ED209 - Child Development - Parenting & Attachment

Attachment Theory - Forming relationships & becoming parents.

Country to country parenting, within countries and from family-family and across times.

4 Psychological Perspectives:

Behaviourism - shaping behaviour

SLT - parents as models

Social Constructivism - Scaffolding development

Psychodynamic Theory - internalisation relationship with parents.

Human babies - Long period of dependency

WINNICOTT - Baby essentially part of relationship

Ethonologists - interested in parental care in animals

LORENZ - Imprinting in ducks & geese during critical period - could be linked to human babies however NOT extrapolation NOT straightforward.

HARLOW - Is the bond a way of promoting survival OR child/parent relationship also important - HARLOW's Monkeys - Contact comfort at least as important as food although not in itself enough for good development - Monkeys later showed disturbed social behaviour.

Animal Study questioned implications of early relationships for later development - BOWLBY's Attachment Theory played central part.

Particular Object can be source of comfort in stress - WINNICOTT - named transitional objects - represent developmental move from early attachment to mother.  Both forms of attachment are to specific person/object.

BOWLBY - Children form IWM - model of self and other and realtionship between them.  IWM continues into childhood and beyond, template for new relationships.

BOWLBY - relatively long term/stable relationship required for healthy attachment, not only a single attachment, a variety can lead to more developed IWM.  IWM can be modified by variety of attachments.  Mother needs to be emotionally available.

BOWLBY influenced by WINNICOTT - 'Good enough mother' - child build tollerence if allowed to experience a certain degree of frustration.

BOWLBY influenced by ROBERTSON's films about dustressed children in hospital seperated from parents - termed Seperation Anxiety - reaction from 6mths, with marked fear of strangers.

AINSWORTH - Reactions could show strength of attachment - Strange Situation - Infant behaviour in unfamiliar environment when seperated from mother, approached by stranger, reunited with mother.

3 Child Types:

• Type B - Secure
• Type C - Insecure-Resistant - mother not secure base
• Type A - Insecure-Avoidant - mother not secure base - avoids interaction.

MAIN & SOLOMON - Type D - Disorganised - history of abuse, could be genetic, parental pathology.

Attachment types linked to IWM:

• Type B - Worthy of affection - confidence in mother - sensitive parenting.
• Type C - Unworthy of affection - upset not eased by mother.
• Type A - Lacks self-worth, expectations of difficult realtionshipw with mother.

Mothers Behaviour -

VONDRA et al - Strange Situation used, mothers complete questionaire, link seen between:

• Sensitive Mother - Type B
• Controling Mother - Type A
• Unresponsive Mother - Type C

Experience of Emotion -

GOLDBERG et al - Strange Situation used, 10 child of each type from similar background, consistant differences found to support childs emitional experience and mother's resopnse.  Support AINSWORTH.

• Type B - All emotions valid
• Type A - Suppress negative feelings
• Type C - Negative emotions get attention so are valid.

Infants, mothers and fathers -

Parent relationship important, Strange Situation results only valid in stable parental realtionship.  Some vidence that attachment stability is consequence of stable parent - child interactions.

Mind-mindedness -

MEINS et al - Mothers of securely attached child made reference to child's mental state rather than those who didn't.  Mother's talking about infants state of mind performed better on Theory of Mind tests.

BAUMRIND - 4 parenting patterns:

• Authoritarian - obidence
• Permissive - Non-intrusive but available
• Non-conformist - anti-authority but some control
• Authoratitive - Encouraging, explanations used (best)
• 

HOWEVER -

• Some support but inconclusive
• Doesn't explain why parents adopt style
• Useful for invesntion programs
• RUSSELL et al - mothers more authoratitive, fathers authoriatarian/permissive.  Both harsher with boys.  Possible influence from child on parent style.
• Culture specific
• MCKINNON-LEWIS et al - built on this, investigate role of cognitions - Transcational model appropriate here.

IWN - central to explanations

MAIN et al - child secruely attached at 12mths with good IWM, more emotionally open at 6.

MAIN & GOLDWYN - Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) - links between infants and adult attachment - 3 categories:

• Dismissing - Type A - childhood not important or personal relationships
• Autonomous - Type B - everything important
• Preoccupied - Type C - past issues unresolved

Longitudinal studies to reduce bias.

ZIMMERMAN - Bielfield Study - SST at 12-18mths NOT good predictor of AAI at 16yrs.  Life events get in the way such as divorce, death etc.

HAMILTON - found correspondence between SST & AAI however there had to be stability in circumstances.

Link found between mother's AAI & child's SST -

• AAI can to some extent predict SST but mostly for secure attahed child.
• AAI classification can to some extent predict how mother will interact with child.  FONAGY & NAGEL - AAI during pregnancy can predict infant SST type.
• VAN LJZENDOORN - meta-anaylsis found transmission gap, still not clear.

AAI used to investigate attachement in adolescence.

KOBAK & SCEERY - peer and self report in adolescence - same as adult.

STEINBERG - Autonmous adolescents better relationship with parents.

Critical transitional period seen -

• Shift from parents to same sex peers to opposite sex peers.
• Continuation creating distance from parents.

STEINBERG - found early maturers report more conflict with mother

BAUMRIND - Changes facilitated by authoritative parenting.

• Generalisation problem as USA & UK samples.
• Socioeconomic & Sociocultural factors important - critical variables.

STEINBERG & DARLING - authoritative parenting is good for European Americans & Hispanic Americans.  Authoratarian parenting in Asian Americas.

Very little research comparing the cultures.

METHODOLGICAL ISSUES -

• Aminal reserach used raises issue of extrapolation.  SST advantage of standardised procedure.  Observational is a problem. Longitudinal studies used.

RELATIONSHIPS -

• Bowlby's attachment theory - mother's behaviour to infants.  Later implications of early attachment using AAI.

TRANSACTIONAL MODEL -

• Baumrind suggests transactional model may provide accurate parenting picture and linear effect seen.

CULTURE -

• Van Ljendoorn & Kroonenberg found similar patterns in SST with some variation across cultures.  Appropriate parenting differs across cultures.