to smile more at person their attached too

- When are they exhibited? One of the clearest ways to measure attachment is to put baby in scary situation- then they show behavior of trying to get to mom – response when they get to mom shows the attachment style- if mom soothes them then their attached but if mom isn’t able to soothe them then it doesn’t show a strong attachment

Affectional bonds

What predicts development of affectional bonds?

- Infant temperament

- Responsive interaction

- The way the baby acts is going to influence the mom’s parenting style (difficult baby)

- If you’re a distant mom- then the baby will not form a strong attachment to you

- If you’re a difficult baby + non responsive mom= even more less likely to form attachment

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