Generally, human beings understand the term attachment as a form of constant feeling in which one is emotionally sealed to another person or something. Psychologically, the attachment is widely viewed as that feeling of love and the want for someone else or another individual majorly for care and security. In this case, a good example is that of a mother and her baby. Their attachment will enhance the baby's healthy development, be it physically, emotionally or psychologically. Meaning that the love and care offered by the parent creates a strong bond which facilitates and molds the infant's nurture into a self-oriented person. Also, the sense of confidence and security is built as well as the sensitivity of a parent towards the child's needs is high due to the attachment they have. The paper has an in-depth discussion about the affection and exploratory behavior of one-year-olds in a strange situation and the origin of attachment theory according to Bowlby and Ainsworth with its impacts.
According to psychologists Ainsworth and Witting, their research focused on one-year-old infants to understand the styles and nature of attachment between the two individuals (Gabler et al., 2014). They included three personnel which were the stranger, child, and the child's mother to see how the infant behaved and thus putting to light how attachment is a basic during the child's growth. Generation of a procedure gave a guideline to the research, and the findings reported that styles of attachment principally base on interaction behavior - for instance, closeness and contact seeking, maintaining contact, rejection of proximity and touch and also confrontation to the connection and relieving. The below results showed how the baby responded during a fifteen-second exercise on the scale 1to 7.
Observations After Every 15 Seconds and Indicated in the Category of Behavior
Intensity
Closeness and contact-seeking
Maintaining contact
Rejection of proximity and contact
Confrontation to the connection and relieving
Searching
1
2
ü
3
ü
4
ü
5
ü
6
ü
7
ü
Other identified infants’ behaviors were of exploratory which involved playing with the toys present in the room, looking and moving around in the place. Also, search behaviors showed how the child walked towards the mother’s empty chair and following its mother when she moves to the door. Also, affect displays negative were showed through smiling and crying, which signified the child's comfort or either way. From the results, it can be concluded that there are three attachment styles namely insecure avoidant, secure and insecure-resistant (Meins et al., 2018). According to Witting, the techniques have affected during the early times of interactions with the mother. The table below gives a brief explanation of the same.
Secure
Insecure-avoidant
Insecure resistant
Stranger anxiety
The infant avoids the stranger while alone, but so much friendly with the presence of the mother.
The infant has no fear instead its comfortable with the stranger.
Infant avoids the stranger.
Separation worry
Misery especially when the mother leaves.
Does not get stressed when a mother leaves.
More stressed when the mother leaves.
Get-together behavior
Appears to be happy in the return of the mother.
An infant is little interested with mother's return.
The infant seems to approach the mother but avoids contact.
Others
Blends the mother to be the safe base in their operational environment.
Both the stranger and the mother comforts the baby on an equal basis.
Crying more and surveys little as compared with the two types of styles.
Percentage of the infants analyzed.
74%
13%
13%
Analysis of the data above indicates that the highest rate was covered by the infants who had a secure attachment. Ainsworth and Witting's investigations meant that the children felt confident with an understanding of how their needs were to be met and fulfilled. The figure guaranteed safety in exploring the environment as well as seeking attachment majorly the times of grief (Gillath, 2018). They are also easily soothed when upset, and it only applies to the infants that are securely attached. My argument on the same point is that, for infants to increase a secure attachment, there must be a sensitive caregiver who is alert in recognizing their needs and respond to them promptly in an appropriate way. It will enhance the ability of the child to feel free always and thus a healthy growth.
More so, infants who are insecure avoidant do not accustom to their figure of attachment while surveying the environment. From the table above, they show how they are capable of not relying on the mother in both cases of emotional and physical. According to Ainsworth, the critical observation about them is how they are not interested in seeking attachment, especially when distressed and hence they indicate how they are not put to attention by the caregiver. Possibly their wants are ignored, and the caregiver lacks sensitivity to picture what they need. The figure of attachment is likely to pull out help during complex tasks and usually it cannot be present in situations of distress majorly when emotional. Personally find it to be absurd since the child will develop an attitude of rejection and hence may lead a lonely life which may cause suffering both in health and mental in the rest of life. All the caregivers have to ensure that they do not erode the infant's mind with negative attitudes which are costly and painful in one's life.
Furthermore, the insecure-resistant children, mostly tend to own the resistant behavior, whereby they show signs of a dependent by avoiding attachment figure when they come to interaction. Most challenging is that the infants lack developmental feelings of security around them and hence find it difficult to explore the environment. Witting argues that it is difficult for them to be alleviated and get comforted by the interaction especially when in agony. It indicates the different intensity of response to the infants' needs portrayed by the caregiver. My point of view is that the child will lead a fearful life, hence the denial of access to specific occurrences in life and thus lack of mind expansion to suit in the community. Therefore, the above discussion lands on the conclusion that infants style of attachment depends on how the mother treats the child. According to Groh et al. (2014), secure infants will feel worthy of respect while the resistant ones will tend to develop a negative image towards themselves as compared with avoidant ones who find themselves unworthy.
Besides, Mikulincer et al. (2015), the origin of attachment theory as researched by Bowlby and Mary defined attachment as an enduring and deep emotional bond which links people transversely space and time. Majorly, is illustrated by certain behaviors which are common in children like looking for immediacy to an attachment form when vulnerable or offended. The theory indicates how the relationship between parents and children influences the child's growth. John Bowlby in the 1930s was working as a psychiatrist in a Child Guidance Clinic (CGC) in London. He mostly treated children who suffered emotional disturbance. He was propelled to identify the significance of the mother-child relationship regarding cognitive, social and emotional development. His belief on the bond of the two individuals about separations drove him to come up with the theory of attachment.
Bowlby's another observation was how the infants experienced extreme sorrow following the separation of their mothers even if they were fed by the caregiver; it did not lessen the infant's nervousness. As researched by Saltzman et al. (2017), infants got attached to the mother because of the feeding practices towards the child which led to the emergence of the theory of behavior as there was a connection that lasted psychologically. Researchers claim that attachment grows through various stages of life after a close examination of how the child reacted to the stranger's arrival, social response and anxiety of separation (Bryant et al., 2017). It was noted that the development of the infant's attachment followed a particular sequence which was the social stage ranging from 0-6 weeks, an indiscriminate affection which ranged from 6 weeks- 7 months as per (Peltola et al., 2015). Moreover, the stage of attachment that was specific had a range of 7 months to 9 months respectively. The last scene of devotion was that of multiple which was from 10 months and above where the majority of the babies had established several attachments to a variety of people due to independence.
Evolutionary theory suggests how biologically children exist already programmed for the creation of attachments with other beings for survival. Also, it is said that 0 to 5 years is a crucial developmental stage of affection in which if the child is not attached at this stage, he is likely to suffer from increased hostility and low intelligence (Biringen et al., 2017). Above all, Bowlby and Ainsworth are of great importance because they led to the discovery of the attachment theory which has helped to solve the child's critical way of development. Their research and argument have also resulted in a super growth both mentally, physically and emotionally.
References
Biringen, Z., Harman, J. J., Saunders, H., " Emde, R. N. (2017). Attachment Security andEmotional Availability: The Broadening of Two Prominent Concepts. In Family Dynamics and Romantic Relationships in a Changing Society (pp. 246-265). IGI Global.
Bryant, R. A., Creamer, M., O'Donnell, M., Forbes, D., Felmingham, K. L., Silove, D., ... " Nickerson, A. (2017). Separation from parents during childhood trauma predicts adult attachment security and post-traumatic stress disorder. Psychological medicine, 47(11), 2028-2035.
Gabler, S., Bovenschen, I., Lang, K., Zimmermann, J., Nowacki, K., Kliewer, J., " Spangler, G. (2014). Foster children’s attachment security and behavior problems in the first six months of placement: Associations with foster parents’ stress and sensitivity. Attachment " human development, 16(5), 479-498.
Gillath, O. (2018). Attachment security priming: A systematic review. Current opinion in psychology.
Groh, A. M., Fearon, R. P., Bakermans-Kranenburg, M. J., Van IJzendoorn, M. H., Steele, R. D., " Roisman, G. I. (2014). The significance of attachment security for children’s social competence with peers: A meta-analytic study. Attachment " human development, 16(2), 103-136.
Meins, E., Bureau, J. F., " Fernyhough, C. (2018). Mother-child attachment from infancy to the preschool years: Predicting security and stability. Child development, 89(3), 1022-1038.
Mikulincer, M., " Shaver, P. R. (2015). An attachment perspective on personal security. In Handbook of personal security (pp. 163-176). Psychology Press.
Peltola, M. J., Forssman, L., Puura, K., van IJzendoorn, M. H., " Leppänen, J. M. (2015). Attention to faces expressing negative emotion at 7 months predicts attachment security at 14 months. Child development, 86(5), 1321-1332.
Saltzman, J., Cole, N., Bost, K. K., Fiese, B. H., " Donovan, S. (2017). Responsive Feeding and Breastfeeding Moderate the Association between Maternal Attachment Security and Overeating in 18-Month Old Infants in the STRONG Kids 2 Cohort. The FASEB Journal, 31(1_supplement), 169-4.
