Different Styles of Attachment during Child Development - Research Paper Example

of Affiliation: INTRODUCTION Attachment during child development refers to an emotional tie to another person. A British psychologist named John Bowly, was the first psychologist to study this subject and he clearly defined it as "lasting psychological connectedness between human beings." Attachment has been found to play an important role in the later development of an infant and thus needs to be taken seriously. This work will analyze different studies conducted with regard to this subject, detailing the stages of attachment, styles of attachment, the cognitive development and suggest directions for future research Earliest attachment developed by children with their caregivers play an important role in their later life. According to Bowly, Attachment helps to keep an infant close to the caregiver, thus increasing the chances of the child survival. In his study, Bowly presented attachment as a result of the evolutionary processes. This presentation contrasted with the information presented earlier in behavioral theories of attachment that had suggested attachment as a learned process. According to Bowlby, child possesses an inborn drive to develop attachment with care giver right from birth. Taking a good look into history, Bowlby observed that children who kept close to an attachment figure depicted a higher likelihood to receive protection and comfort that translated to a higher chance to survive to adulthood. Later studies found that attachment was regulated through a motivational system termed as the process of natural selection. The fundamental question at this point then is how successful attachment is achieved. Contrary to behaviorists suggestion that food was responsible for the formation of attachment behavior, Bowlby and fellow theorists established that attachment was primarily influenced by nurturance and responsiveness(Gearity, 2005). The Stages of Attachment Peggy Emerson and Rodolph Schaffer, another group of researchers, developed another piece of work that analyzed the types of attachment relationship developed by infants. This study reflected a longitudinal approach and included 60 infants. During the study the infants were observed once in four weeks in the first 12 months after their birth, and then during their 18months. Using these findings, Emerson and Schaffer outlined four different phases of attachment. The first phase he termed it “pre-attachment stage” which begins at birth and goes until the third month. Here, the infant attachment drive is undeveloped and thus the child fails to show attachment to any particular caregiver. During this period, the child’s gestures such as Fussing and crying naturally draw the care giver’s attention, while the infant’s positive responses push the care giver to maintain a close attachment. Indiscriminate attachment which forms the second phase comes from around 6 weeks to 7 months when the infant starts to show feeling of trust on understanding that the caregiver will attend to their needs. Such is the case that while they readily accept care from different people, they develop the ability to differentiate familiar people from unfamiliar ones, especially when they approach 7 months (Thompson, 1999). This period also is marked by infant’s increased positive response to their primary caregivers. The third phase is Discriminate Attachment which occurs from the infant’s 7th month to the 11th month. During this period the infant depicts a strong preference and attachment for one specific person. They will tend to protest when separated from the figure of primary attachment (separation anxiety), and start to show anxiety when strangers are present (stranger anxiety). The last phase is the multiple attachments that come after the child attains 9 months. In this period the infant strongly bonded to other care givers emotionally. This goes beyond the bonding seen with the primary attachment figure and is mostly include the father, grandparents, and older siblings. Later work on this subject led to Mary Ainsworth groundbreaking study that expanded Bowlby’s work. Mary Ainsworth developed the “strange Situation” study. This study was particularly significant in revealing the effects of attachment on behavior. In this study, researcher closely observed Infants of ages 12 to 18 months taking note of their response to situations in which they were exposed briefly while their mothers were away and then later they were reunited. Using the observable responses, Ainsworth came up with three major attachment styles: Secure attachment, avoidant- Insecure attachment, and ambivalent-insecure attachment (Ainsworth, et.al, 1978). Attachment is closely linked to infant’s cognitive development that usually reflects a primitive armature system at birth. This system is developed by subsequent experiences. Here, the experiences serve to organize the whole system. Many infants internal system do not self regulate automatically, and thus one of the initial tasks is to jump start the regulation of the developmental systems. To accomplish this, the infant requires the attention of a caregiver who is not only emotionally attuned but also committed to responding to his/her signals. Infants usually depict simple states in the first days. This is reflected by either being stressed on not stressed and can be identified when the child cries when hungry, tired, wet, or startled, or calm when in the proper condition. When a child is stressed, a corresponding physiological reaction is apparent: stress hormones are secreted in his/her system, the heart races, the muscles tense and breathing accelerates. At this point if the care giver fails to respond speedily, the stress accelerate until the child is overwhelmed as it cannot regulate the stress to a tolerate level by itself. Care givers play an important part in such a position as a soothing response from them works to bring the child back to comfort. SECURE ATTACHMENT The largest proportion of infants (between 55 and 65 percent) depict secure attachment pattern. As an optimal attachment classification, this style includes infants that freely explore their surrounding in the presence of their care giver. Infants in a secure attachment tend to check on their care givers periodically while restricting their exploration when far from the caregiver’s sight. Securely attached infants will depict varying degrees of distress when the care giver is absent but quickly turn to positive response when he/she returns. Additionally, infants in secure attachment seek to establish contact with their care givers when they sense distress and will relax once they make the contact and receive comfort. Care givers who seek to provide secure attachment should be sensitive to his /her Child’s signals, be receptive and accept their child’s distress, and consistently apply the positive parenting style. The initial developmental stages reflect a maturation period, particularly for the early maturing right brain. The part of the brain has been found to play a central role in: regulating affective and bodily states; processing social-emotional information; and controlling vital functions that support survival while enabling the infant cope actively with advanced stress. The maturation of these adaptive –right brain adjustment abilities is dependent on the infant experiences, a factor that is closely tied to the relationship build between the child and the caregiver (Epstein, 2001). It is important to point out at this level that the infant’s experiences carry to the capacity to influence the maturation of the brain structure in either positive or negative way. This influence will in turn affect the child’s psychological development. Insecure attachment is the other style and is broadly classified as either avoidant or resistant. Generally, caregivers of insecurely attached infants tend to show less responsiveness to their infants gestures that depict some sort of distress. Such care givers are absent either physically, emotionally, or psychologically and depict unpredictability or low sensitivity to attachment needs. AVOIDANT ATTACHMENT About 20 to 25 percent of infants express avoidant attachment pattern while relating to their care givers. Children in this kind of relationship tend to care less on the availability of their care givers. Such is the case that when care givers are present, infants with this attachment carry on with the exploration of their environment paying less attention on their whereabouts. When the care givers depart children with avoidant attachment depict minimal distress and will not even move towards their caregivers or attempt to make contact once they are back. Ideally, these infants will avoid or ignore the caregivers. While Infants with avoidant pattern of attachment may depict an apparent lack of concern, they still demonstrate as much if not more, physiological excitement when compared to other infants. This behavior suggests they have successfully learned to take care of their distress (Barnett, at.al, 1999). Avoidant attachment is closely related to a pattern of care where the caregivers fail to provide the required comfort at the time the infant shows emotional upset, hurt or ill. RESISTANT / AMBIVALENT ATTACHMENT Ten to fifteen percent of infants display resistant pattern of attachment with their caregivers. Relationship builds on this style of attachment are typified by exaggerated conveyance of attachment needs. Infants with this kind of attachment tend to show reluctance to explore their surrounding and instead get preoccupied with gaining their care givers attention. Once the care givers depart, infants with this attachment style depict extreme distress and would both resist and seek contact when they return. Infants would typically seek contact by depicting difficulty of settling down and would not respond positively to their caregivers soothing efforts. Resistant attachment is closely linked to patterns of care where the caregiver inconsistently responds to the infant gesture of distress. . Conclusion The underlying issue in attachment is that first caregivers who are present and open to a child’s needs allow the infant to build up a sense of security. The child learns to understand the care giver as being dependable, a factor that develops a secure base for the infant to explore the surrounding environment. Secure attachment has been found to boost infant’s confidence when exploring their surroundings. Studies made on civilian children point to the fact that children with secure attachment depict a good developmental, socio-emotional and academic achievement. Separation in families, particularly for persons in the military service poses a greater challenge to secure attachment and as such need to be studied (Thompson, 2000). Here, it will be good to dig into issues related to the impacts of such separation. Further studies should be done to how civilian programs can be applied to address this issue Reference Ainsworth, M. D. S., Blehar, M., Waters, E. andWall, S. (1978). Patterns of attachment. Hillsdale,New Jersey: Erlbaum. Barnett, D., Butler, C. M. and Vondra, J. I.(1999). Atypical patterns of early attachment: Discussion and future direction. In J. I.Vondra and D Barnnet (Eds). Atypical attachment in infancy and early childhood among children at developmental risk (pp172-192).Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 64 (3, Serial No.258). Gearity, A. (2005). Attachment theory and real life: How to make ideas work.http://education.umn.edu/ceed/publication (Update;Original version published 1996). Epstein, H.T. (2001). An outline of the role of brain in human cognitive development.Brain and Cognition, 45, 44-51. Thompson, R.A. (1999). Early attachment and later development. In J. Cassidy and P.R.Shaver (Eds.), Handbook of Attachment: Theory, research and clinical application (pp.265-286).New York: The Guilford Press. Thompson, R.A. (2000). New directions for child development in the twenty-first century: The legacy of early attachments. Child Development,71, 145-152. Read More