Children with an avoidant attachment style tend to be unresponsive to their caregivers when they are present and display little distress at separation. Three categories of insecure attachments have been observed. The children are classified into different attachment styles based on how they cope with these situations.Ĭhildren with secure attachments are distressed at separation, but are easily comforted when their caregiver returns, and are more willing to explore when the caregiver is present. In this test, 1-year-old infants encounter a number of stressful situations, from interacting with strangers to having their caregivers leave. Mary Ainsworth, a contemporary of Bowlby’s, developed the “strange situation” to examine the quality of children’s attachments to their caregivers. However, if these relationships were negative, they may expect to be hurt by others and become more defensive in future relationships. If infants had warm relationships with their caregivers and their needs were met, they may expect positive relations with others. These initial working models, or expectations concerning social relationships, are theorized to guide their expectations about future relationships during childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. Caregivers also serve as sources of comfort when the infants become distressed.īowlby proposed that infants grow to understand what their caregivers are like and how they typically respond when the infants are stressed. Because infants look to their familiar caregivers for support, they are more willing to explore their environment when their caregivers are present than when they are absent. The child is able to use the familiar caregiver as a secure base from which to explore his or her surroundings. Typically, infants form clear-cut attachments to familiar caregivers by 7 months of age.Īttachments provide children with emotional support. Attachments between infants and caregivers develop gradually over time as the infants and caregivers improve their ability to read and respond to each other’s signals. Attachments are theorized to serve an evolutionary purpose because they increase the likelihood that the caregivers will protect and care for the infant. He argued that attachments are reciprocal relationships the infants become attached to their caregivers and the caregivers become attached to the infants. John Bowlby, a prominent ethologist, proposed that infants develop attachments to their primary caregivers. Individuals’ gender and social economic standing (SES) also affect how they think, feel about, and behave toward others, as well as how other people respond to them. Cultural, ethnic, and religious differences affect the manner in which people interact with each other and subsequently children’s development within those contexts. Over the course of the life span, relationships with parents, siblings, peers, and romantic partners play integral roles for social development.īecause these relationships do not exist in a vacuum, they are affected by the social and cultural contexts in which they exist. Initial relationships may be the most important as they serve as models of what infants and children should expect in their future relationships. That is, the parent affects the child’s development, as well as the child impacting the parent’s. Instead, relationships are perceived as bidirectional. Socialization, however, is not a unidirectional influence, where society simply affects the individual. These changes are perceived to occur due to socialization processes as well as physical and cognitive maturation. Social development is the change over time in an individual’s understanding of, attitudes concerning, and behavior toward others for example, a developmental change in how people behave with members of the other gender or their understanding of what friendship entails.
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