Personality and Social

DevelopmentTemperament and Attachment

Temperament

One of the first ways in which infants demonstrate that they have different personalities is in their temperament , the behavioral and emotional characteristics that are fairly established at birth.

Temperament types

1. Easy2. Difficult3. Slow to Warm up

Easy “Easy” babies are playful, regular in their sleeping and eating patterns , and adaptable to new situations. They are also happy babies and when distressed are easily soothed.

Difficult“Difficult” babies are irritable , irregular in sleeping and eating patterns, and respond intensely and negatively to new situations. They are loud , active and tend to be crabby than happy.

Slow to Warm upInfants associated with this kind of temperament are less grumpy , quieter , and more regular than difficult children but slow to adapt to change.

Early Social BehaviorBy two months of age, infants will

smile at the sight of their mother’s or father’s face.

By their third or fourth month , infants show that they recognize familiar members of the household but infants are still fairly receptive to strangers.

Early Social BehaviorAt about 7 to 8 months , many

infants begin to show wariness or actual distress at the approach of a stranger and to protest strongly when left in an unfamiliar setting or with an unfamiliar person.

Distress over separation from the parent reaches a peak between 14 to 18 months and then gradually declines.

Early Social Behavior By the time they are 3 years old ,

most children are secure enough in their parents’ absence to be able to interact comfortably with other children and adult.

Factors affecting separation fear among children

1.Growth of memory capacity

2.Growth of autonomy

Attachment An infant’s tendency to seek closeness to particular people and to feel more secure in their presence is attachment.

Psychologists at first theorized that attachment to the mother developed because she was the source of food , one of the infant’s most basic needs. But some facts did not fit.

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Psychologist Harry Harlow felt that attachment had to be influenced by more than just the provision of food. So, he designed a study to examine the importance of what he termed contact comfort , the seeming attachment of the monkeys to something soft to touch.

HARLOW’S RHESUS MONKEY EXPERIMENT

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Regardless of which surrogate mother was feeding the monkeys, they all spent significantly more time with the soft , cloth-covered surrogate. Harlow and his colleagues concluded that “contact comfort was an important basic affectional or love variable.

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According to John Bowlby’s attachment theory, a child’s failure to form a secure attachment to one or more persons in the early years is related to an inability to develop close personal relationships in adulthood.

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Mary Ainsworth came up with a special experiment design to measure the attachment of an infant to the caregiver called the Strange Situation.

Strange situation

1.The mother and the child enter the experimental room. The mother places the baby on the floor surrounded by toys and then goes to sit at the opposite end of the room.

2.A female stranger enters the room, sits

quietly for one minute, converses with the mother for a minute , and then attempts to engage the baby in play with a toy.

3. The mother leaves the room unobtrusively. If the baby is not upset , the stranger returns to sitting quietly. If the baby is upset , the stranger tries to soothe him or her.

4. The mother returns and engages the baby in play while the strangers slips out.

5. The mother leaves again ,this time leaving the baby alone in the room.

6. The stranger returns. If the baby is upset , the stranger tries to comfort him or her.

7. The mother returns and the stranger slips out.

Four attachment styles

1. Secure :

A child who is securely attached to its mother will explore freely while the mother is present, will engage with strangers, will be visibly upset when the mother departs, and happy to see the mother return.

2. Avoidant :

Avoidant babies avoid or ignore the mother - showing little emotion when the mother departs or returns. The child does not explore very much regardless of who is there. Strangers are not treated much differently from the mother. There is not much emotional range displayed regardless of who is in the room or if it is empty.

3. Ambivalent :

Ambivalent babies are anxious of exploration and of strangers, even when the mother is present. When the mother departs, the child is extremely distressed. The child will be ambivalent when she returns - seeking to remain close to the mother but resentful, and also resistant when the mother initiates attention.

4. Disorganized-oriented:

This was not one of Ainsworth's initial three categories, but identified by other researchers in subsequent research. Babies in this category often show contradictory behaviors. They seem fearful and show a dazed and depressed look in their faces.