Mother and child
Attachment in children is "a biological instinct in which
proximity to an attachment figure is sought when the child senses or
perceives threat or discomfort. Attachment behaviour anticipates a
response by the attachment figure which will remove threat or
discomfort".
Attachment also describes the function of availability, which is the
degree to which the authoritative figure is responsive to the child's
needs and shares communication with them. Childhood attachment can
define characteristics that will shape the child's sense of self, their
forms of emotion-regulation, and how they carry out relationships with
others. Attachment is found in all mammals to some degree, especially nonhuman primates.
Attachment theory has led to a new understanding of child
development. Children develop different patterns of attachment based on
experiences and interactions with their caregivers at a young age. Four
different attachment classifications have been identified in children: secure attachment, anxious-ambivalent attachment, anxious-avoidant attachment, and disorganized attachment.
Attachment theory has become the dominant theory used today in the
study of infant and toddler behavior and in the fields of infant mental
health, treatment of children, and related fields.
Attachment theory and children
Attachment theory (Bowlby
1969, 1973, 1980) is rooted in the ethological notion that a newborn
child is biologically programmed to seek proximity with caregivers, and
this proximity-seeking behavior is naturally selected.
Through repeated attempts to seek physical and emotional closeness with
a caregiver and the responses the child gets, the child develops an
internal working model (IWM) that reflects the response of the caregiver
to the child. According to Bowlby, attachment provides a secure base
from which the child can explore the environment, a haven of safety to
which the child can return when he or she is afraid or fearful. Bowlby's
colleague Mary Ainsworth
identified that an important factor which determines whether a child
will have a secure or insecure attachment is the degree of sensitivity
shown by their caregiver:
The sensitive caregiver responds socially to attempts to initiate
social interaction, playfully to his attempts to initiate play. She
picks him up when he seems to wish it, and puts him down when he wants
to explore. When he is distressed, she knows what kinds and degree of
soothing he requires to comfort him – and she knows that sometimes a few
words or a distraction will be all that is needed. On the other hand,
the mother who responds inappropriately tries to socialize with the baby
when he is hungry, play with him when he is tired, or feed him when he
is trying to initiate social interaction.
However, it should be recognized that "even sensitive caregivers
get it right only about 50 percent of the time. Their communications are
either out of synch, or mismatched. There are times when parents feel
tired or distracted. The telephone rings or there is breakfast to
prepare. In other words, attuned interactions rupture quite frequently.
But the hallmark of a sensitive caregiver is that the ruptures are
managed and repaired."
Attachment classification in children: the Strange Situation Protocol
William Blake's poem "Infant Joy"
explores how to name a child and feel emotionally attached to it. This
copy, Copy AA, printed and painted in 1826, is currently held by the Fitzwilliam Museum.
The most common and empirically supported method for assessing attachment in infants (12 months – 20 months) is the Strange Situation Protocol, developed by Mary Ainsworth as a result of her careful in-depth observations of infants with their mothers in Uganda(see below).
The Strange Situation Protocol is a research, not a diagnostic, tool
and the resulting attachment classifications are not 'clinical
diagnoses.' While the procedure may be used to supplement clinical
impressions, the resulting classifications should not be confused with
the clinically diagnosed 'Reactive Attachment Disorder
(RAD).' The clinical concept of RAD differs in a number of fundamental
ways from the theory and research driven attachment classifications
based on the Strange Situation Procedure. The idea that insecure
attachments are synonymous with RAD is, in fact, not accurate and leads
to ambiguity when formally discussing attachment theory as it has
evolved in the research literature. This is not to suggest that the
concept of RAD is without merit, but rather that the clinical and
research conceptualizations of insecure attachment and attachment disorder are not synonymous.
The 'Strange Situation' is a laboratory procedure used to assess
infant patterns of attachment to their caregiver. In the procedure, the
mother and infant are placed in an unfamiliar playroom equipped with
toys while a researcher observes/records the procedure through a one-way
mirror. The procedure consists of eight sequential episodes in which
the child experiences both separation from and reunion with the mother
as well as the presence of an unfamiliar stranger. The protocol is conducted in the following format unless modifications are otherwise noted by a particular researcher:
- Episode 1: Mother (or other familiar caregiver), Baby, Experimenter (30 seconds)
- Episode 2: Mother, Baby (3 mins)
- Episode 3: Mother, Baby, Stranger (3 mins or less)
- Episode 4: Stranger, Baby (3 mins)
- Episode 5: Mother, Baby (3 mins)
- Episode 6: Baby Alone (3 mins or less)
- Episode 7: Stranger, Baby (3 mins or less)
- Episode 8: Mother, Baby (3 mins)
Mainly on the basis of their reunion behaviours (although other
behaviours are taken into account) in the Strange Situation Paradigm
(Ainsworth et al., 1978; see below), infants can be categorized into
three 'organized' attachment categories: Secure (Group B); Avoidant
(Group A); and Anxious/Resistant (Group C). There are subclassifications
for each group (see below). A fourth category, termed Disorganized (D),
can also be assigned to an infant assessed in the Strange Situation
although a primary 'organized' classification is always given for an
infant judged to be disorganized. Each of these groups reflects a
different kind of attachment relationship with the mother. A child may
have a different type of attachment to each parent as well as to
unrelated caregivers. Attachment style is thus not so much a part of the
child's thinking, but is characteristic of a specific relationship.
However, after about age five the child exhibits one primary consistent
pattern of attachment in relationships.
The pattern the child develops after age five demonstrates the
specific parenting styles used during the developmental stages within
the child. These attachment patterns are associated with behavioural
patterns and can help further predict a child's future personality.
Attachment patterns
"The
strength of a child's attachment behaviour in a given circumstance does
not indicate the 'strength' of the attachment bond. Some insecure
children will routinely display very pronounced attachment behaviours,
while many secure children find that there is no great need to engage in
either intense or frequent shows of attachment behaviour".
Secure attachment
A toddler who is securely attached to its parent (or other familiar
caregiver) will explore freely while the caregiver is present, typically
engages with strangers, is often visibly upset when the caregiver
departs, and is generally happy to see the caregiver return. The extent
of exploration and of distress are affected by the child's temperamental
make-up and by situational factors as well as by attachment status,
however. A child's attachment is largely influenced by their primary
caregiver's sensitivity to their needs. Parents who consistently (or
almost always) respond to their child's needs will create securely
attached children. Such children are certain that their parents will be
responsive to their needs and communications.
In the traditional Ainsworth et al. (1978) coding of the Strange
Situation, secure infants are denoted as "Group B" infants and they are
further subclassified as B1, B2, B3, and B4.
Although these subgroupings refer to different stylistic responses to
the comings and goings of the caregiver, they were not given specific
labels by Ainsworth and colleagues, although their descriptive
behaviours led others (including students of Ainsworth) to devise a
relatively 'loose' terminology for these subgroups. B1's have been
referred to as 'secure-reserved', B2's as 'secure-inhibited', B3's as
'secure-balanced,' and B4's as 'secure-reactive.' In academic
publications however, the classification of infants (if subgroups are
denoted) is typically simply "B1" or "B2" although more theoretical and
review-oriented papers surrounding attachment theory may use the above
terminology.
Securely attached children are best able to explore when they
have the knowledge of a secure base to return to in times of need. When
assistance is given, this bolsters the sense of security and also,
assuming the parent's assistance is helpful, educates the child in how
to cope with the same problem in the future. Therefore, secure
attachment can be seen as the most adaptive attachment style. According
to some psychological researchers, a child becomes securely attached
when the parent is available and able to meet the needs of the child in a
responsive and appropriate manner. At infancy and early childhood, if
parents are caring and attentive towards their children, those children
will be more prone to secure attachment.
Anxious-resistant insecure attachment
Anxious-resistant insecure attachment is also called ambivalent attachment.
In general, a child with an anxious-resistant attachment style will
typically explore little (in the Strange Situation) and is often wary of
strangers, even when the caregiver is present. When the caregiver
departs, the child is often highly distressed. The child is generally
ambivalent when they return.
The Anxious-Ambivalent/Resistant strategy is a response to
unpredictably responsive caregiving, and that the displays of anger or
helplessness towards the caregiver on reunion can be regarded as a
conditional strategy for maintaining the availability of the caregiver
by preemptively taking control of the interaction.
The C1 subtype is coded when:
"...resistant behavior is particularly conspicuous. The
mixture of seeking and yet resisting contact and interaction has an
unmistakably angry quality and indeed an angry tone may characterize
behavior in the preseparation episodes..."
The C2 subtype is coded when:
"Perhaps the most conspicuous characteristic of C2 infants is
their passivity. Their exploratory behavior is limited throughout the SS
and their interactive behaviors are relatively lacking in active
initiation. Nevertheless, in the reunion episodes they obviously want
proximity to and contact with their mothers, even though they tend to
use signalling rather than active approach, and protest against being
put down rather than actively resisting release...In general the C2 baby
is not as conspicuously angry as the C1 baby."
Anxious-avoidant insecure attachment
A child with the anxious-avoidant insecure attachment style will
avoid or ignore the caregiver – showing little emotion when the
caregiver departs or returns. The child will not explore very much
regardless of who is there. Infants classified as anxious-avoidant (A)
represented a puzzle in the early 1970s. They did not exhibit distress
on separation, and either ignored the caregiver on their return (A1
subtype) or showed some tendency to approach together with some tendency
to ignore or turn away from the caregiver (A2 subtype). Ainsworth and
Bell theorised that the apparently unruffled behaviour of the avoidant
infants is in fact as a mask for distress, a hypothesis later evidenced
through studies of the heart-rate of avoidant infants.
Infants are depicted as anxious-avoidant insecure when there is:
"...conspicuous avoidance of the mother in the reunion
episodes which is likely to consist of ignoring her altogether, although
there may be some pointed looking away, turning away, or moving
away...If there is a greeting when the mother enters, it tends to be a
mere look or a smile...Either the baby does not approach his mother upon
reunion, or they approach in 'abortive' fashions with the baby going
past the mother, or it tends to only occur after much coaxing...If
picked up, the baby shows little or no contact-maintaining behavior; he
tends not to cuddle in; he looks away and he may squirm to get down."
Ainsworth's narrative records showed that infants avoided the
caregiver in the stressful Strange Situation Procedure when they had a
history of experiencing rebuff of attachment behaviour. The child's
needs are frequently not met and the child comes to believe that
communication of needs has no influence on the caregiver. Ainsworth's
student Mary Main
theorised that avoidant behaviour in the Strange Situational Procedure
should be regarded as 'a conditional strategy, which paradoxically
permits whatever proximity is possible under conditions of maternal
rejection' by de-emphasising attachment needs.
Main proposed that avoidance has two functions for an infant whose
caregiver is consistently unresponsive to their needs. Firstly, avoidant
behaviour allows the infant to maintain a conditional proximity with
the caregiver: close enough to maintain protection, but distant enough
to avoid rebuff. Secondly, the cognitive processes organising avoidant
behaviour could help direct attention away from the unfulfilled desire
for closeness with the caregiver – avoiding a situation in which the
child is overwhelmed with emotion ('disorganised distress'), and
therefore unable to maintain control of themselves and achieve even
conditional proximity.
Disorganized/disoriented attachment
Ainsworth herself was the first to find difficulties in fitting all
infant behaviour into the three classifications used in her Baltimore
study. Ainsworth and colleagues sometimes observed 'tense movements such
as hunching the shoulders, putting the hands behind the neck and
tensely cocking the head, and so on. It was our clear impression that
such tension movements signified stress, both because they tended to
occur chiefly in the separation episodes and because they tended to be
prodromal to crying. Indeed, our hypothesis is that they occur when a
child is attempting to control crying, for they tend to vanish if and
when crying breaks through'.
Such observations also appeared in the doctoral theses of Ainsworth's
students. Crittenden, for example, noted that one abused infant in her
doctoral sample was classed as secure (B) by her undergraduate coders
because her strange situation behaviour was "without either avoidance or
ambivalence, she did show stress-related stereotypic headcocking
throughout the strange situation. This pervasive behaviour, however, was
the only clue to the extent of her stress".
Drawing on records of behaviours discrepant with the A, B, and C
classifications, a fourth classification was added by Ainsworth's
colleague Mary Main.
In the Strange Situation, the attachment system is expected to be
activated by the departure and return of the caregiver. If the behaviour
of the infant does not appear to the observer to be coordinated in a
smooth way across episodes to achieve either proximity or some relative
proximity with the caregiver, then it is considered 'disorganised' as it
indicates a disruption or flooding of the attachment system (e.g. by
fear). Infant behaviours in the Strange Situation Protocol coded as
disorganised/disoriented include overt displays of fear; contradictory
behaviours or affects occurring simultaneously or sequentially;
stereotypic, asymmetric, misdirected or jerky movements; or freezing and
apparent dissociation. Lyons-Ruth has urged, however, that it should be
wider 'recognized that 52% of disorganized infants continue to approach
the caregiver, seek comfort, and cease their distress without clear
ambivalent or avoidant behavior.'
There is 'rapidly growing interest in disorganized attachment' from clinicians and policy-makers as well as researchers. Yet the Disorganized/disoriented attachment (D) classification has been criticised by some for being too encompassing.
In 1990, Ainsworth put in print her blessing for the new 'D'
classification, though she urged that the addition be regarded as
'open-ended, in the sense that subcategories may be distinguished', as
she worried that the D classification might be too encompassing and
might treat too many different forms of behaviour as if they were the
same thing.
Indeed, the D classification puts together infants who use a somewhat
disrupted secure (B) strategy with those who seem hopeless and show
little attachment behaviour; it also puts together infants who run to
hide when they see their caregiver in the same classification as those
who show an avoidant (A) strategy on the first reunion and then an
ambivalent-resistant (C) strategy on the second reunion. Perhaps
responding to such concerns, George and Solomon have divided among
indices of Disorganized/disoriented attachment (D) in the Strange
Situation, treating some of the behaviours as a 'strategy of
desperation' and others as evidence that the attachment system has been
flooded (e.g. by fear, or anger).
Crittenden also argues that some behaviour classified as
Disorganized/disoriented can be regarded as more 'emergency' versions of
the avoidant and/or ambivalent/resistant strategies, and function to
maintain the protective availability of the caregiver to some degree.
Sroufe et al. have agreed that 'even disorganised attachment behaviour
(simultaneous approach-avoidance; freezing, etc.) enables a degree of
proximity in the face of a frightening or unfathomable parent'.
However, 'the presumption that many indices of "disorganisation" are
aspects of organised patterns does not preclude acceptance of the notion
of disorganisation, especially in cases where the complexity and
dangerousness of the threat are beyond children's capacity for
response'.
For example, 'Children placed in care, especially more than once, often
have intrusions. In videos of the Strange Situation Procedure, they
tend to occur when a rejected/neglected child approaches the stranger in
an intrusion of desire for comfort, then loses muscular control and
falls to the floor, overwhelmed by the intruding fear of the unknown,
potentially dangerous, strange person'.
Main and Hesse
found that most of the mothers of these children had suffered major
losses or other trauma shortly before or after the birth of the infant
and had reacted by becoming severely depressed.
In fact, 56% of mothers who had lost a parent by death before they
completed high school subsequently had children with disorganized
attachments. Subsequently, studies, whilst emphasising the potential importance of unresolved loss, have qualified these findings.
For example, Solomon and George found that unresolved loss in the
mother tended to be associated with disorganised attachment in their
infant primarily when they had also experienced an unresolved trauma in
their life prior to the loss.
Later patterns and the dynamic-maturational model
Studies
of older children have identified further attachment classifications.
Main and Cassidy observed that disorganized behaviour in infancy can
develop into a child using caregiving-controlling or punitive behaviour
in order to manage a helpless or dangerously unpredictable caregiver. In
these cases, the child's behaviour is organised, but the behaviour is
treated by researchers as a form of 'disorganization' (D) since the
hierarchy in the family is no longer organised according to parenting
authority.
Patricia McKinsey Crittenden
has elaborated classifications of further forms of avoidant and
ambivalent attachment behaviour. These include the caregiving and
punitive behaviours also identified by Main and Cassidy (termed A3 and
C3 respectively), but also other patterns such as compulsive compliance
with the wishes of a threatening parent (A4).
Crittenden's ideas developed from Bowlby's proposal that 'given
certain adverse circumstances during childhood, the selective exclusion
of information of certain sorts may be adaptive. Yet, when during
adolescence and adult the situation changes, the persistent exclusion of
the same forms of information may become maladaptive'.
Crittenden proposed that the basic components of human experience of danger are two kinds of information:
- 'Affective information' – the emotions provoked by the potential for danger, such as anger or fear. Crittenden terms this 'affective information'. In childhood this information would include emotions provoked by the unexplained absence of an attachment figure. Where an infant is faced with insensitive or rejecting parenting, one strategy for maintaining the availability of their attachment figure is to try to exclude from consciousness or from expressed behaviour any emotional information that might result in rejection.
- Causal or other sequentially ordered knowledge about the potential for safety or danger. In childhood this would include knowledge regarding the behaviours that indicate an attachment figure's availability as a secure haven. If knowledge regarding the behaviours that indicate an attachment figure's availability as a secure haven is subject to segregation, then the infant can try to keep the attention of their caregiver through clingy or aggressive behaviour, or alternating combinations of the two. Such behaviour may increase the availability of an attachment figure who otherwise displays inconsistent or misleading responses to the infant's attachment behaviours, suggesting the unreliability of protection and safety.
Crittenden proposes that both kinds of information can be split off
from consciousness or behavioural expression as a 'strategy' to maintain
the availability of an attachment figure: 'Type A strategies were
hypothesized to be based on reducing perception of threat to reduce the
disposition to respond. Type C was hypothesized to be based on
heightening perception of threat to increase the disposition to respond'
Type A strategies split off emotional information about feeling
threatened and type C strategies split off temporally-sequenced
knowledge about how and why the attachment figure is available. By
contrast, type B strategies effectively use both kinds of information
without much distortion.
For example: a toddler may have come to depend upon a type C strategy
of tantrums in working to maintain the availability of an attachment
figure whose inconsistent availability has led the child to distrust or
distort causal information about their apparent behaviour. This may lead
their attachment figure to get a clearer grasp on their needs and the
appropriate response to their attachment behaviours. Experiencing more
reliable and predictable information about the availability of their
attachment figure, the toddler then no longer needs to use coercive
behaviours with the goal of maintaining their caregiver's availability
and can develop a secure attachment to their caregiver since they trust
that their needs and communications will be heeded.
Significance of patterns
Research based on data from longitudinal studies, such as the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care
and the Minnesota Study of Risk and Adaption from Birth to Adulthood,
and from cross-sectional studies, consistently shows associations
between early attachment classifications and peer relationships as to
both quantity and quality. Lyons-Ruth, for example, found that 'for each
additional withdrawing behavior displayed by mothers in relation to
their infant's attachment cues in the Strange Situation Procedure, the
likelihood of clinical referral by service providers was increased by
50%.'
Secure children have more positive and fewer negative peer
reactions and establish more and better friendships. Insecure-ambivalent
children have a tendency to anxiously but unsuccessfully seek positive
peer interaction whereas insecure-avoidant children appear aggressive
and hostile and may actively repudiate positive peer interaction. On
only a few measures is there any strong direct association between early
experience and a comprehensive measure of social functioning in early
adulthood but early experience significantly predicts early childhood
representations of relationships, which in turn predicts later self and
relationship representations and social behaviour.
Studies have suggested that infants with a high-risk for Autism
Spectrum Disorders (ASD) may express attachment security differently
from infants with a low-risk for ASD.
Behavioural problems and social competence in insecure children
increase or decline with deterioration or improvement in quality of
parenting and the degree of risk in the family environment.
Criticism of the Strange Situation Protocol
Michael Rutter describes the procedure in the following terms:
Father and child
"It is by no means free of limitations (see Lamb, Thompson, Gardener, Charnov & Estes, 1984). To begin with, it is very dependent on brief separations and reunions having the same meaning for all children. This may be a major constraint when applying the procedure in cultures, such as that in Japan (see Miyake et al., 1985), where infants are rarely separated from their mothers in ordinary circumstances. Also, because older children have a cognitive capacity to maintain relationships when the older person is not present, separation may not provide the same stress for them. Modified procedures based on the Strange Situation have been developed for older preschool children (see Belsky et al., 1994; Greenberg et al., 1990) but it is much more dubious whether the same approach can be used in middle childhood. Also, despite its manifest strengths, the procedure is based on just 20 minutes of behaviour. It can be scarcely expected to tap all the relevant qualities of a child's attachment relationships. Q-sort procedures based on much longer naturalistic observations in the home, and interviews with the mothers have developed in order to extend the data base (see Vaughn & Waters, 1990). A further constraint is that the coding procedure results in discrete categories rather than continuously distributed dimensions. Not only is this likely to provide boundary problems, but also it is not at all obvious that discrete categories best represent the concepts that are inherent in attachment security. It seems much more likely that infants vary in their degree of security and there is need for a measurement systems that can quantify individual variation".
Ecological validity and universality of Strange Situation attachment classification distributions
With
respect to the ecological validity of the Strange Situation, a
meta-analysis of 2,000 infant-parent dyads, including several from
studies with non-Western language and/or cultural bases found the global
distribution of attachment categorizations to be A (21%), B (65%), and C
(14%).
This global distribution was generally consistent with Ainsworth et
al.'s (1978) original attachment classification distributions.
However, controversy has been raised over a few cultural
differences in these rates of 'global' attachment classification
distributions. In particular, two studies diverged from the global
distributions of attachment classifications noted above. One study was
conducted in North Germany in which more avoidant (A) infants were found
than global norms would suggest, and the other in Sapporo, Japan, where
more resistant (C) infants were found.
Of these two studies, the Japanese findings have sparked the most
controversy as to the meaning of individual differences in attachment
behaviour as originally identified by Ainsworth et al. (1978).
In a recent study conducted in Sapporo, Behrens et al. (2007)
found attachment distributions consistent with global norms using the
six-year Main & Cassidy scoring system for attachment
classification.
In addition to these findings supporting the global distributions of
attachment classifications in Sapporo, Behrens et al. also discuss the
Japanese concept of amae
and its relevance to questions concerning whether the
insecure-resistant (C) style of interaction may be engendered in
Japanese infants as a result of the cultural practice of amae.
A separate study was conducted in Korea, to help determine if
mother-infant attachment relationships are universal or
culture-specific. The results of the study of infant-mother attachment
were compared to a national sample and showed that the four attachment
patterns, secure, avoidance, ambivalent, and disorganized, exist in
Korea as well as other varying cultures.
Van IJzendoorn
and Kroonenberg conducted a meta-analysis of various countries,
including Japan, Israel, Germany, China, the UK and the USA using the
Strange Situation. The research showed that though there were cultural
differences, the four basic patterns, secure, avoidance, ambivalent,
and disorganized can be found in every culture in which studies have
been undertaken, even where communal sleeping arrangements are the norm.
Selection of the secure pattern is found in the majority of children
across cultures studied. This follows logically from the fact that
attachment theory provides for infants to adapt to changes in the
environment, selecting optimal behavioural strategies. How attachment is expressed shows cultural variations which need to be ascertained before studies can be undertaken.
Discrete or continuous attachment measurement
Regarding
the issue of whether the breadth of infant attachment functioning can
be captured by a categorical classification scheme, continuous measures
of attachment security have been developed which have demonstrated
adequate psychometric properties. These have been used either
individually or in conjunction with discrete attachment classifications
in many published reports.
The original Richter's et al. (1998) scale is strongly related to
secure versus insecure classifications, correctly predicting about 90%
of cases.
Readers further interested in the categorical versus continuous nature
of attachment classifications (and the debate surrounding this issue)
should consult a paper by Fraley and Spieker and the rejoinders in the
same issue by many prominent attachment researchers including J.
Cassidy, A. Sroufe, E. Waters & T. Beauchaine, and M. Cummings.
