Psychology for Dummies (41 page)
Read Psychology for Dummies Online
Authors: Adam Cash
Tags: #Psychology, #General, #Body; Mind & Spirit, #Spirituality
Humans are unarguably social creatures. Some of us are very social, while others are less so, but most people have a desire to socialize at least a little bit. In fact, if a person has an extreme disinterest in social interactions, he or she may have a form of mental illness called
schizoid personality disorder.
Personality disorders are tackled in depth in Chapter 16.
The most basic relationship is between two people — husband and wife, brother and sister, friend and friend. How do we cross the divide between our isolated selves and the people in the world around us? Psychologists have approached this problem by looking at what is typically our first relationship, mother and child. I realize that this is not the first relationship for everyone. Some people are raised by their grandparents or by foster parents. So, in actuality, the earliest relationships that we all have are between our primary caregivers and ourselves, and these people may or may not be our mothers.
Researchers often analyze the primary relationship between a caregiver and a child by using a concept called
attachment.
John Bowlby is considered the dominant figure in attachment research. (Does that mean he has high self-esteem?) Bowlby’s view is that infants are essentially dependent on their caregivers for providing the necessities of life (food, shelter, stimulation, love, and so on). For the most part, infants are helpless, except for their ability to “attach” to and form a relationship with their primary caregiver(s). This connection or attachment ensures that the infant’s needs are met. When an infant finds himself in a threatening situation, he attempts to reconnect to his primary caregiver. This is called
attachment behavior
— anything an infant does to attain or maintain closeness to someone seen as better able to cope with the world. A primary caregiver is viewed as an
attachment figure.
If we know that our attachment figures are available when we need them, we feel more secure.
Bowlby viewed attachment as an essential aspect of leading a productive and psychologically healthy life. In fact, when attachment is lacking, infants often suffer from depression, anxiety, and a generally poor psychological well-being. In the 1950s for example, mental health professionals began to investigate the effects of long-term hospitalization and institutionalization on infants, and they documented severe problems. The adverse effects of inadequate or absent care during infancy and early-childhood were undeniable. Children need access to caregivers who they know and whom they are connected to.
In 1959, H. Harlow conducted an interesting experiment with monkeys. He put baby monkeys in a cage with two different dummy versions of mother monkeys. One of the dummies was made of soft-cloth and had no food; the other one was made of wire but had food for the babies to eat. The babies preferred contact with the soft dummy over the wire dummy in spite of the presence of food. Harlow conducted another experiment in which he deprived baby rhesus monkeys of social contact with other monkeys for as long as six months. When these monkeys were released to be with others, their behavior resembled that of a depressed and anxious human with severe levels of withdrawal, self-harming behavior (such as biting themselves), and nervousness.
It should be undeniable that attachment represents an essential relationship for all of us, but we all know that the ideal and the reality are often two different things, and the area of attachment is no exception. Some of us are in therapy today because of the relationships we had with our primary caregivers. If Bowlby presented us with the ideal, what else is there?
Various
attachment styles
theories address the variations on Bowlby’s ideal relationship. They used the
strange situation
technique to determine the nature and extent of children’s attachment. In the strange situation, a child and her primary caregiver are put in a room with some toys to play with. Then, the primary caregiver gets up and leaves the room. Researchers observe the child’s reaction and record it. After a while, a stranger comes into the room, and the child’s reaction is recorded again. Finally, the primary caregiver comes back into the room, and the child’s behavior is recorded one last time.
Researchers designed the strange situation to answer the following questions:
Does the child use the caregiver as a secure base from which to explore the environment? A
secure base
is a safe place where a child can launch his world explorations.
When the caregiver leaves, does the child fuss or react with protest?
If there is a protest, is it because the child prefers to be with the caregiver, or is it because the child fears that the caregiver won’t return?
When the caregiver returns, does the child welcome him or her back, or does the child react in some other, more resentful or distant manner?
The answers to these questions lead to three basic attachment styles:
Secure:
Securely attached children exhibit the following behavior:
• They use their primary caregiver as a secure base from which to explore their environments.
• They protest a little when their caregiver leaves but eventually calm down, seeming to trust that he or she will return.
• While with strangers or other adults, they’re friendly but not overly so.
• Upon reunion, they go to the primary caregiver and seek connection.
Anxious/ambivalent:
Anxious/ambivalently attached children act in the following ways:
• They do not use their caregivers as secure bases to explore from.
• They sometimes resist initial contact with the caregiver but staunchly resist any attempt to break it off after it has been established.
• They are avoidant or sometimes aggressive in the presence of strangers.
• They cry excessively upon separation and are difficult to console.
Avoidant:
Avoidant attached children act as follows:
• They seem to need less contact from the caregiver.
• They are indifferent when left alone or cry only because they are alone and not because they seem to miss the caregiver.
• Upon the return of the caregiver, they either avoid or ignore him or her.
Before anybody designs his own little “strange situation” at home to see how much his children love him or not, let me tell you about
goodness-of-fit.
Goodness-of-fit refers to how well the primary caregiver and the child are matched in terms of temperament and personality. This fit can have an effect on attachment style and should be considered before anyone writes himself or herself off as a horrible parent or the “unlovable child.”
Caregivers and infants sometimes can look like they’re engaged in a harmonious dance, perfectly synchronized with each other. Other times, they may look like they’ve both got two left feet. If a mother is high strung and energetic, she may not do well with a mellow baby, or vice versa. Remember that the style of interaction and how smooth it goes over is a powerful factor in establishing a secure attachment. So, if you’re having trouble and you think that your child is poorly attached, take a look at the style of interaction and see if anything can be done to smooth it out.