Attachment--and loss.

How we raise young children is one of today's most highly personalized and sharply politicized issues, in part because each of us can claim some level of "expertise." The debate has intensified as discoveries about our development-in the womb and in the first months and years-have reached the popular media. How can we use our burgeoning knowledge to assure the well-being of all young children, for their own sake as well as for the sake of our nation? Drawing from new findings, this book presents important conclusions about nature-versus-nurture, the impact of being born into a working family, the effect of politics on programs for children, the costs and benefits of intervention, and other issues. The committee issues a series of challenges to decision makers regarding the quality of child care, issues of racial and ethnic diversity, the integration of children's cognitive and emotional development, and more. Authoritative yet accessible, From Neurons to Neighborhoods presents the evidence about "brain wiring" and how kids learn to speak, think, and regulate their behavior. It examines the effect of the climate-family, child care, community-within which the child grows.

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From Neurons to Neighborhoods: The Science of Early Childhood Development

Erik Eriksen is a remarkable individual. He has no college degrees yet is Professor of Human Development at Harvard University. He came to psychology via art, which explains why the reader will find him painting contexts and backgrounds rather than stating dull facts and concepts. He has been a training psychoanalyst for many years as well as a perceptive observer of cultural and social settings and their effect on growing up. This is not just a book on childhood. It is a panorama of our society. Anxiety in young children, apathy in American Indians, confusion in veterans of war, and arrogance in young Nazis are scrutinized under the psychoanalytic magnifying glass. The material is well written and devoid of technical jargon. The theme of the volume is that it is human to have a long childhood which will leave a lifelong residue of emotional immaturity in man. Primitive groups and

Childhood and Society.

* Caring for children * The origins of attachment theory * Psychoanalysis as art and science * Psychoanalysis as a natural science * Violence in the family * On knowing what you are not supposed to know and feeling what you are not supposed to feel * The role of attachment in personality development * Attachment, communication, and the therapeutic process * Developmental psychiatry comes of age

A Secure Base. Parent-Child Attachment and Healthy Human Development. New York (Basic Books) 1988.

The chapter begins with a distinction made between the interactions children have with peers, the relationships they form with peers, and the groups and networks within which peer interactions and relationships occur. From this conceptual overview, a review of relevant theories is presented. Thereafter, a developmental perspective of peer interactions, relationships, and groups is presented covering the periods of infancy, toddlerhood, early childhood, middle childhood, and adolescence. Subsequently, methods and measures pertaining to the study of children's peer experiences are described. Next, we examine factors that may account for peer acceptance and rejection as well as qualitatively rich and poor friendships. Among the factors discussed are included temperament (biological factors), sex of child, parenting, parent-child relationships, and culture. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the extent to which individual differences in peer acceptance, rejection and friendship (prevalence and quality) predict adaptive and maladaptive developmental outcomes and a suggested agenda for future research.


Keywords:

friendship;
peer interactions;
peer relationships;
peer rejection;
social acceptance;
social competence

Peer Interactions, Relationships, and Groups

This longitudinal study of forty-four families explored fathers’ as compared to mothers’ specific contribution to their children's attachment representation at ages 6, 10, and 16 years. In toddlerhood, fathers’ and mothers’ play sensitivity was evaluated with a new assessment, the sensitive and challenging interactive play scale (SCIP). Fathers’ SCIP scores were predicted by fathers’ caregiving quality during the first year, were highly consistent across 4 years, and were closely linked to the fathers’ own internal working model of attachment. Qualities of attachment as assessed in the Strange Situation to both parents were antecedents for children's attachment security in the Separation Anxiety Test at age 6. Fathers’ play sensitivity and infant–mother quality of attachment predicted children's internal working model of attachment at age 10, but not vice versa. Dimensions of adolescents’ attachment representations were predicted by fathers’ play sensitivity only. The results confirmed our main assumption that fathers’ play sensitivity is a better predictor of the child's long-term attachment representation than the early infant–father security of attachment. The ecological validity of measuring fathers’ sensitive and challenging interactive play behavior as compared to infant proximity seeking in times of distress is highlighted. Findings are discussed with respect to a wider view on attachment in that both parents shape their children's psychological security but each in his or her unique way.

The Uniqueness of the Child–Father Attachment Relationship: Fathers’ Sensitive and Challenging Play as a Pivotal Variable in a 16‐year Longitudinal Study

Attachment research has shown the emergence of individual differences in the security of infant-mother attachment during the first year of life as well as their importance for later social-emotional development. A biobehavioral perspective may help settle disagreements about the validity and interpretation of 12-month-old infants' different behavioral patterns of attachment assessed by Ainsworth's Strange Situation. It was shown that, despite less overt distress in insecure-avoidant infants after short separations from the mother, overall cardiac measures indicate arousal patterns similar to the secure infants during separation. However, differences in cardiac response emerged with regard to object versus person orientation during reunion. Additionally, findings of increased cortisol in both insecure-avoidant and disorganized infants support the theoretical interpretation that these infants, in contrast to secure infants, lack an appropriate coping strategy.

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Biobehavioral Organization in Securely and Insecurely Attached Infants.

Our longitudinal study was conducted in Bielefeld, North Germany. In our home observations we focused on infant crying and maternal responsiveness, on behaviors relevant to close bodily contact, and on infant responses to brief everyday separations and reunions. All these behaviors were found by Ainsworth et al. (1978) to be closely linked to the development of different patterns of infant-mother attachment. We also used Ainsworth's maternal sensitivity scale to make global ratings of maternal behavior during the infant's first year and correlated these ratings with infant attachment patterns in the Strange Situation. In addition, we tried to ascer-

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/3333836.pdf

Maternal sensitivity and newborns' orientation responses as related to quality of attachment in northern Germany.

Hinde, Ethology and Attachment Theory. Bretherton, In Pursuit of the Internal Working Model Construct and its Relevance to Attachment Relationships. Sroufe, Egeland, Carlson, Collins, Placing Early Attachment Experiences in Developmental Context: The Minnesota Longitudinal Study. Belsky, Attachment Theory and Research in Ecological Perspective: Insights From the Pennsylvania Infant and Family Development Project and the NICHD Study of Early Child Care. K. Grossmann, K. E. Grossmann, Kindler, Early Care and the Roots of Attachment and Partnership Representations: The Bielefeld and Regensburg Longitudinal Studies. H. Steele, M. Steele, Understanding and Resolving Emotional Conflict: The London Parent - child Project. Sagi-Schwartz, Aviezer, Correlates of Attachment to Multiple Caregivers in Kibbutz Children From Birth to Emerging Adulthood: The Haifa Longitudinal Study. Stevenson-Hinde, The Interplay Between Attachment, Temperament, and Maternal Style: A Madingley Perspective. Crowell, Waters, Attachment Representations, Secure-base Behavior, and the Evolution of Adult Relationships: The Stony Brook Adult Relationships Project. Main, Hesse, Kaplan, Predictability of Attachment Behavior and Representational Processes at 1, 6, and 19 Years of Age: The Berkeley Longitudinal Study. Dozier, Manni, Lindhiem, Lessons From the Longitudinal Studies of Attachment.

Attachment From Infancy to Adulthood: The Major Longitudinal Studies

A total of 39 children, classified in Ainsworth's Strange Situation at 12 and 18 months of age with their mothers and fathers, were observed in play groups and given a cartoon-based social perception test at 5 years of age. Children with anxious attachment histories (primarily avoidant in this sample) differed from those with secure histories on a number of single variables, and behavioural profiles based on combinations of variables showed strong significant differences in quality of play, conflict resolution, and problem behaviours. Measures of play competence, conflict resolution, and behaviour problems were significantly related to infant-mother attachment for girls, but not for boys. Overall competence, however, was significantly related to attachment to the mother for both boys and girls. Children with anxious attachment histories also showed misperceptions of cartoon stimuli, more often perceiving negative intentions than children with secure histories. Between-group differences were notably strong...

Klaus E. Grossmann

Papers

The Uniqueness of the Child–Father Attachment Relationship: Fathers’ Sensitive and Challenging Play as a Pivotal Variable in a 16‐year Longitudinal Study

Biobehavioral Organization in Securely and Insecurely Attached Infants.

Maternal sensitivity and newborns' orientation responses as related to quality of attachment in northern Germany.

Attachment From Infancy to Adulthood: The Major Longitudinal Studies

Effects of Infant Attachment to Mother and Father on Quality of Adaptation in Preschool: From Dyadic to Individual Organisation of Self.