Читать книгу Lifespan Development - Tara L. Kuther - Страница 325

The formation of an attachment bond is crucial for infants’ development because it enables infants to begin to explore the world, using their attachment figure as a secure base, or foundation, to return to when frightened. When infants are securely attached to their caregivers, they feel confident to explore the world and to learn by doing so. As clear attachments form, starting at about 7 months, infants are likely to experience separation anxiety (sometimes called separation protest), a reaction to separations from an attachment figure that is characterized by distress and crying (Lamb & Lewis, 2015). Infants may follow, cling to, and climb on their caregivers in an attempt to keep them near.

Separation anxiety tends to increase between 8 and 15 months of age, and then it declines. This pattern appears across many cultures and environments as varied as those of the United States, Israeli kibbutzim, and !Kung hunter-gatherer groups in Africa (Kagan et al., 1994). It is the formation of the attachment bond that makes separation anxiety possible, because infants must feel connected to their caregivers in order to feel distress in the caregivers’ absence. Separation anxiety declines as infants develop reciprocal relationships with caregivers, increasingly use them as secure bases, and can understand and predict parents’ patterns of separation and return, reducing their confusion and distress.

The attachment bond developed during infancy and toddlerhood influences personality development because it comes to be represented as an internal working model, which includes the children’s expectations about whether they are worthy of love, whether their attachment figures will be available during times of distress, and how they will be treated. The internal working model influences the development of self-concept, or sense of self, in infancy and becomes a guide to later relationships throughout life (Bretherton & Munholland, 2016).