Attachment theories

• Babies


  • Begin to be attracted to human faces and voices
  • First Smiles begin around 6 weeks
  • Learning to distinguish between faces, showing obvious pleasure when they recognise faces
  • Happy to be handled by humans
  • Begin to miss key people and prefer to be with mother than just alone
  • Show signs of being distressed when in presence of strangers
  • Develop one particularly strong attachment
• Key Person


  After making specific attachment, babies go on to form multiple attachments - this an important part of the socialisation process
• From 3 months
• Multiple attachm
• Stages of Separation Anxiety

  • Protest: children may cry, struggle to escape, kick and show anger
  • Despair: children show calmer behavior, may be withdrawn & sad, perform comfort behaviors like thumb sucking or rocking
  • Detachment: child may appear to be over the separation and start to join in activities, but the effects may be longer lasting as child has learned not to trust people they care for
• Attachment disorder


  The condition of long-term consequences of maternal deprivation, including delinquency, reduced intelligence, increased aggression, depression, and affection psychopathy (difficulty forming lasting relationships, lack of ability to be genuinely affectionate, acting on impulse with little regard for consequence, excessive lying)
• Attachment Separation anxiety


  A set of behaviors and actions that occur when a child is distressed as a result of the person or people they are attached to being absent
• Criticisms of Bowlby
• The role of mother was over-emphasised
• Attachments to more than one person was not explored
• The quality of substitute care was not considered
• Bowlby's evolutionary theory of attachment

  Children come into the world biologically pre-programmed to form attachments with others, because this will help them survive
• Attachment


  A special relationship bond between a child and people who are emotionally involved in their life
• Research has repeatedly shown that the quality of these ties will shape a child's ability to form other relationships later in life
• Bowlby found that meeting physical needs was not enough, psychological needs also need to be met
• Features of Bowlby


  • Monotropy
  • Critical period (0-3 years)
  • Children need parenting
  • Children show distress when separated from main carer
  • Internal working model