Influences on Attachment
The most important determinant of infant attachment is the caregiver’s ability to consistently and sensitively respond to the child’s signals (Ainsworth et al., 1978; Behrens, Parker, & Haltigan, 2011). Infants become securely attached to mothers who are sensitive and offer high-quality responses to their signals, who accept their role as caregiver, who are accessible and cooperative with infants, who are not distracted by their own thoughts and needs, and who feel a sense of efficacy (Gartstein & Iverson, 2014). Mothers of securely attached infants provide stimulation and warmth and consistently synchronize or match their interactions with their infants’ needs (Beebe et al., 2010). Secure mother–infant dyads show more positive interactions and fewer negative interactions compared with insecure dyads (Guo et al., 2015). The goodness of fit between the infant and parent’s temperament influences attachment, supporting the role of reciprocal interactions in attachment (Seifer et al., 2014).
The most important determinant of infant attachment is the caregiver’s ability to consistently and sensitively respond to the child’s signals
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Infants who are insecurely attached have mothers who tend to be more rigid, unresponsive, inconsistent, and demanding (Gartstein & Iverson, 2014). The insecure-avoidant attachment pattern is associated with parental unavailability or rejection. Insecure-resistant attachment is associated with inconsistent and unresponsive parenting. Parents may respond inconsistently, offering overstimulating and intrusive caregiving at times and unresponsive care that is not attentive to the infant’s signals at other times. Frightening parental behavior (at the extreme, child abuse) is thought to play a role in insecure disorganized attachment (Duschinsky, 2015). Disorganized attachment is more common among infants who have been abused or raised in particularly poor caregiving environments; however, disorganized attachment itself is not an indicator of abuse (Granqvist et al., 2017; Lamb & Lewis, 2015).
Parent–infant interactions and relationships are influenced by many contextual factors. For example, conflict among parents is associated with lower levels of attachment security (Tan, McIntosh, Kothe, Opie, & Olsson, 2018). Insecure attachment responses may therefore represent adaptive responses to poor caregiving environments (Weinfield, Sroufe, Egeland, & Carlson, 2008). For example, not relying on an unsupportive parent (such as by developing an insecure-avoidant attachment) may represent a good strategy for infants. Toddlers who show an avoidant attachment rend to rely on self-regulated coping rather than turning to others, perhaps an adaptive response to an emotionally absent parent (Zimmer-Gembeck et al., 2017).
Stability of Attachment
Attachment patterns tend to be stable over infancy and early childhood, especially when securely attached infants receive continuous responsive care (Ding, Xu, Wang, Li, & Wang, 2014; Marvin, Britner, & Russell, 2016). The continuity of care influences the stability of attachment. For example, negative experiences can disrupt secure attachment. The loss of a parent, parental divorce, a parent’s psychiatric disorder, and physical abuse, as well as changes in family stressors, adaptive processes, and living conditions, can transform a secure attachment into an insecure attachment pattern later in childhood or adolescence (Feeney & Monin, 2016; Lyons-Ruth & Jacobvitz, 2016).
Contextual factors such as low SES, family and community stressors, and the availability of supports influence the stability of attachment through their effect on parents’ emotional and physical resources and the quality of parent–infant interactions. (Booth-LaForce et al., 2014; Thompson, 2016; Van Ryzin, Carlson, & Sroufe, 2011). Securely attached infants reared in contexts that pose risks to development are at risk to develop insecure attachments, whereas risky contexts tend to stabilize insecure attachment over time (Pinquart, Feußner, & Ahnert, 2013). An insecure attachment between child and parent can be overcome by changing maladaptive interaction patterns, increasing sensitivity on the part of the parent, and fostering consistent and developmentally appropriate responses to children’s behaviors. Pediatricians, counselors, and social workers can help parents identify and change ineffective parenting behaviors to improve parent–child interaction patterns.
Although most research on attachment has focused on the mother–infant bond, we know that infants form multiple attachments (Dagan & Sagi-Schwartz, 2018). Consider the Efe foragers of the Democratic Republic of Congo, in which infants are cared for by many people, as adults’ availability varies with their hunting and gathering duties (Morelli, 2015). Efe infants experience frequent changes in residence and camp, exposure to many adults, and frequent interactions with multiple caregivers. It is estimated that the Efe infant will typically come into contact with 9 to 14 and as many as 20 people within a 2-hour period. Efe infants are reared in an intensely social community and develop many trusting relationships—many attachments to many people (Morelli, 2015). On a smaller scale, Western infants also develop multiple attachments to mothers, fathers, family members, and caregivers. Multiple attachment relationships offer important developmental opportunities. For example, an infant’s secure attachment relationship with a father can compensate for the negative effects of an insecure attachment to a mother (Dagan & Sagi-Schwartz, 2018; Grazyna Kochanska & Kim, 2013; Oldt et al., 2014). It is important that infants develop attachments with some caregivers—but which caregivers, whether mothers, fathers, or other responsive adults, matters less than the bond itself. Many infants are cared for by multiple adults in child care settings. The accompanying Applied Developmental Science feature discusses how the quality of infant child care affects developmental outcomes.
Applying Developmental Science
Infant Child Care
High-quality child care is associated with gains in cognitive and language development over the first 3 years of life.
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In the United States, more than half of all mothers of infants under 1 year old, and over two thirds of mothers of children under 6, are employed (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2016). The infants and young children of working mothers are cared for in a variety of settings: in center-based care, in the home of someone other than a relative, or with a relative such as a father, grandparent, or older sibling (Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics, 2014). A common misconception is that nonfamilial center-based care is damaging to children’s development and places children at risk for insecure attachment. However, this belief is not supported by research. What are the effects of nonparental care?
One of the best sources of information about the effects of nonparental care is a longitudinal study of over 1,300 children conducted by the National Institute of Child Health and Development (NICHD).