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Early social
development
Introduction
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Fans
of Tom and Jerry may recall a 1955 episode called ‘That’ my
mommy’ in which a duck egg slips from a nest rolls under an
unsuspecting Tom and hatches out to produce Quacker a new born
duckling. In the absence of his real mother Quacker assumes
that Tom is mum and spends the rest of the episode trying to
foster an attachment whilst an ever desperate Jerry attempts to
rescue Quacker from the frying pan! |
Now you may
think that even though we use the term ‘bird brained’ as a term of
abuse, that no creature would be so stupid, however, the ‘and finally’
light-hearted items you get at the end of news bulletins would suggest
otherwise since there are often tales of strange attachments of this
type. I seem to remember one from a few years ago in which an owl had
adopted a young kitten for example.
Behaviour of
this sort in which a young creature forms an immediate attachment with a
mother figure is called imprinting and seems to be the norm in many
species, but can it be applied to humans? Why do we form attachments in
the first place and what happens if they are broken? How does this
relate to day care and affect social policy? These are just a few
questions hopefully answered in the pages that follow.
What is an
attachment?
There are a
number of definitions offered by different psychologists but these two
seem typical:
Schaffer
(1993) ‘A close emotional relationship between two persons,
characterised by mutual affection and a desire to maintain proximity.’
In a similar
vein, Maccoby (1980) describes four characteristics of an attachment:
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Seeking
proximity,
the desire to be close to the person to whom you are attached.
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Separation anxiety,
the distress that results from being separated from that person.
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Pleasure
when reunited,
relief and observable joy when reunited with them.
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General
orientation of behaviour towards the caregiver,
the child’s awareness of where the person is, and the reassurance
they feel by them being close.
Remember
these characteristics since they will reappear in later studies e.g. the
‘’Glasgow babies’ and the ‘strange situation.’
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Why do
we form attachments?
This is best
broken into short term (immediate) benefits and longer term benefits.
Both, to some extent, can be explained in terms of benefits to the
reproductive success of the species or individual (depending whether you
favour Darwin or Dawkins; for the biologists).
Short term
benefits
Most species
emerge into the world unable to fend for themselves so require lots of
assistance in the early stages of life. This is particularly true of
the human infant that is helpless for many early years of its life.
Forming a
close attachment with a caregiver therefore ensures that the offspring
will be fed, protected from harm, educated in various techniques of
survival and kept warm. It seems likely that the infant’s need to form
an attachment is innate. It is also worth considering that it is also in
the interests of the parent(s) to protect their offspring from harm.
Again in evolutionary terms they, particularly the mother, have invested
a lot of time and energy in producing offspring, it is in their best
interests to see the fruits of their labours reach maturity and
reproduce themselves. It therefore seems likely that adults also have
an innate tendency to form attachments with their offspring.
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Young
horses are on their feet within minutes |
Humans are helpless for much longer |
Long term
benefits
These are
not so apparent. Bowlby (1969) proposed that early attachments provide
a template or schema, or a set of expectations that allow us to build
other attachments later in life. He called this template the ‘internal
working model.’ Early attachments are our first feel for what
constitutes an emotional bond and we use this in later life as a basis
for other attachments.
It seems
they also act as an anti-incest device. Incest, as well as being
morally repugnant in all societies, is biologically very dodgy, leading
to greatly increased risk of genetic abnormality. Any species or
individual that avoids incest is therefore more likely to successfully
propagate its offspring.
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The ‘Westermarck effect’
This is more for general interest than inclusion in an answer.
Westermarck (1891) found that children that spend a lot of time with each
other in the first 6 years of life, will not go on to form sexual relationships
with those same people when they reach maturity. Westermarck believed that this is an anti-incest device
and in normal circumstances prevents us forming sexual relationships with close
relatives.
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Shepper (1971) found
that not one of the 3000 Israeli marriage records he studied was for couples who
had been reared together, as children in a Kibbutz. This provides evidence for
the Westermarck effect but also for this concept of early attachments
influencing later emotional and romantic attachments. |
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