D.P. Chp 11

an emotional bond with a specific person that is enduring across space & time

- children's early relationships with parents influence the nature of their interactions with others

• - demonstrated caregiver-child attachment relationship using rhesus monkeys
• - did maternal-separation and social isolation experiments on rhesus monkeys; they demonstrated the importance of care-giving and companionship in development (both social and cognitive types)

• Important Points:
• 1) even when the wire mother provided food, the infant monkey spent more time clinging to the cloth surrogate
• 2) monkeys raised by the dummy mothers engaged in strange behavioral patterns later in adult life

children are biologically predisposed to develop attachments

• -secure base (developed by him and Ainsworth)
• -his ideas were extended/tested by his student Mary Ainsworth
• -thought there were 4 phases of attachment

1) preattachment phase (birth to 6 weeks): innate signals to attract attention

2) attachment-in-the-making phase (6 weeks to 6-8 months): respond preferentially to familiar people

3) clear-cut attachment (between 6-8 months and 1-2 years): infants actively seek contact w/ regular caregivers

4) reciprocal relationships (from 1 or 2 years on): developing working partnerships with caregivers

• -developed by Ainsworth to assess infants' attachment to primary caregivers
• - 3 attachment categories (types of attachment)

-secure attachment: attachment style for a majority of infants, who are readily comforted when their caregiver returns after a brief separation (65%)

avoidant attachment: style in which infants IGNORE their caregiver when he or she returns after a brief separation (20-25%)

anxious-ambivalent attachment: style in which infants become extremely upset when their caregiver leaves but reject the caregiver when he or she returns; one of Ainsworth's three types of child attachments (10-15%)

attachment style in which infants give mixed responses when their caregiver leaves and then returns from a short absence (smiles at them, but displaying fear or avoidance)

• - created b/c a small percentage of children didn't fit
• into these categories
• - infants in this category seem to have no consistent
• way of coping with the stress of the strange situation task
• - their behavior is confused or even contradictory; they often appear dazed/disoriented

• - infant or child has a high-quality/unambivalent relationship with attachment figure
• - in strange situation task, a securely attached infant is upset when caregiver leaves, but is happy to see them return; they recover quickly from distress
• - securely attached children can use caregivers as a secure base for exploration
• - 2/3 of American middle class children = securely attached

• - when infants or young children are clingy and stay close to their caregiver
• - describes attachment styple of about 15% of American middle class children
• • in the strange situation, ambivalent infants become upset when the caregiver leaves room
• - they're not comforted by strangers
• • are not easily comforted when the caregiver comes back
• - both seek comfort & resist efforts by the caregiver to comfort them

• - infants or young children seem indifferent toward caregiver; may even avoid them
• - in the strange situation task: these children seem indifferent to caregiver before the caregiver leaves the room & indifferent or avoidant when the caregiver returns
• - if these children get upset when left alone, they're as easily comforted by stranger as by caregiver.
• - affects about 20% of infants from middle-class U.S. families

- parents with secure adult attachments have securely attached children

• 1) parental sensitivity: contributes to the security of an infant's attachment
• 2) intervention studies show (?) a causal relationship between parental sensitivity and security of attachment

• - 1/2 of a group of mothers of 6-month-old babies at risk
• for insecure attachment are randomly assigned to sensitivity training
• - 3 months later, experimental group infants demonstrated secure attachment
• - differences in attachment are continuous @18, 24, & even 3 y/o

• - securely attached infants have closer, more harmonious relationships with peers
• - secure attachment in infancy predicts positive peer and romantic relationships + emotional health in adolescence
• - also predicts higher grades in school

• - conceptual system made up of thoughts and attitudes about oneself
• - may include thoughts about one's physical being, social
• roles, social relationships, & internal characteristics

• - infants have 'rudimentary' sense of self in the first months of life
• - more distinct sense of self @ 8 months shown by presence of separation anxiety
• - 18-20 months: children recognize themselves in mirror
• - 2 y/o: exhibit self-awareness by being embarrassed, shameful, or self-assertive; also their use of language is an
• indicator

• - 3 to 4 y/o's: understand themselves in terms of concrete, observable characteristics; related to their:
• -physical traits
• -physical activities/abilities
• -psychological traits

• - children refine conceptions of self in elementary school because they increasingly engage in social comparison
• -this reflects an increasing ability to use higher-order thinking

• - abstract thinking occurs: allows adolescents to think of themselves in terms of abstract characteristics
• - early adolescence: characterized by a form of egocentrism, personal fable: uniqueness of their own feelings & immortality
• - feelings of having an imaginary audience

• IDENTITY: adolescents must develop a sense
• of personal identity that incorporates numerous aspects of
• self
• - includes: 1) values & goals about the future 2)beliefs, + 3) sexual identity

things that influence identity formation during adolescence:

• 1) parenting style
• - ex: authoritarian parenting
• 2) individual's own behavior
• - ex. drug use undermines teens' ability to develop healthy identities
• 3) magnitude of social context
• - ex: teens from poor communities have limitations that affect identity formation
• 4) historical context
• - ex: teen girls used to focus their search for identity on marriage and family instead of careers

one's overall evaluation of the worth of the self

• - related to how satisfied people are w/ their lives and their overall outlook on things
• - develops early and is affected by a variety of factors throughout life

• SOURCES: 1) interaction btwn nature & nurture 2) sociocultural context
• - there are large individual differences in self-esteem

• - physical appearance, athletic ability, and aspects of intelligence & personality affect self-esteem and are encoded in a person's heredity
• -ex: self-esteem is more similar in siblings who are more genetically similar
• - genetic contribution to self-esteem is stronger for boys than girls

• - boys are more concerned with competence & conduct
• - girls are more concerned with appearance & social behavior
• 

• - at 2 y/o: children begin to become concerned about winning their parents' love/approval
• - parents who tend to be 1) accepting 2) involved with
• their child 3) use supportive (yet firm) parenting practices have children w/ higher self-esteem
• - parents who reject their children for unacceptable behavior (rather than condemning the specific behavior) are likely to instill their children with a sense of worthlessness

-being competent in important domains and subsequently receiving APPROVAL and support for competence makes for high self-esteem

• 1) peer acceptance
• 2) internalized standards, especially as children approach adolescence

• 1) the transition from elementary to junior high school
• 2) being an adolescent living in poverty in an urban environment (in US)

• - UNTIL 10 y/o: young Euro-American children have higher self-esteem than African-American peers
• - the trend reverses slightly AFTER age 10

• - minority-group parents can help children develop high self-esteem/sense of well-being by:
• 1) instilling them with pride in their culture
• 2) being supportive
• 3) helping them deal with prejudice

• - self-esteem scores: lower in China, Japan, & Korea than in Western nations
• - fundamental differences btwn Asian & Western cultures that affect the meaning of self-esteem.
• - society as a whole >> individual (?????)

adolescents' belief that everyone else is focused on the adolescent's appearance and behavior

-this belief causes adolescents to be preoccupied with what others think of them

a conceptual system consisting of one's thoughts and attitudes about oneself

-an emerging understanding of this is apparent when a child succeeds at the 'rough test' and makes movements toward wiping the spot off of his or her own face rather than off of the image in the mirror

the identity-status category in which an individual does not have any firm commitments but is exploring various options

-individuals with this identity status tend to be high in self-esteem and high in anxiety, and they tend to move into identity-achievement status

the identity-status category in which an individual has explored various options and has made an autonomous commitment to personal decisions such as ideology, occupation, & sexual behavior

-in modern, Western cultures, individuals who have attained this identity status tend to be more socially mature and more highly motivated than their peers

working models of attachment relationships that guide parents' attachments with their own children and are believed to be based on their perceptions of their own childhood experiences

-this is generally assessed by asking adults to discuss their early childhood attachments and how they believe those early relationships have shaped them

method developed by Mary Ainsworth to assess infants' attachments to their primary caregivers

-during this, the infants' behaviors, including attempts to seek closeness with the caregiver, resistance to or avoidance of the caregiver, & interactions with the caregiver from a distance, are observed

the identity-status category in which an individual does not have any firm commitments and is not making progress toward them

-individuals with this identity status tend to be the most at risk for drug abuse

the notion that an attachment figure's presence provides a child with a sense of safety and confidence that enables the child to explore the environment

-a child whose caregiver does not serve this function may be unable to fully explore the environment, thereby decreasing oportunities for learning

the identity-status category in which an individual has not engaged in any identity exploration and has established an identity based on the choices or values of others

-individuals with this identity status tend to believe that authority figures should make decisions for them

adolescents' belief that they, and especially their feelings, are unique and special

-an adolescent who says to his or her parents, 'but you don't understand how it feels to be a teenager,' is demonstrating this form of egocentrism

a theory that hypothesizes that children are biologically predisposed to form attachments with their caregivers as a means of increasing their chances of survival

-this theory was proposed by JOHN BOWLBY

a pattern of attachmentin which a child has a relatively poor-quality relationship with the attachment figure

the process of judging oneself against the psychological, behavioral, or physical functioning of others in order to evaluate oneself

-elementary-school children's engagement in social comparison causes them to refine their conceptions of self to include attention to discrepancies between their own and others' behavior and characteristics

Erikson's psychosocial stage of development that occurs during adolescence in which the crisis involves the construction of a coherent identity

a pattern of attachment in which a child has a high-quality relationship with the attachment figure

-children who exhibited this pattern of attachment as infants tend to have closer, more harmonious relationships with their peers than do other children

an identity that represents the opposite of what is valued by people around the adolescent

-Erikson believed the adoption of this is some adolescents' means of getting noticed by their parents when other attempts have failed

a crucial factor contributing to the security of an infant's attachment that includes responsive caregiving when children are distressed

-parents who do not read their infants' signals correctly & do not respond appropriately to a baby who is crying vs. smiling would be considered to have LOW parental sensitivity

an incomplete and sometimes incoherent sense of self that results from an unsuccessful resolution of Erikson's identity versus identity-confusion stage

-adolescents in this state often feel lost, isolated, or depressed

one's overall evaluation of the worth of the self and the feelings associated with that evaluation

• -although it is often assumed that minority children have poorer self-esteem than than majority children, this is generally not the case
• -perhaps b/c of minority cultures' strong and positive ethnic identity

a pattern of attachment in which a child appears to be indifferent towards the caregiver and may stay away from the caregiver

-in the Strange Situation task, infants with this pattern of attachment often ignore their caregivers when they enter the room following a separation episode and ignore or turn away from them when they are in the room

a pattern of attachment in which a child is clingy and stays close to the caregiver rather than exploring the environment

-the mothers of infants who display this pattern of attachment have been found to be inconsistent in their caregiving and are often anxious or overwhelmed

a pattern of attachment in which a child appears to have no consistent way of coping with the Strange Situation and thus behaves in a confused or contradictory manner

-this attachment category is often associated with a history of parental abuse

a mental representation of the self, of attachment figures, & of relationships in general that is a result of experiences with caregivers

-as a result of this, if children's caregivers are unresponsive and unavailable, children may hold negative perceptions of themselves and may believe that all relationships will be negative and unfulfilling

an individual's preference in regard to males or females as the object of erotic feelings

close, enduring emotional bond with a specific person

-the security of this appears to have many short and long-term consequences for children's adjustment

a time-out period in which an adolescent can explore activities that lead to self-discovery without having to take on any adult roles

-Erikson argued for the importance of psychosocial moratorium in modern society because of the complexity of achieving an identity

an individual's sense of belonging to an ethnic group

-this includes the degree to which individuals associate their thinking, perception, feelings and behavior with membership in their ethnic group

premature commitment to an identity without adequately considering other choices

-an example of this is an individual who becomes a minister simply because his parent is one

young individuals who experience same-sex attractions

-for these individuals, the question of personal sexual identity is often confusing & painful

an integration of various aspects of self into a coherent whole

-accoring to Erikson, this is a successful resolution of identity issues

attachment figures, the self, and relationships IN GENERAL

fails to greet mother when she returns to the room

INSECURE/RESISTANT

INVOLVES OTHERS' EVALUATIONS OF THEM

ADOLESCENCE

research has indicated that adolescents in the IDENTITY DIFFUSION state are MOST at risk for drug abuse