Karin Grossmann

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

This longitudinal study of forty-four families explored fathers’ as compared to mothers’ specific contribution to their childrens 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 childrens attachment security in the Separation Anxiety Test at age 6. Fathers’ play sensitivity and infant–mother quality of attachment predicted childrens 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 childs 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 childrens psychological security but each in his or her unique way.

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

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 Ainsworths maternal sensitivity scale to make global ratings of maternal behavior during the infants first year and correlated these ratings with infant attachment patterns in the Strange Situation. In addition, we tried to ascer-

Infant–mother attachment at twelve months and style of interaction with a stranger at the age of three years.

LOTKENHAUS, PAUL; GROSSMANN, KLAUS E.; and GROSSMANN, KARIN. Infant-Mother Attachment at Twelve Months and Style of Interaction with a Stranger at the Age of Three Years. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1985, 56, 1538-1542. This study explores the relation between the quality of infant-mother attachment at 12 months and the childs style of interaction with an unfamiliar visitor at age 3 years. Quality of infant-mother attachment was assessed in Ainsworths Strange Situation. At age 3 years, the children were visited in their homes and a competitive game interaction between child and visitor was videotaped. Children classified as securely attached at 12 months interacted faster and more smoothly with the visitor than children who had been avoidantly attached. Microanalyses of the competitive game also revealed different styles of interaction. Failure feedback led to increased effort in the secure-attachment group and to decreased effort in the insecure-attachment group. After failing, securely attached children tended to display sadness more openly than insecurely attached children.

The Wider Concept of Attachment in Cross-Cultural Research

A phylogenetic propensity of human infants is to become attached. During ontogenesis, different qualities of attachment relationships develop. Caretakers’ responsiveness to infants’ signals of insecurity seems to be the main determinant of secure versus avoidantly or ambivalently insecure infant behaviors to mothers or fathers at 1 year of age. An individual’s ‘inner working model’, resulting from differential dyadic attachment history, may determine how (inner) emotional conflicts are resolved. On the basis of existing longitudinal data, the following emotional response styles appear to be prevalent: Individuals with secure attachment histories pay attention to the full range of external causes for conflicting emotions, and they tolerate contradictory emotions. Individuals with insecure attachment histories, in contrast, pay attention only to selected fractions of their emotional reactions at any given time, and they tend to lose sight of the full range of external causes for potentially conflicting emotions. These developmental consequences appear to be universal. Cultural differences may exist in terms of frequency and difficulty of potentially conflicting challenges imposed on individuals. The wider view of attachment has to consider both aspects, the universal and the culture-specific, when testing the full potential of attachment theory from a life course perspective.

Paths to Successful Development: Attachment relationships and appraisal of partnership: from early experience of sensitive support to later relationship representation

Introduction Part of Bowlbys developmental writing focused on the accumulation of empirical evidence towards the most far-reaching hypothesis provided by psychoanalysis, namely, that the mother-child relationship has profound influences on the psychological development of the child well into adulthood (Bowlby, 1969/82, 1973, 1979). Bowlby saw a strong relationship between an individuals experience with his parents and his later capacity to make affectional bonds (Bowlby, 1987). The major goal of this chapter is not only to provide support for the viewpoint that attachments are a life-long concern, but also to argue for the influence of the childs early attachment experiences and representations on his or her later partnership representations. In support of this argument, we will demonstrate three pathways from infancy to young adulthood that point in the direction of the quality of later partnership representation. They are as follows: a) maternal sensitivity turned out to be a strong predictor even from the earliest assessments on; b) attachment assessments in childhood and adolescence but not in infancy predicted later partnership representation; and c) assessments of discourse quality about attachment issues made a unique contribution to the prediction of later partnership representation. The three pathways were closely interrelated suggesting that the roots of adult partnership representation can be found in interactive assessments, in discourse, or in standard assessments of attachment.

Die Bindungstheorie: Modell und entwicklungspsychologische Forschung

Bindung (attachment) ist die besondere Beziehung eines Kleinkindes zu seinen Eltern oder bestandigen Betreuungspersonen. Die Bindungstheorie wurde von John Bowlby, einem englischen Psychoanalytiker, formuliert. Sie ist im ethologischen Denken der 60er Jahre entstanden und versucht, traditionell entwicklungspsychologisches und klinisch-psychoanalytisches Wissen mit evolutionsbiologischem Denken zu verbinden. Daraus ergeben sich drei Betrachtungsebenen: die biologische Bereitschaft zur Bindung auf der Grundlage stammesgeschichtlicher Selektionsbedingungen der Art (Phylogenese), die psychologischen Gegebenheiten bei der individuellen Verwirklichung von Bindung des Kindes an seine Eltern zu Beginn des Lebens und ihre Konsequenzen fur das Individuum wahrend des Lebenslaufs (Ontogenese) und die individuelle Verinnerlichung (Reprasentanz) unterschiedlicher Bindungserfahrungen und ihre Auswirkungen auf den Umgang mit Gefuhlen als Quelle des Erlebens und Schnittpunkt von Erfahrungen, vor allem im Zusammenhang mit Beziehungen zu anderen Menschen.

Transactional Influences of Infants' Orienting Ability and Maternal Cooperation on Competition in Three-Year-Old Children:

The aims of this study were (1) to describe how three-year-olds regulate their effort during competition, (2) to compare their facial expressions after failure and success, and to demonstrate the operation of a display rule in competition, (3) to explore the cross-situational stability of individual patterns in the regulation of behavior, (4) to explore the relationship between factors influencing the mother-child interaction and individual patterns in the regulation of behavior. The Brazelton Neonatal Assessment scale was administered to 44 newborns. At three years, maternal cooperation was assessed from videotapes of mothers and children playing a pattern-matching game. Individual patterns in childrens regulation of behavior were assessed by frequency counts of self-evaluations and withdrawal during the game. Competitiveness was assessed during a tower building task. The greatest number of glances at the testers tower occurred when either of the competitors finished his/her tower first. Building speed was reduced when the tester finished his tower first. In the absence of eye contact with the opponent, success was followed by smiling and failure by a sad face; during eye contact, children mostly smiled. Patterns of building speed during a failure trial and a success trial were related to positive self-evaluations during mother-child play, to orienting scores at newborn age, and to maternal cooperation at the age of three.

Maternal sensitivity: observational studies honoring Mary Ainsworth’s 100th year

This special double issue of Attachment & Human Development celebrates and honors Mary D. Salter Ainsworth and her lifetime achievements on the 100 anniversary of her birth. The papers we have invited focus on maternal sensitivity, broadly construed, and its links to the development of secure and insecure attachment. Mary Ainsworth’s contributions to this important topic have been central and enduring. Mary Ainsworth spent the years 1949–1953 working with John Bowlby and James Robertson at the Tavistock Institute in London, where one of her tasks was to analyze Robertsons’ field notes in which he had recorded his observations of children who were separated from their families for shorter or longer periods. She described his notes as “the most sensitive and perceptive direct observations I had ever encountered,” but Robertson did not allow her (as a psychologist) to “transgress into direct observations” because she had not been trained (Myers, 1969). Thus, when Mary Ainsworth moved to Uganda with her husband Leonard, in 1954, she eagerly seized the opportunity to conduct her own home observations of mother– infant interactions in a non-Western culture. She emulated Robertson’s skilful observational methods, but, on the theory side, she was influenced by ethological studies of social bond-formation in animals that John Bowlby had begun to incorporate into this emerging Darwinian approach to infant–mother attachment (Bowlby, 1953). Bowlby’s views persuaded her, once she began observing, to drop the “theory of cupboard love” (that babies love their mother because mothers feeds them). The Uganda study (Ainsworth, 1967) yielded a number of important insights and findings regarding the development of attachment and the use of the mother as a secure base. She built upon and extended this work in her Baltimore longitudinal study, where she and her research team implemented a much more detailed system for observing mother– infant interactions in real life situations. Observer notes taken during lengthy 3-weekly visits throughout the infant’s first year were translated into audio-recorded narratives and then transcribed. The resulting narrative records allowed Mary Ainsworth to identify four key dimensions of maternal care: sensitivity-insensitivity, cooperation-interference, acceptance rejection and accessibility-ignoring/neglecting and to develop corresponding rating scales (Ainsworth, 1969). Overall ratings of the 9–12 months narrative records turned out to

Kindliche Bindungen in Kultur vergleichender Sicht: Beobachtungen auf einer Südseeinsel

Die Bindungsforschung befasst sich seit uber 50 Jahren mit folgender Frage: Was braucht ein Kind, um seelisch gesund und sozial verantwortlich heranzuwachsen? John Bowlby, ein englischer Psychiater, war als Psychoanalytiker mit solchen Fragen vertraut. Er war aber nicht sicher, ob die Antworten seiner Zunft darauf richtig waren und begann deshalb, nach Moglichkeiten empirisch uberprufbarer Antworten in einem naturwissenschaftlichen, d.h. evolutionsbiologischen Rahmen zu suchen. Bereits 1950, rein zufallig, gesellte sich eine junge Frau aus Kanada, Mary Ainsworth, zu seinen Mitarbeitern in sein Forschungslabor, die lediglich einen Job in London brauchte. Sie brachte als Sozial- und klinische Psychologin gute Voraussetzungen fur die Erforschung der alten Fragen mit und sie war jung genug, um ihre Skepsis gegenuber Bowlbys evolutionsbiologisch orientierter Sicht der menschlichen Entwicklung – an Stelle einer Theorie sozialen Lernens – allmahlich zu uberwinden (Ainsworth & Bowlby, 1991). Das geschah aber erst, als sie 1954 ihrem Mann nach Uganda folgte und dort Feldbeobachtungen an jungen Ganda-Muttern durchfuhrte.

Die Ontogenese emotionaler Integrität und Kohärenz

Seit den Anfangen der Psychoanalyse ist die Frage nach den Auswirkungen fruher Erfahrungen auf spatere Lebensabschnitte des Menschen in der Entwicklungspsychologie lebendig. Wie zuvor im ersten psychologischen Roman der Welt, im “Anton Reiser” von Karl Philipp Moritz spielt der Glaube an pragende Krafte im Sauglings- und Kindesalter eine wichtige Rolle.