Читать книгу Introduction to Abnormal Child and Adolescent Psychology - Robert Weis - Страница 101

Attachment refers to the emotional bond between caregiver and child that serves to protect and reassure the child in times of danger or uncertainty (Grossman, Bretherton, Waters, & Grossman, 2016). According to John Bowlby (1969, 1973, 1980), the parent–child attachment relationship has three basic functions. Most important, the attachment relationship serves to protect the child from danger. Infants and young children are biologically predisposed to seek help from their parents when scared, upset, or unsure of their surroundings. At the same time, parents are predisposed to respond to their infant’s bids for attention and care (Pasco Fearon, Groh, Bakermans-Kranenburg, van IJzendoorn, & Roisman, 2016).

Second, attachment provides parent–infant dyads with an avenue for sharing positive emotional experiences. Through interactions with parents, infants learn about the natural reciprocity of social interactions and the give-and-take of interpersonal relationships.

Third, attachment helps infants learn to regulate negative emotions and behaviors. Initially, infants control anxiety and distress by relying on comfort from their caregivers. Over time, children develop internal working models, or mental representations of their caregivers, that help them cope with psychosocial stress. Infants learn to use these mental representations of their parents as a “secure base” from which to explore their surroundings and regulate their emotions and actions.

The quality of parent–child interactions over the first few years of life influences the initial quality of the attachment relationship. Parents who provide sensitive and responsive care to their children, by meeting their children’s needs in a consistent and developmentally appropriate fashion, usually develop secure attachment relationships with their children. Their children, in turn, come to expect sensitive and responsive care from their parents. At the same time, these children come to view themselves as worthy of receiving sensitive and responsive care from others.

In contrast, parents who do not provide sensitive and responsive care in a consistent fashion are likely to foster insecure attachment relationships with their children. When scared or upset, these children do not expect their parents to effectively meet their needs and help them regulate their emotions. They adopt internal working models of their parents as unavailable or inconsistent. At the same time, they may view themselves as unworthy of receiving attention and care from others.

Mary Ainsworth and colleagues (1978) identified three patterns of attachment that develop over the first few months of life. These patterns can be observed in the behavior of 12-month-old infants using the strange situation, a laboratory-based test. The strange situation occurs in a playroom and involves separating infants from their parents for short periods of time. Most infants experience distress when separated. However, researchers are primarily interested in how infants respond to their parents when they are reunited. Specifically, researchers observe whether infants are able to use their parents as a means to reduce distress and return to play (Image 2.8).

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Most children who participate in the strange situation show secure attachment relationships with their parents. These children use their parents as a secure base from which to regulate their emotions, control their behavior, and return to play. Although they usually show considerable distress during separation, they seek comfort and physical contact with their parents when they are reunited. After a little while, reassurance from caregivers soothes these infants, and they can return to exploring the room.

In contrast, some infants develop insecure–avoidant attachment relationships with their parents. When reunited with their mothers, these infants show passivity and disinterest. In fact, many of these infants actively avoid their parents’ bids for attention by turning away or ignoring them. Although these infants might be upset by separation, they appear uninterested or resentful of their parents when they return. Instead of using their parents as a secure base from which to regulate their emotions, these infants attempt to rely on themselves to cope with the stress of separation. Attachment theorists reason that parents who consistently dismiss their children’s bids for attention foster insecure–avoidant attachment relationships with their infants.

Other infants develop insecure–ambivalent attachment relationships with their parents. When separated, these infants usually show considerable distress. However, when reunited with their parents, these infants alternate between seeking and resisting their caregivers’ support. For example, an infant might initially motion to be picked up by her mother and then immediately push away. The behavior of these infants conveys the notion that they desperately want comfort from their parents but that they do not expect their parents to adequately provide for their needs. Attachment theorists reason that parents who alternate between providing care and ignoring their children foster this insecure–ambivalent pattern of attachment.

Ainsworth noticed that some infants could not be classified into any of the three original attachment patterns. In the strange situation, these infants tended to show repetitive, stereotyped behaviors when separated from their caregivers, such as jerky movements of their arms, neck, or back. When reunited with their caregivers, these infants tended to freeze, stare off into space, or act fearfully. Mary Main, a student of Ainsworth, classified these children as having disorganized/disoriented attachment because their behavior did not seem organized like those of other infants (Main & Solomon, 1986). Subsequent research showed that disorganized/disoriented attachment is associated with histories of neglect. Furthermore, many caregivers who developed disorganized/disoriented attachment relationships with their infants experienced a major loss or trauma shortly before or after their child’s birth.

The Minnesota Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children examined relationships between mother–child attachment in infancy and children’s developmental outcomes. Overall, its results showed that the development of secure attachment in infancy and early childhood is associated with later social–emotional competence. For example, infants who formed secure attachment relationships tended to be more popular, resilient, resourceful, and cooperative in preschool. By age 6, they were more compliant, responsive, self-reliant, and empathic than children with insecure attachment histories.

In contrast, infants who developed insecure–avoidant attachment relationships were more likely to display behavior problems such as stealing, lying, or cheating. Others were at risk for mood problems, such as irritability, anger, and depression. They also exhibited more negative reactions from peers.

Infants who developed insecure–ambivalent attachments tended to show excessive dependency on caregivers at home and teachers in preschool. During the school-age years, they often acted frustrated, passive, or helpless. They required reassurance, at the expense of taking risks and engaging in other activities.

Finally, infants who showed disorganized/disoriented attachment were at greatest risk for behavior problems in childhood. Specifically, many of these children showed oppositional, defiant, or spiteful behaviors toward their caregivers. These children were also most likely to develop aggressive behavior and conduct problems. In adolescence, these children were at risk for dissociative symptoms, such as unexpected lapses in awareness or memory.

Although early parent–child attachment seems to place children on developmental pathways toward either competence or adversity, it does not determine children’s destiny. Many children change their patterns of attachment from infancy to adolescence because of experiences with other caregivers. Supportive relatives, teachers, coaches, and friends can provide corrective emotional experiences to children who were initially insecure, causing them to modify their working models for relationships. Indeed, researchers have identified a subset of infants who changed their attachment patterns from insecure (in infancy) to secure (in childhood) largely because of sensitive and responsive care from adults in their lives. These children tend to show improvements in family and peer functioning by adolescence (van IJzendoorn & Bakermans-Kranenburg, 2014). Indeed, psychotherapy can be seen as a way to alter an individual’s working model for relationships from one based on rejection or inconsistency to one based on sensitivity and trust.