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“Surround yourself with people who make you happy. People who make you laugh, who help you when you’re in need. People who genuinely care. They are the ones worth keeping in your life. Everyone else is just passing through.”

―Karl Marx

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Surround yourself with people who make you happy. People who make you laugh, who help you when you’re in need. People who genuinely care. They are the on…

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 July 4, 1776 marked the beginning of an ongoing journey toward life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

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life liberty and the pursuit of happiness (hook?)

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life liberty and the pursuit of happiness (hook?)

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Every July 4th Americans around the world reflect with gratitude on the Declaration of Independence of our great nation. July 4, 1776 marked the beginning of an ongoing journey toward life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Over the past two hundred and forty four years the United States has emerged from groups of settlers who sought freedom of religion, personal liberty and refuge from persecution to a nation that most felt would not survive, reluctantly accepting the role of a global leader and today the world's oldest democracy and strongest economy.

I was born and raised with the freedom to believe, pursue, and attempt anything I could imagine. Midland, Texas, describing itself as "the land of the high sky" is my hometown. Growing up and traveling the length and breadth of the United States, I was amazed by its beauty, its opportunity, and its generosity.

As a young man my parents inspired me in many ways. My father led me to embrace the entrepreneurial spirit, and my mother encouraged me to dream as "high as the sky". And both of them taught me to love and appreciate the hard-won freedoms and democracy of my country.

We as Americans have suffered our share of trials, we are not perfect and none of us are, but we continue to try and learn from our mistakes, and to understand and embrace the differences that make us stronger. We continue in pursuit of the democratic ideals and values upon which our nation was founded, "in order to create a more perfect Union," like our Declaration of Independence states. We continue in pursuit of the American Dream - something I believe in very strongly.

Throughout my life time pursuits in the public or private sector, I have learned that most Americans regardless of their circumstances, cherish and pursue the same dreams of freedom, liberty, and the opportunity of providing for their families in a manner they choose.

The celebration of our independence also provides a moment to reflect and be thankful. The unparalleled generosity and compassion of Americans has helped millions of people out of poverty around the world, and provided lifesaving healthcare and medicines to people in need. The American people have also worked alongside countless nations over the past 244 years to help protect life, liberty, and freedom.

The excellent American higher education system has trained some of the brightest and most innovative minds of the world and been at the genesis of some of the most successful, impactful, and economically sustainable businesses around the globe.

Our oldest document, our Constitution, has been amended 27 times in 244 years. These new laws updated our democracy to better reflect the changes our society needed. There will always be opportunities to make it better, more inclusive, broader, with more freedoms for our citizens. We openly debate these issues, call out injustice, and seek to understand our differences, and we do so in the public arena for all the world to see.

The most precious thing about the United States is that Americans believe in what our country stands for. We are willing to engage in the democratic process. It is difficult, messy, fortifying, and enlightening, and it protects our democratic ideals. I believe this is what our founding fathers spoke of in our Declaration of Independence when they wrote: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

My wife Tricia and I are blessed with four loving children, and four grandchildren. It is our family's honor and responsibility to pass on these values to our next generation. Celebrating the birthday of our independence every year is one of the most important celebrations for me and my family. It is part of our lives; it is a red, white and blue day, and as the Lee Greenwood song goes: "I'm proud to be an American where at least I know I'm free". It is a privilege to share this day with our many friends and partners in Uruguay.

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Every July 4th Americans around the world reflect with gratitude on the Declaration of Independence of our great nation. July 4, 1776 marked the beginning of an ongoing journey toward life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness

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Having people in your life is extremely important for happiness. However the question quality over quantity has always been prominent. The amount of friends you have is not important if you only ever talk about "impersonal" topics. Instead the friendships that you talk about your personal lives in are what really matters when it comes to seeking happiness.

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People who have one or more close relationships appear to be happier. It doesn't seem to matter if we have a large network. Self-disclosure is a big factor.

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If there is a parental attachment in a teenager's life, they are less likely to abuse drugs, meaning that a certain level of attachment is healthy. There should be a balance in the amount of secure attachment children have to their parents.

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Language: English | French

Abstract

Adolescence is characterized by significant neurological, cognitive and sociopsychological development. With the advance of adolescence, the amount of time spent with parents typically drops while time spent with peers increases considerably. Nonetheless, parents continue to play a key role in influencing their adolescent's development. Adolescent-parent attachment has profound effects on cognitive, social and emotional functioning. Secure attachment is associated with less engagement in high risk behaviours, fewer mental health problems, and enhanced social skills and coping strategies. The present article provides a brief synopsis of the changes that occur during adolescence and describes what attachment is, why it continues to be important and how it is transformed during adolescence. It summarizes major findings on the impact of attachment on adolescent adjustment and discusses strategies for supporting healthy adolescent-parent attachment.

Keywords: Adjustment, Adolescence, Attachment, Health, Parent-child relationships, Psychopathology

Résumé

L'adolescence se caractérise par un développement neurologique, cognitif et sociopsychologique important. D'ordinaire, à mesure que progresse l'adolescence, le temps passé avec les parents diminue tandis que celui passé avec les amis augmente considérablement. Néanmoins, les parents continuent d'exercer une énorme influence sur le développement de leur adolescent. L'attachement entre l'adolescent et ses parents a des effets profonds sur son fonctionnement cognitif, social et affectif. Un attachement solide s'associe à une participation moins marquée à des comportements à haut risque, à moins de troubles de santé mentale, à des aptitudes sociales et à des stratégies d'adaptation plus solides. Le présent article fournit un bref synopsis des changements qui se produisent pendant l'adolescence et décrit ce qu'est l'attachement, la raison pour laquelle cet attachement continue d'être important et sa transformation pendant l'adolescence. Il résume les principales observations sur les répercussions de l'attachement sur l'adaptation de l'adolescent et présente des stratégies pour soutenir un attachement sain entre l'adolescent et ses parents.

Adolescence is increasingly recognized as the second major 'window' of opportunity and risk in development, next only in significance to early childhood development. It is a period of biological, cognitive and social change of such magnitude and rapidity that it is no surprise to find that it is associated with the onset or exacerbation of a number of health-related problems including depression ( 1), eating disorders ( 2), substance abuse and dependence ( 3- 5), risky sexual behaviour ( 6), antisocial and delinquent activity ( 7) and school dropout ( 8). In recent years, the role of parental influence in adolescent adjustment has been seriously questioned. Some researchers have argued that parents make little or no difference in how their children navigate the adolescent period, pointing instead to data showing that peer influence dominates this period ( 9). Contrary to this position, there is growing evidence that parents do make a difference, and that this difference operates through the nature of their attachment bond with their child ( 10- 12).

THE SCOPE OF ADOLESCENT TRANSITION

The quintessential characteristic of adolescence is change. Although this has long been recognized by social scientists and mental health professionals (eg, psychiatrists, psychologists and other adolescent health specialists), the true depth of the changes that occur during this period have yet to be fully understood. New research points to significant transformations in neurological structure and function. Dopamine production and functional levels of other neuro-transmitters change throughout adolescence, reaching adult stabilization levels at approximately 16 years of age ( 13). Significant transformations occur in prefrontal cortex function, supporting increasing capacity for abstract thinking and problem solving ( 14) and strategic response inhibition ( 15). Rapid hormonal changes also characterize this developmental period ( 16). Contrary to popular opinion, hormonal changes do not directly account for behavioural changes during adolescence. However, changes in neurological structure and neurotransmitter function have been implicated in increased irritability, anhedonia and risk taking behaviour which have been documented to increase during adolescence ( 14).

Changes in neurological development are accompanied by significant cognitive development; in particular, the capacity for abstract thought and complex problem solving. Metacognitive and representational capacity grows from early to late adolescence ( 17- 19). Adolescents are increasingly able to simultaneously represent and compare multiple perspectives and attributes, promoting a more differentiated view of the world, including how adolescents see themselves and others around them ( 20- 23). Early in adolescence, however, the ability to differentiate outstrips the capacity to integrate diverse information, leading adolescents to view the world in black and white terms, and to feel at odds with seemingly contradictory aspects of themselves. It is not until late adolescence that conflicting aspects of the self can be integrated into a coherent sense of self ( 24, 25). Elkind ( 26) suggests that the cognitive shifts that occur in adolescence result in a form of adolescent 'egocentrism' in which the adolescent is overwhelmed by the sense that he or she is the focus of everyone's attention, coupled with the belief that his or her experiences are entirely unique.

Alongside these rapid biological changes, adolescents enter a new social-psychological phase of life. It is normal for the amount of time spent with parents to drop precipitously while time spent with peers increases. Estimates show a 21% drop (35% to 14%) in waking hours spent with family between late childhood and middle adolescence ( 27) and increasing reliance on peers for intimacy and support ( 28- 31). New social roles open up for adolescents, taking them further from their families. Most adolescents enter the workforce at age 15 or 16 years, and many are employed for 15 h/week to 20 h/week ( 32, 33). Dating relationships begin in early adolescence - around 13 years of age for girls and 14 years of age for boys ( 34) - although it is not until late adolescence that these relationships are characterized by genuine intimacy and deep emotional involvement ( 35).

In summary, adolescence involves significant transformations in almost every domain of functioning. During periods of rapid development, research shows that parental sensitivity and support are critical in 'scaffolding' children to the next level of functioning ( 36- 38). However, in the adolescent phase of development, the parent-child relationship is thrown into flux as children strive toward autonomy and parents struggle to find new ways of supporting their children in the context of a different relationship. It is not surprising that the nature of the adolescent-parent attachment bond is paramount to how both parties negotiate this transition.

WHAT IS ATTACHMENT?

The concept of attachment was proposed by Bowlby ( 39- 41) more than three decades ago to describe the fundamental bond between parent and infant that is essential to survival and development. Attachment is based on ethology, and Bowlby conceptualized attachment as a biologically based repertoire of organized behaviours (eg, infants' crying, smiling, clinging and proximity seeking) that foster infant-parent interactions and maximize survival. Under conditions of stress such as illness, unfamiliar environments and being left alone, infants direct certain behaviours toward their caregivers to gain protection and safety. In the absence of stress, proximity-seeking behaviours are reduced and the attachment system enables children to engage in other adaptive behaviours that promote exploration and mastery of the environment ( 42). The attachment system, therefore, allows children to relate to their parents both as a 'secure base' ( 43) from which to explore, and as a 'safe haven' for obtaining support and protection in times of perceived threat.

Parents differ in the nature and quality of care that they provide to their children and, over time, children's attachment experiences are consolidated into 'internal working models' of relationships ( 40). Parental attunement and appropriate responsiveness give rise to secure attachment, marked by a view of the self as worthy of care and competent in mastering the environment, and a view of others as reliable and effective. Securely attached children readily seek out their caregivers when distressed, but feel sufficiently safe to explore their environment at times of low stress. In contrast, parental unavailability and harsh rejection is associated with insecure anxious-avoidant attachment. These children view themselves as unlovable and unable to attract care from their parents, and they view others as punitive and disinterested in them. Anxious-avoidant children are reluctant to approach their parents even when distressed, because they fear their overtures for comfort will be rejected or punished. Parental inconsistency is associated with anxious-ambivalent attachment. These children view themselves as unable to sustain the interest and care of others. However, they view others as able to provide support if their attention can be secured and sustained. Anxious-ambivalent children are vigilant about the whereabouts and responsiveness of their parents and display heightened overtures of need to provoke parental responsiveness. Their preoccupation with the availability of their parents inhibits appropriate exploration of their environment.

Evidence of the impact of parental attachment on early to middle childhood development is indisputable and immense. Attachment has been shown to influence almost every aspect of early childhood development, from neurocognitive development to social-behavioural competence ( 42, 44). Importantly, research demonstrates that the quality of attachment varies according to the nature of parent-child interactions, ruling out the notion that it is determined entirely by dispositional qualities of the infant and young child ( 45). Studies also show that while early attachment exerts substantial influence over later development, attachment status can change as a function of deterioration and stress in the parent-child relationship or improvements in the relationship ( 46, 47).

ADOLESCENT-PARENT ATTACHMENT

The rapid neurological, cognitive and social changes of adolescence create a social-cognitive dilemma for youth: the integration of new and diverse experiences in relation to the world and oneself. Adolescence also presents an attachment dilemma, that is, maintaining connection with parents while exploring new social roles away from the family and developing attachment relationships with peers and romantic partners ( 12). Of great importance is the fact that the successful transition of adolescence is not achieved through detachment from parents ( 48, 49). In fact, healthy transition to autonomy and adulthood is facilitated by secure attachment and emotional connectedness with parents ( 50).

In a nutshell, research shows that attachment security in adolescence exerts precisely the same effect on development as it does in early childhood: a secure base fosters exploration and the development of cognitive, social and emotional competence ( 51). Studies of nonclinical samples ( 52, 53) show that securely attached adolescents are less likely to engage in excessive drinking, drug use and risky sexual behaviour. Among females, attachment security is related to lower rates of teenage pregnancy ( 52). Securely attached adolescents also suffer fewer mental health problems such as anxiety, depression, inattention, thought problems, conduct disorder, delinquency and aggression ( 52, 54- 56). Attachment security in female adolescents is related to fewer weight-related concerns ( 57) and less frequent eating disorders ( 58). Attachment security in adolescence also predicts more constructive coping skills ( 53, 59) and significant gains in social skills from 16 to 18 years of age ( 60). Securely attached adolescents manage the transition to high school more successfully, enjoy more positive relationships and experience less conflict with family and peers than do insecurely attached adolescents ( 61- 63). Findings from clinical samples are consistent with those from normative samples: insecure attachment is associated with suicidality ( 64), drug use ( 65), and aggressive and delinquent behaviour ( 66, 67).

Secure attachment is clearly important to healthy adolescent adjustment. The question is: what do adolescents need from their parents to sustain healthy attachment? Research suggests that the attachment function of parents changes in some ways, but remains stable in others ( 31). For example, while young children require close proximity and physical availability of parents to provide comfort when they are distressed, adolescents do not need the same degree of proximity and can derive comfort from knowing their parents are supportive even when they are not present. However, parental sensitivity and attunement continue to be essential in maintaining attachment security during adolescence, especially in the domain of autonomy needs ( 51). The ability of parents to sustain a 'goal-directed partnership' with their child also remains critical, and is particularly challenging because conflict between parents and children increases during adolescence ( 68). Conflict itself is not a sign of poor relationship quality, because it will unquestionably arise in healthy relationships as parents exert appropriate levels of behavioural control over their adolescents, negotiating increasing responsibility as competence develops ( 69). However, growing evidence suggests that the capacity of parents and their adolescent children to maintain 'relatedness' while disagreeing on critical issues is the hallmark of attachment security ( 70). Maintaining relatedness is captured by specific parent-adolescent behaviours during disagreements, including confidently stating one's own opinion, and validating and showing empathy for the other person's point of view ( 51).

In summary, while the presence of conflict in the parent-adolescent relationship is normal, how the parent-adolescent dyad negotiates conflicts and sustains their relationship is diagnostic. Adolescents who feel understood by their parents and trust their commitment to the relationship, even in the face of conflict, confidently move forward toward early adulthood. These securely attached adolescents do not avoid conflict, exploration and individuation, nor do they prematurely push to independence without the support of their parents.

SUPPORTING ADOLESCENTS AND THEIR FAMILIES

It is critical that the myth of adolescent detachment be dispelled. Many parents feel they have little or no influence in their adolescent's life and they bemoan the fact that their child's fate rests outside their hands. Parents require solid information on the profound neurocognitive, social and emotional changes that occur during adolescence and the importance of their continued sensitivity and attunement to their child's needs during this time. They need to know what to expect in their relationship with their child, and how best to manage the transition of adolescence. Many parents experience the increase in parent-child conflict that occurs during adolescence as a personal rejection of the relationship and their importance to their child. This perception is mistaken, although entirely understandable in light of the conflict and communication difficulties that often occur between parents and their teenage children. Helping parents to reframe the meaning of conflict as an opportunity to build their relationship with their adolescent child can be of great assistance to parents. Many parents of adolescents require indepth support to develop the skills that are necessary to support their children through adolescence. A number of therapeutic interventions have evolved from attachment theory, although the majority of these focus on families with younger children or on marital relationships ( 71). Fortunately, therapeutic interventions are emerging for families with adolescent children, and many show considerable promise in reducing risk behaviour in adolescents ( 12, 72, 73). Parental interventions that focus on attachment and the development of sensitivity, attunement and conflict negotiation can be particularly beneficial ( 74).

Changing the myth of adolescent detachment, however, requires efforts that extend beyond the mental health system. Public health initiatives that encourage parents to stay connected with their adolescents would help to change the general impression that parents and society hold about adolescent disinterest and rebellion. Support within the educational system, emphasizing the continued importance of attachment to parents and other adults during adolescence, would also be beneficial. In particular, educational programming that supports attachment during the transition from elementary to high school through bridging programs that connect youth with teachers, structuring of schools and classrooms to encourage connection (eg, 'school-within-the-school' programs), and parent education would go far in reducing school dropout rates during this sensitive developmental period.

In summary, evidence clearly points to the continued importance of adolescent-parent attachment as a determinant of health during this development phase and beyond. It is essential for mental health and other health and education professionals to be knowledgeable about adolescent development and the value of adolescent-parent attachment. Shifting our assumptions about adolescence as a period of detachment and rebellion to a view that better fits the reality of this developmental period and stresses the importance of staying connected is well overdue.

Acknowledgments

The authors acknowledge the support of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Institute of Gender and Health, and the Institute of Human Development, Child and Youth Health through a New Emerging Team grant directed by Dr Marlene M Moretti (#31-711036 6319).

REFERENCES

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Adolescent-parent attachment: Bonds that support healthy development

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Language: English | French Adolescence is characterized by significant neurological, cognitive and sociopsychological development. With the advance of adolescence, the amount of time spent with parents typically drops while time spent with peers increases considerably. Nonetheless, parents continue to play a key role in influencing their adolescent's development.

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Although our minds probably rush to friends and family when asked about relationships, those aren't the only ones that matter. The simple relationships like our neighbors, the mailman, a teacher, also play a large role in our lives. These are the people that excite you when you wake up everyday, they are the side conversations that put a smile on your face. Oftentimes you see your neighbors more than your friends meaning that being satisfied with these relationships are just as important as the deeper relationships in your life.

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Humans are naturally social creatures, meaning that having healthy, meaningful, relationships are so important to humans and their happiness. Relationships also bring out some of our more dominant emotions, weather these are positive or negative.

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The Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education

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Written by Thomas Oppong.

Humans are ultra-social species. It's our nature, and we can't live our lives without interactions. Ultimately, other people play a crucial role in our happiness.

Psychology says that part of human nature's default mode is to be social. According to one theory - people have an innate (and very powerful) need to form and maintain strong, stable interpersonal relationships.

Heaps of research suggest that social connections make people happier. Satisfying relationships not only make people happy, but they also associated with better health and even longer life.

Relationships are connected to some of our strongest emotions. When they are positive we feel happiness, contentment and calm. When relationships bring out the worst in us or they are non-existent, we feel anxious, depressed, and lonely.

To read the full article, click here.

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Good Social Relationships Are the Most Consistent Predictor of a Happy Life - The Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education

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Written by Thomas Oppong. Humans are ultra-social species. It's our nature, and we can't live our lives without interactions. Ultimately, other people play a crucial role in our happiness. Psychology says that part of human nature's default mode is to be social. According to one theory - people have an innate (and very powerful) need [...]

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My survey

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Access Google Forms with a personal Google account or Google Workspace account (for business use).

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As we get attached to our parents when we are younger for safety and security, these behaviors don't just automatically disappear when we get older. Instead they usually get smaller, but that initial attachment from our childhood is still there.

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Attachment theory is a lifespan model of human development emphasizing the central role of caregivers (attachment figures) who provide a sense of safety and security.

Attachment theory hypothesizes that early caregiver relationships establish social-emotional developmental foundations, but change remains possible across the lifespan due to interpersonal relationships during childhood, adolescence, and adulthood.

Attachment can be defined as a deep and enduring emotional bond between two people in which each seeks closeness and feels more secure when in the presence of the attachment figure.

Bowlby (1988) contended that the drive for proximity arises from an interconnected set of behavioral systems that collectively shape behavior. These include the attachment, caregiving, and exploratory behavioral systems.

Attachment Behavioral System

The attachment behavioral system concerns the tendency of an individual to seek security during times of stress (Mikulincer & Shaver, 2003), which can be internal (i.e., hunger, fatigue, illness) or from external features of the environment, such as threatening stimuli (Bowlby, 1988).

The more extreme the stress, the more intense the attachment system activation. The attachment system is most readily activated during the first five years of life, a period characterized by high levels of vulnerability and dependence.

Once the attachment system is activated, the infant is motivated to seek proximity to significant others (attachment figures) to protect themselves from physical or emotional harm (Bowlby, 1969).

If this goal is achieved, the infant develops feelings of safety and security, and their attachment system becomes deactivated. The infant will call upon a range of attachment behaviors with the goal of attaining proximity to the attachment figure.

Bowlby (1988) suggests the attachment behavioral system remains important throughout life and will also motivate adults to seek proximity in times of stress during adulthood.

Caregiving System

The attachment figure is viewed as a 'safe haven', and their role is to correspondingly alter their level of responsiveness to deactivate the infant's attachment system by promoting feelings of security.

George and Solomon (1996) call this reciprocal response of the attachment figure to the infant's attachment system the 'caregiving' system.

Bowlby (1969) posits that the caregiving system exists to provide protection and support to others in need of assistance, through providing sensitive and responsive care.

The caregiving system is activated when an individual expresses a need for support or their attachment system is activated, and is deactivated when the care recipient appears to be in a secure state (Shaver & Mikulincer, 2006).

Once activated, the caregiver may utilize a variety of behavioral strategies intended to improve the other person's well-being, re-establishing their felt security, and facilitating their coping efforts.

Caregiving strategies include validating a person's worries, providing physical closeness and affection, and communicating that a person is loved and valued (Mikulincer & Shaver, 2007).

In addition to attachment behaviors, the caregiving system can support exploratory behaviors (Feeney, 2004).

The Importance of Early Emotional Bonds

Attachment behavior in adults toward the child includes responding sensitively and appropriately to the child's needs. Such behavior appears universal across cultures.

Attachments are most likely to form with those who responded accurately to the baby's signals, not the person they spent more time with. Schaffer and Emerson called this sensitive responsiveness.

Reciprocity is the mutual, two-way interaction between an infant and caregiver, where both respond to each other's signals, such as when a baby's smile evokes a smile in return. This form of interactional synchrony is vital for a child's development, establishing their foundational trust and shaping future relationships and learning.

Exploratory Behavioral System

When infants feel safe and secure, and their attachment system is deactivated, their energy can be devoted to what Bowlby (1969) refers to as the exploratory behavioral system.

The exploratory behavioral system refers to behaviors that drive the organism to interact with the environment in a bid to inspect it, manipulate it, and master it (Mikulincer & Shaver, 2007).

According to Bowlby (1969), the exploratory system is activated by novelty and is terminated when a person exhibits a sense of competence and familiarity with their environment. From this perspective, attachment figures can also be seen as a 'secure base' which infants use to explore their social world (Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters, & Wall, 1978).

The more assured the infant is in the availability of their attachment figure in times of stress, the more likely they will interact with others and their environment. Thus attachment, far from interfering with exploration, is viewed as nurturing exploration.

Caregivers who provide a secure base allow infants to become autonomous, inquisitive, and experimental. Children who lack a secure base find their attachment system keeps overriding their attempts to be autonomous and to competently interact with their social environment.

This, in turn, can impair and harm a child's social, emotional, and cognitive development (Bowlby, 1980). Of course, not all attachment figures become a secure base, and this function is based on the responsiveness of their caregiver towards the infant (Ainsworth & Wittig, 1969).

Ainsworth et al. proposed the interconnecting between attachment and exploratory systems are adaptive as they ensure a balance between protection and exploration of the social and physical environment.

Ainsworth's Strange Situation

Mary Ainsworth and her colleagues discovered three major patterns that infants attach to their primary caregivers ("mother figures") from their Strange Situation Procedure (Ainsworth et al., 1978).

The study recruited four different samples of infants at around one year of age, and engaged them in the Strange Situation procedure, roughly described below:

An infant was put into an unfamiliar environment with his or her mother and was free to explore the environment; a stranger entered the room and gradually approached the infant; the mother then left the room, returning after the infant spent some time alone with the stranger.

Ainsworth and colleagues observed how comfortable each infant was physically farther away from the mother in an unfamiliar environment, how each infant interacted with the stranger, and how each infant greeted the mother upon her return.

Based on the observations, they sorted the infants into three groups: secure, anxious, and avoidant.

Attachment Styles

Attachment styles refer to the particular way in which an individual relates to other people. The style of attachment is formed at the very beginning of life, and once established, it is a style that stays with you and plays out today in how you relate in intimate relationships and in how you parent your children.

The concept involves one's confidence in the availability of the attachment figure for use as a secure base from which one can freely explore the world when not in distress and a safe haven from which one can seek support, protection, and comfort in times of distress.

Secure Attachment

Bowlby (1988) described secure attachment as the capacity to connect well and securely in relationships with others while also having the capacity for autonomous action as situationally appropriate.

Secure attachment is characterized by trust, an adaptive response to being abandoned, and the belief that one is worthy of love.

An infant with a secure attachment is characterized as actively seeking and maintaining proximity with the mother, especially during the reunion episode. The infant may or may not be friendly with the stranger, but always shows more interest in interacting with the mother.

Additionally, during the same situation the infant tended to be slightly distressed during separation from the mother, but the infant rarely cried.

Ainsworth and colleagues interpreted infants who were securely attached to their mothers, showed less anxiousness and more positive attitudes toward the relationship, and were likely because they believed in their mothers' responsiveness towards their needs.

Anxious (Ambivalent) Attachment

Anxious attachment (also called ambivalent) relationships are characterized by a concern that others will not reciprocate one's desire for intimacy. This is

caused when an infant learns that their caregiver or parent is unreliable and does not consistently provide responsive care towards their needs.

An anxiously attached infant is characterized as being somewhat ambivalent (and resistant) to the mother. The infant often demonstrated signs of resisting interactions with the mother, especially during the strange situation reunion episode.

However, once contact with the mother was gained, the infant also showed strong intentions to maintain such contact. Overall, ambivalent infants often displayed maladaptive behaviors throughout the Strange Situation.

Ainsworth and colleagues found ambivalent infants to be anxious and unconfident about their mothers' responsiveness, and their mothers were observed to lack "the fine sense of timing" in responding to the infants' needs.

As adults, those with an anxious preoccupied attachment style are overly concerned with the uncertainty of a relationship. They hold a negative working model of self and a positive working model of others.

Avoidant Attachment

Children with avoidant attachment styles tend to avoid interaction with the caregiver, and show no distress during separation. This may be because the parent has ignored attempts to be intimate, and the child may internalize the belief that they cannot depend on this or any other relationship.

An infant with an avoidant attachment was characterized as displaying little to no tendency to seek proximity with the mother.

The infant often showed no distress during separation from the mother, interacted with the stranger similarly to how he or she would interact with the mother, and showed slight signs of avoidance (turning away, avoiding eye contact, etc.) when reunited with the mother.

Ainsworth and colleagues interpreted infants' avoidance behaviors as a defensive mechanism against the mothers' own rejecting behaviors, such as being uncomfortable with physical contact or being more easily angered by the infants.

Disorganized (Fearful) Attachment

Main and Solomon (1986) discovered that a sizable proportion of infants did not fit into secure, anxious, or avoidant, based on their behaviors in the Strange Situation experiment. They categorized these infants as having a disorganized attachment type.

Disorganized attachment is classified by children who display sequences of behaviors that lack readily observable goals or intentions, including obviously contradictory behaviors or stilling/freezing of movements.

Main and Solomon found that the parents of disorganized infants often had unresolved attachment-related traumas, which caused the parents to display either frightened or frightening behaviors, resulting in the disorganized infants being confused or forcing them to rely on someone they were afraid of at the same time.

Stages of Attachment

Rudolph Schaffer and Peggy Emerson (1964) investigated if attachment develops through a series of stages by studying 60 babies at monthly intervals for the first 18 months of life (this is known as a longitudinal study).

The children were all studied in their own homes, and a regular pattern was identified in the development of attachment.

The babies were visited monthly for approximately one year, their interactions with their carers were observed, and carers were interviewed.

A diary was kept by the mother to examine the evidence for the development of attachment. Three measures were recorded:

* Stranger Anxiety - response to arrival of a stranger.

* Separation Anxiety - distress level when separated from carer, degree of comfort needed on return.

* Social Referencing - degree that child looks at carer to check how they should respond to something new (secure base).

They discovered that baby's attachments develop in the following sequence:

Very young infants are asocial in that many kinds of stimuli, both social and non-social, produce a favorable reaction, such as a smile.

Indiscriminate Attachments (6 weeks to 7 months)

Infants indiscriminately enjoy human company; most babies respond equally to any caregiver. They get upset when an individual ceases to interact with them.

From 3 months, infants smile more at familiar faces and can be easily comfortable by a regular caregiver.

Specific Attachment (7 - 9 months)

Special preference for a single attachment figure. The baby looks to particular people for security, comfort, and protection. It shows fear of strangers (stranger fear) and unhappiness when separated from a special person ( separation anxiety).

Some babies show stranger fear and separation anxiety much more frequently and intensely than others; nevertheless, they are seen as evidence that the baby has formed an attachment. This has usually developed by one year of age.

Multiple Attachment (10 months and onwards)

Many of the babies from the Schaffer and Emerson study had multiple attachments by 10 months old, including attachments to mothers, fathers, grandparents, siblings, and neighbors.

The baby becomes increasingly independent and forms several attachments. By 18 months, the majority of infants have formed multiple attachments.

The multiple attachments formed by most infants vary in their strength and importance to the infant. Attachments are often structured in a hierarchy, whereby an infant may have formed three attachments, but one may be stronger than the other two, and one may be the weakest.

The results of the study indicated that attachments were most likely to form with those who responded accurately to the baby's signals, not the person they spent more time with. Schaffer and Emerson called this sensitive responsiveness.

Intensely attached infants had mothers who responded quickly to their demands and, interacted with their child. Infants who were weakly attached had mothers who failed to interact.

The Lasting Impact of Early Attachment

According to Bowlby's theory (1988), when we form our primary attachment, we also make a mental representation of what a relationship is (internal working model), which we then use for all other relationships in the future i.e., friendships, working, and romantic relationships.

The different attachment styles may be viewed as internal working models of "relationships" that evolved from event experiences (Main, Kaplan, & Cassidy, 1985).

This would suggest that early interactions with caregivers could not only shape how an infant understood and behaved in relationships (as exemplified by infant attachment styles), but that such impact could be carried forward into adult attachment.

According to Bowlby (1969) later relationships are likely to be a continuation of early attachment styles (secure and insecure) because the behavior of the infant's primary attachment figure promotes an internal working model of relationships which leads the infant to expect the same in later relationships.

In other words, there will be continuity between early attachment experiences and later relationships. This is known as the continuity hypothesis.

In humans, attachment does not conclude in infancy, or even childhood, but instead is active throughout the lifespan, with individuals gaining comfort from both physical and mental representations of significant others (Bowlby, 1969).

It is through an individual's internal working model that childhood patterns of attachment are carried forward across the life cycle into adolescence and adulthood.

The notion of security is still an important one; however, the growing emergence of autonomy is also significant as the attachment system in adults is less likely to be activated due to them being able to tolerate higher levels of distress compared to children.

During adulthood, new attachment bonds are formed which may become a significant source of support during periods of distress, or during periods of goal achievement and exploration.

Researchers have proposed that working models are interconnected within a complex hierarchical structure (Bowlby, 1980; Bretherton, 1985, 1990; Collins & Read, 1994; Main, Kaplan, & Cassidy, 1985).

For example, the highest level model comprises beliefs and expectations across all types of relationship, and lower level models hold general rules about specific relations, such as romantic or parental, underpinned by models specific to events within a relationship with a single person.

The existence of multiple mental models is supported by evidence which demonstrates considerable within-person variability in the expectations and beliefs that people hold about the self and others (Baldwin & Fehr, 1995).

Furthermore, although specific models of attachment relationships are positively associated with more overarching general working models, the correlations are small to moderate (less than .40), indicating that they comprised distinct beliefs regarding the self and significant others (Cozzarelli, Hoekstra, & Bylsma, 2000).

Likely, general mental models indicate a typical appraisal of the self and others across relationships, and relationship-specific beliefs about the self and one's partner would plausibly represent only a part of these generalized beliefs.

Key Takeaways

Attachment is defined as a "lasting psychological connectedness between human beings" (Bowlby, 1969, p. 194), and may be considered interchangeable with concepts such as "affectional bond" and "emotional bond."

Attachment is characterized by specific behaviors in children, such as seeking proximity to the attachment figure when upset or threatened (Bowlby, 1969).

Attachment theory explains how the parent-child relationship emerges and influences subsequent development.

A person's first attachment is often established with the primary caregiver during infancy. However, it must be noted that attachment is not unique to infant-caregiver relationships but may also be present in other social relationships.

Attachments of various kinds are formed through the repeated act of "attachment behaviors" or "attachment transactions," a continuing process of seeking and maintaining a certain level of proximity to another specified individual (Bowlby, 1969).

Because caregivers vary in sensitivity and responsiveness, not all infants attach to caregivers in the same way.

References

Ainsworth, M. D. S., & Bell, S. M. (1970). Attachment, exploration, and separation: Illustrated by the behavior of one-year-olds in a strange situation. Child Development, 41, 49-67.

Ainsworth, M. D. S. (1973). The development of infant-mother attachment. In B. Cardwell & H. Ricciuti (Eds.), Review of child development research (Vol. 3, pp. 1-94) Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Ainsworth, M. D. S., Blehar, M. C., Waters, E., & Wall, S. (1978). Patterns of attachment: A psychological study of the strange situation. Lawrence Erlbaum.

Ainsworth, M. D. S. (1991). Attachments and other affectional bonds across the life cycle. In C . M. Parkes, J. Stevenson-Hinde, & P. Marris (Eds.), Attachment across the life cycle (pp. 33-51). London: Routledge.

Ainsworth. M. D. S., & Wittig, B. A. (1969) Attachment and exploratory behaviour of one-year-olds in a strange situation. In: B. M. Foss (Ed.) Determinants of infant behaviour, IV. London: Methuen, p. 111-136.

Bowlby, J. (1958). The nature of the childs tie to his mother. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 39, 350-371.

Bowlby J. (1969). Attachment. Attachment and loss: Vol. 1. Loss. New York: Basic Books.

Bowlby, J., and Robertson, J. (1952). A two-year-old goes to the hospital. Proceedings
of the Royal Society of Medicine, 46, 425-427.

Bowlby, J. (1973). Attachment and loss, Vol. 2: Separation. New York: Basic Books.

Bowlby, J. (1980). Attachment and loss, Vol. 3: Loss, sadness and depression. New York: Basic Books.

Bowlby, J. (1988). A secure base: Parent-child attachment and healthy human development. New York: Basic Books.

Dollard, J. & Miller, N.E. (1950). Personality and psychotherapy. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Feeney, B. C. (2004). A secure base: responsive support of goal strivings and exploration in adult intimate relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 87(5), 631.

George, C., & Solomon, J. (1996). Representational models of relationships: Links between caregiving and attachment. Infant Mental Health Journal, 17(3), 198-216.

Harlow, H. F. & Zimmermann, R. R. (1958). The development of affective responsiveness in infant monkeys. Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 102, 501 -509.

Mikulincer, M., & Shaver, P. R. (2003). The attachment behavioral system in adulthood: Activation, psychodynamics, and interpersonal processes. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 35, 53-152.

Mikulincer, M., & Shaver, P. R. (2007). Attachment in adulthood: Structure, dynamics, and change. New York: Guilford Press.

Prior, V., & Glaser, D. (2006). Understanding attachment and attachment disorders: Theory, evidence and practice. Jessica Kingsley Publishers.

Schaffer, H. R., & Emerson, P. E. (1964). The development of social attachments in infancy. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 1-77.

Shaver, P. R., & Mikulincer, M. (2006). Attachment theory, individual psychodynamics, and relationship functioning. The Cambridge handbook of personal relationships, 251-271.

Van Ijzendoorn, M. H., & Sagi-Schwartz, A. (2008). Cross-cultural patterns of attachment: Universal and contextual dimensions. In J. Cassidy & P. Shaver (Eds) Handbook of Attachment: Theory, Research and Clinical Applications (pp. 880-905). New York: Guildford Press.

FAQs

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Attachment Theory In Psychology Explained

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Attachment can be defined as a deep and enduring emotional bond between two people in which each seeks closeness and feels more secure when in the presence of the attachment figure.