ATTACHMENT

Attachment:

Attachment is the strong, affectionate tie we have with special people in our lives that
leads us to experience pleasure and joy when we interact with them and to be comforted by
their nearness in times of stress.

Theories of Attachment

Sigmund Freud suggested that the infant’s emotional tie to the mother is the
foundation for all later relationships. Contemporary research indicates that—although the
parent–infant bond is vitally important—later development is influenced not just by early
attachment experiences but also by the continuing quality of the parent–child relationship.

Psychoanalytic perspective regards feeding as the central context in which caregivers

and babies build this close emotional bond. Behaviourism, too, emphasizes the importance of
feeding, but for different reasons. Infants learn to prefer the mother’s soft caresses, warm
smiles, and tender words because these events are paired with tension relief as she satisfies
the baby’s hunger.

Although feeding is an important context for building a close relationship, attachment

does not depend on hunger satisfaction. In the 1950s, a famous experiment showed that
rhesus monkeys reared with terry-cloth and wire-mesh “surrogate mothers” clung to the soft
terry-cloth substitute, even though the wire-mesh “mother” held the bottle and infants had to
climb on it to be fed (Harlow & Zimmerman, 1959). Human infants, too, become attached to
family members who seldom feed them, including fathers, siblings, and grandparents. And
toddlers in Western cultures who sleep alone and experience frequent daytime separations
from their parents sometimes develop strong emotional ties to cuddly objects, such as
blankets or teddy bears, that play no role in infant feeding. Both psychoanalytic and
behaviourist accounts of attachment emphasize the caregiver’s contribution to the attachment
relationship but pay little attention to the importance of the infant’s characteristics.

Freud, Erikson, and Bowlby proposed influential views about why infants become attached to
a caregiver.
 I. Freud’s View
According to Sigmund Freud, infants become attached to the person or object that provides oral
satisfaction. For most infants, this is the mother, since she is most likely to feed the infant. A classic
study by Harry Harlow (1958) revealed that feeding is not as important as Freud thought.

Study by Harry Harlow

Harlow removed infant monkeys from their mothers at birth; for six months they were reared by
surrogate (substitute) “mothers.” One surrogate mother was made of wire, the other of cloth. Half of
the infant monkeys were fed by the wire mother, half by the cloth mother. Periodically, the amount of
time the infant monkeys spent with either the wire or the cloth mother was computed. Regardless of
which mother fed them, the infant monkeys spent far more time with the cloth mother. And when
Harlow frightened the monkeys, those “raised” by the cloth mother ran to the mother and clung to it;
those raised by the wire mother did not. Whether the mother provided comfort seemed to determine
whether the monkeys associated the mother with security. This study clearly demonstrated that
feeding is not the crucial element in the attachment process, and that contact comfort is important.

II. Erikson’s view

• According to Erik Erikson, the first year of life represents the stage of trust versus mistrust.

• Physical comfort and sensitive care, according to Erikson (1968), are key to establishing a
basic trust in infants.

• The infant’s sense of trust, in turn, is the foundation for attachment and sets the stage for a
lifelong expectation that the world will be a good and pleasant place to be.

III. Bowlby’s view

• The ethological perspective of British psychiatrist John Bowlby (1969, 1989) points out that
both infants and their primary caregivers are biologically predisposed to form attachments.

• The newborn is biologically equipped to elicit attachment behavior. The baby cries, clings,
coos, and smiles. Later, the infant crawls, walks, and follows the mother.

• The immediate result is to keep the primary caregiver nearby; the long-term effect is to
increase the infant’s chances of survival.

• Attachment does not emerge suddenly but rather develops in a series of phases, moving from
a baby’s general preference for human beings to a partnership with primary caregivers.

• Following are four such phases based on Bowlby’s conceptualization of attachment:

Phase 1: From birth to 2 months.

● Infants instinctively orient to human figures.

 ● Strangers, siblings, and parents are equally likely to elicit smiling or crying from the infant.
Phase 2: From 2 to 7 months.

Attachment becomes focused on one figure, usually the primary caregiver, as the baby
gradually learns to distinguish familiar from unfamiliar people.

Phase 3: From 7 to 24 months.

● Specific attachments develop.

● With increased locomotor skills, babies actively seek contact with regular caregivers, such as
the mother or father.
Phase 4: From 24 months on.

● Children become aware of others’ feelings, goals, and plans and begin to take these into
account in directing their own actions.
● Bowlby argued that infants develop an internal working model of attachment: a simple mental
model of the caregiver, their relationship, and the self as deserving of nurturant care.
The infant’s internal working model of attachment with the caregiver influences the infant’s
and later the child’s subsequent responses to other people

Individual Differences in Attachment

• Mary Ainsworth (1979) created the Strange Situation, an observational measure of infant
attachment in which the infant experiences a series of introductions, separations, and reunions
with the caregiver and an adult stranger in a prescribed order.

• Based on how babies respond in the Strange Situation, they are described as being securely
attached or insecurely attached (in one of three ways) to the caregiver.

1. Securely attached babies

• Securely attached babies use the caregiver as a secure base from which to explore the
environment.

• When they are in the presence of their caregiver, securely attached infants explore the room
and examine toys that have been placed in it.

• When the caregiver departs, securely attached infants might protest mildly, and when the
caregiver returns these infants reestablish positive interaction with her, perhaps by smiling or
climbing onto her lap.

• Subsequently, they often resume playing with the toys in the room.

2. Insecure avoidant babies

• Insecure avoidant babies show insecurity by avoiding the mother.
 • In the Strange Situation, these babies engage in little interaction with the caregiver, are not
distressed when she leaves the room, usually do not reestablish contact with her on her return,
and may even turn their back on her.

• If contact is established, the infant usually leans away or looks away.

3. Insecure resistant babies

• Insecure resistant babies often cling to the caregiver and then resist her by fighting against the
closeness, perhaps by kicking or pushing away.

• In the Strange Situation, these babies often cling anxiously to the caregiver and don’t explore
the playroom.

• When the caregiver leaves, they often cry loudly and push away if she tries to comfort them
on her return.

4. Insecure disorganized babies

• Insecure disorganized babies are disorganized and disoriented.

• In the Strange Situation, these babies might appear dazed, confused, and fearful.

• To be classified as disorganized, babies must show strong patterns of avoidance and resistance
or display certain specified behaviors, such as extreme fearfulness around the caregiver.

CAREGIVING STYLES AND ATTACHMENT

Securely attached babies have caregivers who are sensitive to their signals and are
consistently available to respond to their infants’ needs (Bigelow & others, 2010). These caregivers
often let their babies have an active part in determining the onset and pacing of interaction in the first
year of life. A recent study revealed that maternal sensitive responding was linked to infant
attachment security (Finger & others, 2009). Another study found that maternal sensitivity in
parenting was related with secure attachment in infants in two different cultures: the United States and
Colombia (Carbonell & others, 2002).

Caregivers of avoidant babies tend to be unavailable or rejecting (Bakermans-Kranenburg &

others, 2007). They often don’t respond to their babies’ signals and have little physical contact with
them. When they do interact with their babies, they may behave in an angry and irritable way.
Caregivers of resistant babies tend to be inconsistent; sometimes they respond to their babies’ needs,
and sometimes they don’t. In general, they tend not to be very affectionate with their babies and show
little synchrony when interacting with them. Caregivers of disorganized babies often neglect or
physically abuse them (Lyons-Ruth & Jacobvitz, 2008). In some cases, these caregivers are depressed
(Thompson, 2008).

MORAL DEVELOPMENT

Moral development involves the development of thoughts, feelings, and behaviours

regarding rules and conventions about what people should do in their interactions with other
people. Major developmental theories have focused on different aspects of moral
development.

MORAL FEELINGS

Feelings of anxiety and guilt are central to the account of moral development provided
by Freud’s psychoanalytic theory. According to Freud, to reduce anxiety, avoid punishment,
and maintain parental affection, children identify with parents, internalizing their standards of
right and wrong, and thus form the superego, the moral element of personality. Guilt can
motivate moral behaviour.

Empathy: Responding to another person’s feelings with an emotion that echoes the other’s
feelings. Infants have the capacity for some purely empathic responses, but empathy often
requires the ability to discern another’s inner psychological states, or what is called
perspective taking.

Learning how to identify a wide range of emotional states in others and to anticipate
what kinds of action will improve another person’s emotional state help to advance children’s
moral development.

MORAL REASONING

According to Piaget, children go through two distinct stages in how they think about
morality.

- Heteronomous morality

- Autonomous morality

From about 4 to 7 years of age, children display heteronomous morality, the first stage
of moral development in Piaget’s theory. Children think of justice and rules as unchangeable
properties of the world, removed from the control of people.
 From 7 to 10 years of age, children are in a transition showing some features of the first
stage of moral reasoning and some stages of the second stage, autonomous morality.

From about 10 years of age and older, children show autonomous morality. They
become aware that rules and laws are created by people, and in judging an action they
consider the actor’s intentions as well as the consequences. As young children are
heteronomous moralists, they judge the rightness or goodness of behaviour by considering its
consequences, not the intentions of the actor. For example, to the heteronomous moralist,
breaking twelve cups accidentally is worse than breaking one cup intentionally. As children
develop into moral autonomists, intentions become more important than consequences.

The heteronomous thinker also believes that rules are unchangeable and are handed down
by all-powerful authorities. When Piaget suggested to young children that they use new rules
in a game of marbles, they resisted. By contrast, older children—moral autonomists—accept
change and recognize that rules are merely convenient conventions, subject to change.

The heteronomous thinker also believes in immanent justice, the concept that if a rule is
broken, punishment will be meted out immediately. The young child believes that a violation
is connected automatically to its punishment. Immanent justice also implies that if something
unfortunate happens to someone, the person must have transgressed earlier. Older children,
who are moral autonomists, recognize that punishment occurs only if someone witnesses the
wrongdoing and that, even then, punishment is not inevitable.

Changes in moral reasoning come about through the mutual give-and-take of peer
relations. In the peer group, where others have power and status similar to the child’s, plans
are negotiated and coordinated, and disagreements are reasoned about and eventually settled.
Parent-child relations, in which parents have the power and children do not, are less likely to
advance moral reasoning, because rules are often handed down in an authoritarian way.

Kohlberg’s theory of Moral development

Lawrence Kohlberg’s theory suggested that there are six stages of moral development.
Development from one stage to another is fostered by opportunities to take the perspective of
others and to experience conflict between one’s current stage of moral thinking and the
reasoning of someone at a higher stage.

Kohlberg Stages
 • Kohlberg described three levels of moral thinking, each of which is characterized by
two stages

1. Preconventional reasoning

2. Conventional reasoning

3. Postconventional reasoning

1. Preconventional reasoning
● Preconventional reasoning is lowest level of moral reasoning.
● At this level, good and bad are interpreted in terms of external rewards and
punishments.
Stage 1. Heteronomous morality is the first stage of preconventional reasoning.

● At this stage, moral thinking is tied to punishment.

● For example, children think that they must obey because they fear punishment for
disobedience.
Stage 2. Individualism, instrumental purpose, and exchange is the second stage of
preconventional reasoning.

● At this stage, individuals reason that pursuing their own interests is the right thing
to do but they let others do the same.
● Thus, they think that what is right involves an equal exchange.
● They reason that if they are nice to others, others will be nice to them in return.
2. Conventional reasoning
● Conventional reasoning is the second, or intermediate, level in Kohlberg’s theory of
moral development.
● At this level, individuals apply certain standards, but they are the standards set by
others, such as parents or the government.
Stage 3. Mutual interpersonal expectations, relationships, and interpersonal conformity is
Kohlberg’s third stage of moral development.

● At this stage , individuals value trust, caring, and loyalty to others as a basis of moral
judgments.
● Children and adolescents often adopt their parents’ moral standards at this stage,
seeking to be thought of by their parents as a “good girl” or a “good boy.”
Stage 4. Social systems morality is the fourth stage in Kohlberg’s theory of moral
development.

● At this stage, moral judgments are based on understanding the social order, law,
justice, and duty.
● For example, adolescents may reason that in order for a community to work
effectively, it needs to be protected by laws that are adhered to by its members.
3. Postconventional reasoning
● Postconventional reasoning is the highest level in Kohlberg’s theory of moral
development.
● At this level, the individual recognizes alternative moral courses, explores the options,
and then decides on a personal moral code.
Stage 5. Social contract or utility and individual rights is the fifth Kohlberg stage.

At this stage, individuals reason that values, rights, and principles undergird or transcend the
law.

A person evaluates the validity of actual laws, and social systems can be examined in terms
of the degree to which they preserve and protect fundamental human rights and values.

Stage 6. Universal ethical principles is the sixth and highest stage in Kohlberg’s theory of
moral development.

● At this stage, the person has developed a moral standard based on universal human
rights.
● When faced with a conflict between law and conscience, the person reasons that
conscience should be followed, even though the decision might bring risk.
● According to Kohlberg these levels and stages occur in a sequence and are
age-related:
● Before age 9, most children use level 1, preconventional reasoning based on external
rewards and punishments, when they consider moral choices.
● By early adolescence, their moral reasoning is increasingly based on the application
of standards set by others. Most adolescents reason at stage 3, with some signs of
stages 2 and 4.
● By early adulthood, a small number of individuals reason in postconventional ways.
Social conventional reasoning and Moral reasoning
Social conventional reasoning

• Social conventional reasoning focuses on conventional rules that have been

established by social consensus in order to control behavior and maintain the social
system.

• The rules themselves are arbitrary, such as using a fork at meals and raising your hand
in class before speaking.

• Social conventional judgments are concepts of social organization

Moral Reasoning

● Moral reasoning focuses on ethical issues and rules of morality.

● Unlike conventional rules, moral rules are not arbitrary. They are obligatory, widely
accepted, and somewhat impersonal
● Rules pertaining to lying, cheating, stealing, and physically harming another person
are moral rules because violation of these rules affronts ethical standards that exist
apart from social consensus and convention.
● Moral judgments involve concepts of justice
MORAL BEHAVIOR

● The behavioural and social cognitive approaches holds that the processes of
reinforcement, punishment, and imitation explain the development of moral
behaviour.
● When children are rewarded for behaviour that is consistent with laws and social
conventions, they are likely to repeat that behaviour.
● When models who behave morally are provided, children are likely to adopt their
actions.
● When children are punished for immoral behaviour, those behaviours are likely to be
reduced or eliminated.
● In the moral behaviour view, the situation also influences behaviour.
● A comprehensive study of thousands of children in many situations— at home, at
school, and at church, for example—found that the totally honest child was virtually
non-existent; so was the child who cheated in all situations (Hartshorne & May,
1928–1930).
 ● Behavioural and social cognitive researchers emphasize that what children do in one
situation is often only weakly related to what they do in other situations. A child
might cheat in class but not in a game; a child might steal a piece of candy when alone
but not steal it when others are present.
● Social cognitive theorists also stress that the ability to resist temptation is closely tied
to the development of self-control.
● To achieve this self-control, children must learn to delay gratification.
● According to social cognitive theorists, cognitive factors are important in the child’s
development of self-control (Bandura, 2009, 2010a, b).
Conscience

● Conscience refers to an internal regulation of standards of right and wrong that

involves an integration of all three components of moral development —moral
thought, feeling, and behaviour (Kochanska & Aksan, 2007).
● Researchers have found that young children are aware of right and wrong, have the
capacity to show empathy toward others, experience guilt, indicate discomfort
following a transgression, and are sensitive to violating rules (Kochanska & Aksan,
2007; Kochanska & others, 2009).
MORAL PERSONALITY

• Moral personality is the unique pattern of moral characteristics of an individual

• Three components of moral personality are

(1) moral identity,

(2) moral character, and

(3) moral exemplars:

Moral identity

● Individuals have a moral identity when moral notions and moral commitments are
central to their lives.
● They construct the self with reference to moral categories.
● Violating their moral commitment would place the integrity of their self at risk.
Moral character
 ● A person with moral character has the willpower, desires, and integrity to stand up to
pressure, overcome distractions and disappointments, and behave morally.
● A person of good moral character displays moral virtues such as “honesty,
truthfulness, and trustworthiness, as well as those of care, compassion,
thoughtfulness, and considerateness.
● Other salient traits revolve around virtues of dependability, loyalty, and
conscientiousness”
Moral exemplars

● Moral exemplars are people who have lived exemplary moral lives.
● Their moral personality, identity, character, and set of virtues reflect moral excellence
and commitment