Child's Attachment Behavior System

Baby Jack displays a healthy attachment to mom, while Alice shows clear indicators of a strong and healthy bond with Jack. As indicated in the above chart, Jack is displaying all the behaviour expected for this stage of development (from 6-12 months), and accordingly, as related to attachment, he was friendly with me as long as mom was close, and vigilant in ensuring he was always aware of her location. The fact that Alice is able to soothe Jack quickly and consistently and that he is able to adjust to a new stranger so well points to development of the confidence that Vera Fahlberg (2012) maintains in her text, A Child’s Journey through Placement, as intrinsically tied to secure attachment to a “primary attachment object”

Ainsworths ‘strange situation’ was developed as a tool to measure types of attachment in infants. The experiment was carried out in a purpose build playroom and children were observed with cameras. It consisted of several situations, standardised for all those who took part. Each condition involved variation of the presence of the mother and/or a stranger, over 3 minute intervals. During these different conditions, the child’s behaviour was monitored, assessing their exploratory behaviour, stranger anxiety, separation protest and reunion behaviour. From her study, Ainsworth identified three types of attachment, these were: secure, insecure- avoidant and insecure-resistant, she

Mary Ainsworth is known for her ‘Strange Situation’ (Custance 2010) studies with children. Her theory was that the quality of an infant’s attachment depends largely on the kind of attention the infant has received. She observed the attachment styles of children, mostly aged between 12 and 24 months, by placing them in an environment and recording their reactions to their mothers (or primary caregivers) leaving the room and then returning. Based on these observations Ainsworth concluded that there are different types of attachment. Three types of attachment are: ‘anxious-avoidant’, where the child shows little upset with the stranger, but will avoid contact with the parent on their return. The ‘securely attached’ child is one that will show moderate levels of proximity seeking towards the parents and is upset by their departure but deals with the parents return positively, often returning to play. The third type is the ‘anxious-resistant’ child; greatly upset by the parent’s departure and on reunion seems angry and will not be comforted or picked up (Custance 2010).

Infant attachment is the first relationship a child experiences and is crucial to the child’s survival (BOOK). A mother’s response to her child will yield either a secure bond or insecurity with the infant. Parents who respond “more sensitively and responsively to the child’s distress” establish a secure bond faster than “parents of insecure children”. (Attachment and Emotion, page 475) The quality of the attachment has “profound implications for the child’s feelings of security and capacity to form trusting relationships” (Book). Simply stated, a positive early attachment will likely yield positive physical, socio-emotional, and cognitive development for the child. (BOOK)

In order to determine an infant’s attachment type, Ainsworth established an experimental study known as, “Strange Situation” (Berger, 2014, p.144). This study was an experiment off of Bowlby’s findings that suggest attachment “related behaviors, are activated in times of personal distress” (Bernier, Larose, & Whipple, 2005, p. 172). Therefore, within this study, an infant’s attachment was determined by studying their behavior and level of distress within a new environment at the absence or presence of their caregiver. Additionally, Bernier represents the results of Larose and Boivin’s 1998 study that express a possible correlation between “Strange Situation” and the transition from high school to college (Bernier et al., 2005, p. 173) as both

Over the years research has shown that attachment is critical to human development, and that in many ways early childhood attachments set up a framework for intimate relationships in adulthood. As they begin to develop an attachment with their caregivers infants go through several phases. The first phase is the asocial phase, which occurs during the first six weeks of an infant's life (Shaffer & Kipp, 2014). The second phase is the phase of indiscriminate attachments, which lasts until the infant is six or seven months old (Shaffer & Kipp, 2014). When infants are about seven to nine months of age they are go through what is called the specific attachment phase (Shaffer & Kipp, 2014). It is during this time that infants establish their initial genuine attachments (Shaffer & Kipp, 2014). The development of a secure attachment during this time is critical for, "… it promotes the development of exploratory behavior" (Shaffer & Kipp, 2014). Finally, during the phase of multiple attachments, in which infants are about nine to eighteen months old, they begin to develop attachments to multiple people (Shaffer & Kipp, 2014).

The anxious-avoidant children appear content during the absence of their attachment figure and not predominantly engrossed in seeking juxtaposition and soothing upon reunion. These children are anxious during separation and they learned to suppress their emotions (Berzoff, 2011). Disorganized children are particularly ambivalent upon reunion with their attachment figure, both synchronously approaching and avoiding contact. Most of the infants display a collapse of attachment strategies which results to dissociated

Securely attached children are confident that their mothers would be able to satisfy their needs. These children used their mothers as a point of reference so they can comfortably explore their surroundings, and they seek their mothers in times of distress (Main, & Cassidy, 1988). Consequently, the avoidant children would not use their mothers to explore their environment. These infants also would not seek their mothers during times of distress. Overall, the avoidant children were independent both physically and emotionally (Behrens, Hesse, & Main, 2007). Infants become avoidant when their attachment figures are unavailable during times of emotional distress. Contrarily, the infants with ambivalent attachment style would demonstrate dependent

1. One type of commonly studied attachment pattern are those children that are secure in their relationship with their parents. This means that the child is upset when the parent leaves but is easily comforted by their parents. Children who exhibit this pattern of behavior are said to be secure. Another type of attachment pattern studied is those who are anxious-resistant. This means when reunited with their parents again they aren't easily soothed and exhibit conflicting behaviors of wanted to be comforted but also want to punish their parents for leaving. A child that displays this type of behavior will also be insecure in a strange situation. The third type of attachment pattern studied is children who are anxious-avoidant. This means that

Proximity. Proximity is an attachment behavior that is characterized by mother and child maintaining closeness so the child can be comforted when frightened. Proximity helps the child to reduce their fear by keeping physical closeness to his mother. The mother also provides the blueprint for their environment to teach the child what is safe and what is unsafe. During slavery mothers were prevented from keeping proximity to their children as way to keeps bonds from forming.

Berzoff, Flangan, and Hertz (2008) recognize Ainsworth differentiated two types of attachment styles. The first type is avoidant infants, who did not protest their mother’s leaving and did not respond to her immediately upon her return. Ainsworth’s second type is insecurity, ambivalent infants (also called resistant) were upset when their mothers left and seemed to welcome their return, but did not calm down readily and they often resisted their mothers attempt to calm them down. Max is a four year old child, who experienced a full term labor. Holistically his biological functioning was determined as appropriate having met all of his developmental milestones. Unexpectedly, Max experienced repeated trauma in early childhood and he was separated from his biological mother.

Securely attached infants have a good quality of relationship with their parents. In the strange situation, where parents leave their child alone or with a stranger in a room full of toys, these children are upset when their parents leave, but easily comforted when they return. The child uses the parent as a “secure base” from which to explore the environment. In the strange situation, insecure/resistant infants

An infant with a secure attachment style has a natural bond with their parent, where they are able to trust them, at the same time leaving their side to discover and explore their surroundings. In an insecure/resistant attachment the relationship the child has with their mother or caregiver is very clingy, thus making them very upset once the caregiver is away. When the mother or caregiver is back they are not easily comforted and resist their effort in comforting them. In an insecure/avoidant attachment the infant is, “indifferent and seems to avoid the mother, they are as easily comforted by a stranger, as by their parent” (Siegler 2011, p.429). Lastly, the disorganized/disoriented attachment is another insecure attachment style in which the infant has no way of coping with stress making their behavior confusing or contradictory. Through these brief descriptions of the attachment theory, many researchers have defined the turning point in which each attachment definition can have an influence on one’s self esteem, well-being and their marital relationship.

John Bowlby, who originally developed the theory of attachment, describes it as a “lasting psychological connectedness between human beings” (Somerville, 2009). Furthermore, there are four main characteristic of infant attachment, proximity maintenance, safe haven, secure base, and separation distress. Proximity maintenance is the desire to stay close to the people we have formed an attachment. Safe haven refers to the action of returning to the attachment figure for comfort and safety when danger or fear is present. A secure base is a place where the attachment figure acts as a base of security from which a child can explore the surrounding world. Separation distress is the anxiety that occurs when the attachment figure is absent (Cherry, 2011).

Attachment exploration and behavior are in balance view, and a biological importance of each is discussed. The illustration of this concept is conducted through a study where 56 white are reported, middle-class infant, and age of 49-51 weeks, in the strange situation. Mother’s presence was again found exploratory