Attachment In Human Lifespan Development

Discuss About The Importance Of Secure In Human Lifespan Development.

At the birth stage, there are two emotional responses that infant exhibit: attraction and withdrawal. Attraction is for those things that are pleasant to them and bring happiness, stimulation, and comfort. And they withdraw from unpleasant simulations that bring discomfort and sadness. Attachment theories made an important contribution to early childhood experience. They helped in the understanding of the infant reactions to environmental stimuli and how they develop. An American psychologist John Bowlby developed the first theory of attachment.

According to Bowlby, (1973, 1980), the attachment is the experience that an infant gets with caregivers that shape their expectations and beliefs on self, the world, and interactions with others. According to him the quality and timing of attachment could determine the levels of development in later life.

The child-parent bonding serves as a perfect predictor of the child future relationships. The first experience and relationship with a parent apply to future relationships’ experiences of the child. In other words, quality early life relationships with the parent give the child positive perspectives on the future relationships and experience expectations (Gearily, 2005). He further proposed that the caregiver or a parent must focus on two main goals in infant life. One is creating the basic sense of trust in the world of the child. The other one is creating the allowance of emotional regulation. When these goals are achieved, the infant bonds well with the caregiver. Furthermore, satisfactory attachment gives more exploration to the environment guided by the trust of the caregiver.

Some scholars have researched on continuity of attachment from infancy to adolescence and adulthood in both low and high-risk variables (Hamilton, 2000; Waters, Merrick, Crowell, & Albersheim, 2000; Lewis. Feiring & Rosenthal, 2000; Weinfeld, Srouf, & Egeland, 2000). Their research reveals that divorce, single parenthood, life-threatening, illnesses, drug abuse, deaths and other life events show attachment insecurity.

Attachment formation

The primary Importance of early attachment is the quality of mother love and close bond between the infant and caregiver which has a tremendous and long-term impact on the child. The facts from psychologists have established that emotionally healthy, happy, harmonious, constructive, and productive depends on the quality of attachment a child gets from the early life. These relationships between infant and caregiver results to either secure or insecure attachment. This means that it may either be positive or negative. Insecure attachment is beyond the scope of this report.

Secure attachment is created when the mother or the caregiver provides an environment where all the needs of the infant are met. These needs are met depending on sensitivity and appropriateness. From infant perspectives, it means that the caregiver observes and understands her needs. By giving signals to stimuli, the infant can communicate with the caregiver, and she expects a sensitive and appropriate response. This attachment can also be created when the caregiver holds or cuddles the infant in a comforting way.

Fostered secure attachments build interactive harmony, and create better understanding and response mechanism of the caregiver. The caregiver creates interest in the infant’s actions and tries to interpret and understand the communications signals. This way, the infant growth, and development of enhanced.

Infants and toddlers love to play and explore the unknown out of their curiosity. To foster security, caregivers, provide toys and activities which the child shows interests. It is important to give them time to play what is interesting to him/her until it is no longer interesting.

Effects of Secure Attachment

The first 4-5 years of emotional attachment establishment last a lifetime. The pattern of early attachment in bigger part influences quality of relationship formation, self-identity and confidence in life. In summary:

A child who experienced a secure attachment at an early age can explore than insecure infants (Water, Whippman, & Sroufe, 1979). They further explained that secure infants become more independent than their insecure peers, Thu,s they are more interested in exploring the world around them. Secure infants also develop a sense of agency. This means that they believe in what they can do. Insecurely attached infants, on the other hand, are less curious, inhibited and withdrawn (Kagan, 1981; Suess, Grossman, Sroufe, 1992).

Many studies have proven positive relationships are developing secure attachment in the early life of an infant and later quality of social life (Coleman, 2003; Lieberman, Doyle, & Markiewicz, 1999). Early childhood education of a secure child shows better social skills and environmental adjustments than their insecure peers (Sroufe, Carlson, & Schulman,1993). Secure infants also demonstrate significantly more acceptance in their peers and have more friends than insecure children.(Kerns, Klepac, & Cole 1996). The level of security in the attachment which an infant feels in his or her early developing age is associated with that child ’s ability to pay attention, focus and learn. The higher grades are seen with students with secure attachment background; they also show higher goal-orientation and cooperation than the student with insecure attachment histories (Crittendem, 1992; Jacobsen & Hofmann, 1997).

Secure children have successful bonds with their teachers, perceive their teachers positively, are confident in success and use teachers as the secure foundation on which their academic excellence is born (O’Conner & Mc Cartney, 2006). These children have high self-esteem and confidence in academic excellence. On the other hand, insecure children are likely to struggle with learning (Wong, Wiest, & Cusick, 2002).

The Adult Attachment

Application of Attachment Theory to Adult Romantic Relationship

Although attachment theory was developed to explain the relationship between infants and their caregivers, Bowlby (1979) believed that attachment is a critical element of human life experience. His perspective was that the attachment also plays a critical role in shaping adults emotions.

The formation of bond in the adult attachment is termed as falling in love, keeping a bond as loving someone, and losing him/her as heartbroken by someone. Equally, fears of loss cause anxiety to partners, and actual loss bring sorrow while both situations are likely to cause anger. A long smooth and peaceful relationship and bond becomes a source of security and joy to the partners.

In early 1980’s, researchers basing their study on Bowlby’s idea found that lonely adults report troubled childhood relationships with caregivers and poor romantic relationships with their partners. This shows that attachment history influences adult loneliness (Rubenstein & Shaver, 1982; Shaver & Hazan, 1987; Weiss, 1973).

Hazan, & Shaver (1987), wrote research to theorize romantic love, as an attachment process. In summary;

1. The same biological system controls the dynamics of emotional and behavioral relationships of infant caregivers and adult romantic relationships.
2. The differences observed in infant caregivers relationships are not different to romantic relationships
3. Individual differences in adult attachments are a reflection of the expectations and beliefs people have formed about themselves and their close relationships with their attachment histories.
4. Romantic love involves the interplay of attachment, caregiving, and sex

Conclusion

Going with the Attachment Theory, the most critical task during the infancy is the creation of a secure bond between caregiver and the child. Numerous studies have demonstrated this to be true by close examination of caregiver and the infant and by contrasting the long-term behavioral outcomes of securely and insecurely attached infants. Positive infant experience couples with a secure relationship with the caregiver create good development trajectory of the child. Conversely, if the caregiver mishandles the infant, it might spell doom to the infant’s development pathway. The child attachment to the caregiver is the founding principle of human development. Thus, emotional relationship and connection are among the critical obligations of the caregiver to the infant.

Securely attached infant use the attachment figure as the support, to explore self and the world. It is through the caregiver the infant can understand him or herself and be able to interpret the environment.

It is now clear that caregiver’s failure to have good infant relationships will result in an appropriate attachment. It has been established that the insecure attachment is as a result of inappropriate caretaking, will make the child have difficult development trajectory throughout the life.

In summary, the environment provided to the infant has a tremendous impact on all aspects of a child early development and as well as later life. This is the infant experience that develops from the early caregiver relationship. The type of attachment is determined by the type of relationships. Healthy and secure attachment leads to positive impacts on the life of an infant. These effects have long-term effects on child’s developmental results. However, negativity, rejections, emotionally insensitive and carelessness in caregiving impact negatively on the child’s attachment development.

References

Bowlby, J. (1969/1982). Attachment and loss, Vol. I, Attachment (2nd edition). New York: Basic.

Bowlby, J. (1979/1994). The making and breaking of affectional bonds. New York: Routledge.

Bowlby, J. (1980). Attachment and loss, Vol. III, Loss: Sadness and depression. New York: Basic Books.

Crittenden, P.M. (1992). Treatment of anxious attachment in infancy and early childhood. Development and Psychopathology, 4, 575-602.

Grearity, A. (2005). Attachment theory and real life: How to make ideas work. Retrieved May 5^th, 2018 from https://education.umn.edu/ceed/publication.

Hamilton, C. E. (2000). Continuity and discontinuity of attachment from infancy through adolescence. Child Development, 71(3), 690-694. doi: 10.1111/1467-8624.00177.

Jacobsen, T., & Hofmann, V. (1997). Children’s attachment representation: longitudinal relations to school behavior and academic competency in middle childhood and adolescence, Development Psychology, 33(4), 703-710.

Kagan, J. (1981). The second year: The emergence of self-awareness. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Lewis, M., Feiring, C., & Rosenthal, S. (2000). Attachment over time. Child Development, 71(3), 707-720. doi: 10.1111/1467-8624.00180.

Lieberman, M., Doyle, A. B., & Markeiwiccz, D. (1999). Development patterns in the security of attachment of mother and father in late childhood and early adolescence: Association with peer relations, Child Development, 32(3), 457-466.

O’Conner, E., & McCartney, K. (2006). Testing associations between young children’s relationships with mothers and teachers. Journals of Education Psychology, 98(1), 87-98.

Rubenstein, C., & Shaver, P. R. (1982). In search of intimacy. New York: Delacorte.

Suess, G., Grossman, K.E., & Scroufe, L.A. (1992). Effect of infant attachment to mother and father on quality adoption in preschool: From dyadic to the individual organization of self. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 15, 43-65.

Water, E., Whippman, J., & Scroufe, L.A. (1979). Attachment, positive affect, and competence in the peer group: Two construct studies in validation. Child Development, 50(3), 821-829.

Shaver, P., & Hazan, C. (1987). Being lonely, falling in love: Perspectives from attachment theory. Journal of Social Behavior and Personality, 2, 105-124.

Weiss, R. S. (1973). Loneliness: The experience of emotional and social isolation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Weinfeld, N., Sroufe, L. A., & Egeland, B. (2000). Attachment from infancy to early adulthood in a high-risk sample: Continuity, discontinuity, and their correlates. Child Development, 71(3), 695-702. doi: 10.1111/1467-8624.00178.

Wong, E., Weist, D., Cusick, L. (2002). Perception of autonomy support, parent attachment, competencies, and self-worth as predictors of motivational orientation and academic achievement: an examination of sixth and ninth grade regular education student. Adolescence, 37(147), 255-266.