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Developmental Psychology Unit 4: Attachment and Early Social Development

Infants and toddlers build their first emotional bonds and their first sense of self. This unit covers emotional development, temperament, attachment theory and research, and the early self.

Covers: Emotional development in infancy, Temperament, Attachment theory: Harlow and Bowlby, The Strange Situation and attachment types, Influences on attachment, The emerging self

Study guide

Newborns show basic emotions such as distress, contentment and interest. The social smile, directed at people, appears at about 6 to 8 weeks, and laughter at 3 to 4 months. Stranger anxiety, wariness of unfamiliar adults, typically emerges around 8 to 10 months, and separation protest peaks around 12 to 18 months; both show that the infant now recognizes specific attachment figures. By the end of the first year, infants use social referencing, checking a caregiver's face to decide how to react to something uncertain. Self-conscious emotions such as embarrassment, pride, shame and guilt appear around 18 to 24 months, after the child becomes self-aware. Emotion regulation shifts gradually from caregivers soothing the infant to the child using strategies such as looking away or self-comforting.

Temperament is an early-appearing, biologically based style of reacting and regulating. In the New York Longitudinal Study, Alexander Thomas and Stella Chess classified about 40% of infants as easy (regular, positive, adaptable), 10% as difficult (irregular, intense, negative), and 15% as slow-to-warm-up (low activity, mild, slow to adapt); about 35% did not fit a category. Jerome Kagan studied behavioral inhibition, a tendency to withdraw from the unfamiliar, which shows moderate stability. Mary Rothbart described dimensions such as surgency, negative affect and effortful control. Goodness of fit is the key practical idea: outcomes are best when caregiving matches the child's temperament, for example, patient and structured parenting for a difficult infant.

Attachment is a lasting emotional bond between infant and caregiver. Harry Harlow found that infant rhesus monkeys clung to a soft cloth 'mother' rather than a wire one that gave milk, showing that contact comfort, not feeding, drives attachment; this undercut both drive-reduction and Freudian feeding explanations. John Bowlby's ethological theory says that attachment evolved to keep infants close to protectors. He described phases: preattachment (birth to 6 weeks), attachment in the making (6 weeks to 6-8 months), clear-cut attachment (6-8 to 18-24 months) and formation of a reciprocal relationship. Through repeated interactions the child builds an internal working model, a set of expectations about whether caregivers are available and whether the self is worthy of care.

Mary Ainsworth's Strange Situation measures attachment in 12- to 18-month-olds through a series of separations and reunions. Securely attached infants (about 60-65% in U.S. samples) use the caregiver as a secure base, may be upset at separation and are quickly comforted at reunion. Insecure-avoidant infants show little distress and avoid the caregiver at reunion. Insecure-resistant (ambivalent) infants are very upset and mix clinging with anger at reunion. Mary Main and Judith Solomon added disorganized attachment, marked by confused or fearful behavior, which is linked to maltreatment and the highest later risk. Caregiver sensitivity, prompt and appropriate responding, is the strongest predictor of security. Cultural norms shift rates: German samples show more avoidance, Japanese samples more resistance.

The early sense of self develops alongside attachment. In the rouge test, a toddler with a dot of rouge on the nose who touches her own nose in a mirror shows self-recognition, typically by 18 to 24 months. Erikson described the first two crises as trust versus mistrust (infancy) and autonomy versus shame and doubt (toddlerhood). Research on Romanian orphans raised in severely deprived institutions found that children adopted before about 6 months recovered well, while later adoptees had more lasting problems, suggesting a sensitive period. The NICHD Study of Early Child Care found that the quality of child care and, above all, family factors such as maternal sensitivity predicted attachment more than time in care alone. Fathers and other caregivers also form attachments.

Key ideas

• Stranger anxiety and separation protest appear late in the first year because infants now have specific attachment figures.
• Temperament is an early, biologically based style, and outcomes depend on goodness of fit with caregiving.
• Harlow showed that contact comfort, not feeding, is the basis of attachment.
• Bowlby argued that attachment is an evolved system that keeps infants close to protective caregivers.
• The Strange Situation classifies infants as secure, avoidant, resistant or disorganized based mainly on reunion behavior.
• Caregiver sensitivity is the strongest predictor of secure attachment.
• Self-recognition by about 18-24 months makes self-conscious emotions possible.

Formulas and rules

Common mistakes

• Classifying attachment from separation distress alone instead of from reunion behavior.
• Assuming an infant who is not upset at separation must be securely attached.
• Thinking every infant fits one of Thomas and Chess's three categories.
• Saying Harlow's monkeys preferred the wire mother because it provided food.
• Treating stranger anxiety as a sign of a problem rather than a normal milestone.

Before the test, make sure you can

• Order the major emotional milestones of the first two years.
• Describe Thomas and Chess's temperament types and explain goodness of fit.
• Explain what Harlow's research showed about the basis of attachment.
• Describe Bowlby's theory, his phases and the internal working model.
• Classify an infant's Strange Situation behavior as secure, avoidant, resistant or disorganized.
• Identify factors that predict secure attachment, including sensitivity and culture.
• Explain the rouge test and the emergence of self-conscious emotions.
• Interpret research on institutional deprivation and child care.

Words to know

Social smile

A smile directed at people, appearing around 6-8 weeks.

Stranger anxiety

Wariness of unfamiliar adults that emerges around 8-10 months.

Social referencing

Looking to a trusted person's emotional reaction to decide how to respond to an uncertain situation.

Self-conscious emotions

Emotions such as pride, shame, guilt and embarrassment that require a sense of self.

Temperament

Early-appearing, biologically based differences in reactivity and self-regulation.

Slow-to-warm-up child

A child with low activity and mild reactions who adapts slowly to new experiences.

Behavioral inhibition

Kagan's term for a tendency to be shy and withdrawn in unfamiliar situations.

Goodness of fit

The match between a child's temperament and the demands and responses of the environment.

Contact comfort

The comfort gained from soft physical touch, which Harlow showed drives attachment.

Secure base

A caregiver an infant uses as a safe place from which to explore.

Internal working model

A child's mental expectations about caregiver availability and self-worth, built from attachment experiences.

Strange Situation

Ainsworth's laboratory procedure of separations and reunions used to classify infant attachment.

Insecure-avoidant attachment

A pattern in which the infant shows little distress at separation and avoids the caregiver at reunion.

Insecure-resistant attachment

A pattern in which the infant is very upset at separation and both seeks and resists contact at reunion.

Disorganized attachment

A pattern of confused, contradictory or fearful behavior toward the caregiver, linked to maltreatment.

Caregiver sensitivity

Prompt, accurate and appropriate responding to an infant's signals.

Rouge test

A mirror test of self-recognition in which a toddler touches a mark on her own nose.

Sample practice questions

30 more questions like these, from level 1 to 5, are in the practice set.