Attachment theory:
Bowlby (1969/1982) and Ainsworth (1982)
 Attachment hierarchy
 When children are in need, they prefer to turn to specific
figures, rather than others, to seek closeness, comfort, and
security (attachment behaviors).
 Even within the select group of figures, the attachment
preferences are organized in hierarchies; i.e., there are
stronger preferences for some attachment figures than for
others.
 The outcome of evolutionary processes
Evolutionary Survival Mechanism
(Bowlby, 1969/1982)
 What makes children survive?
Food & warmth
Attachment with caregiver
 Survival: predators
Learn about the environment
 Survival: learning
 All infants are attached to their caregivers.
 Example: shopping mall
Evolutionary Survival Mechanism
(Harlow’s monkey study)
 https://youtu.be/OrNBEhzjg8I
 According to Harlow:
 Baby monkey feels great level of security in the presence of mother.
 If baby monkey is frightened, it is running to the mother with being
comforted, and then all fear disappeared and replaced by all senses of
security.
 Contacting the mother changes entire baby’s personality.
 Then, baby monkey explores and investigates new strange world. He can
become normal happy and curious baby.
 That may be baby’s love with its mother.
 See the infant-mother Strange Situation: https://youtu.be/QTsewNrHUHU
 Evidence: similarities between monkey baby and human baby are due to
outcomes of evolution.
Sensitive mother:
 Recognizes signals and
needs that child is
giving.
 Accepts baby’s
emotional needs.
 Responds to child’s
signals and comfort the
child
 Helps child’s
exploration.
 Available when the
child emotionally
needs her.
Sensitive mom Secure baby
(Cooper, Hoffman, Marvin, & Powell, 2000)
Secure-base behavior
 Baby’s behavior to use
mother as a secure
base from which to
explore the world is
called “secure-base
behavior”
 See video of securebase
behavior in
monkey and toddlers
(Cooper, Hoffman, Marvin, & Powell, 2000)
Infant-Mother
Attachment Classifications
 Secure attachment
(more than 60-70%)
 Seek contact,
proximity and
interaction
 Often try to maintain
physical contact
 Soothed by parents and
return to play
 Insecure attachment
(less than 30-40%)
 Avoid and ignore
parents (avoidant)
 Resist contact
(resistant)
 Purposeless
(disorganization)
(Cooper, Hoffman, Marvin, & Powell, 2000)
Secure attachment in adolescence
 Secure
adolescents trust
their parent’s
availability when
children need
them.
 “My parents are
always there and I
feel I can always go
to them and they
always say
something that will
make me feel
better.”
(17-year-old girl)
(Cooper, Hoffman, Marvin, & Powell, 2000)
Evolutionary Survival Mechanism
(Bowlby, 1969/1982)
 What makes children survive?
Food & warmth
Attachment with caregiver
 Survival: predators
Learn about the environment
 Survival: learning
 All infants are attached to their caregivers.
 Example: shopping mall
 To maximize the chance of survival, children adapt their
relationships with their parents
 Sensitive mother -> secure baby
 Insensitive mother -> insecure baby
 Research question: With whom do toddlers prefer to seek comfort in
mother-father-child triadic contexts?
 Two competing hypotheses from attachment theory
 To enhance the chance of survival, a child prefers the primary caregiver
over other caregivers when distressed (Bowlby, 1969/1982).
 A caregiver’s ability to comfort the child is related to the child’s ability
to seek comfort and recover from distress in later life (e.g., Ainsworth et
al., 1978).
 The primary caregiver vs. the better caregiver?
 Parent who is the primary caregiver
 Parent who has a secure relationship with the child
Attachment preferences during toddlerhood
(Umemura, Jacobvitz, Messina, & Hazen, 2013)
 Participants (Austin Parent & Partner Study)
 125 mothers, fathers, and 24-month toddlers in Austin
 Race
 83% non-Hispanic White
 3% non-Hispanic Black
 6% Hispanic
 8% Other
 Family income
 20% less than $30,000
 32% $30,001 - $45,000
 25% $45,001 - $60,000
 22% more than $60,000
 Maternal age
 M = 29.3 years (Range: 17 to 42) when female participants were in trimester
of pregnancy.
Method
Measures
 Infant-mother and infant-father attachment security
 Observed at 12 and 15 months
 Mother’s and father’s time spent with the child at 24 months
 Parents jointly completed their child’s weekly schedule by indicating the hours
the child spent each day from 6am to 11pm.
 Mother’s and father’s involvement in caregiving activities at 24 months
 Parents independently rated how often they involved in 6 caregiving tasks: awake
child, dress child, supervise child, bath child, put child to bed, and look after
child when sick.
 Toddler’s preference to seek comfort
 Observed at 24 months
 30-minute observation during mother-father-child triadic interactions
 The number of interactions infants initiated to mother or father when they
were distressed
 The number of interactions infants initiated to mother or father when they
were content (comparison)
Method
Examples for child use mom as the secure base
 #85 3:00 (a little upset)
 #85 4:10 (not upset)
 #104 0:00 (not upset)
Examples for preference for mom
 #004:
 2:00 (dad offers comfort)
 3:20 (dad: “I can hold you”) (daughter: “mama”)
 4:40 (daughter gives snack to dad)
 5:00 (dad: “I will get another napkin”)
 #049:
 11:20 (son falls down)
Examples for father’s rough-and-tumble play (father-child activation
relationships)
 #088 15:00
 #104 7:00
Method
(mother-father-child triadic interactions)
 Outcome variable:
 The number of interactions infants initiated to mother vs. father
 Independent variables:
 Parent’s sex (mother = 1 / father = 0)
 Primary caregiver status
 Primary: parent who spent more time and had more caregiving involvement
 Secondary: parent who spent less time and had less caregiving involvement
 Unclear: parent who either spent more time or had more caregiving but not
both
 (primary = 1 / secondary or unclear = 0)
 Attachment security (secure = 1 / insecure = 0)
 Control variable:
 Duration of negative or positive emotion
Analyses
Toddler-initiated interactions
during negative emotion
Model 1 Model 2
Variables B (SE) B (SE)
Intercept -0.38 -0.34 -1.2 -0.31
Duration of negative emotion 0.54 *** -0.15 0.65 *** -0.1
Parent’s sex 0.59 ** -0.19 0.64 *** -0.18
Primary caregiver status 0.77 ** -0.26
Attachment security -0.15 -0.23 -0.18 -0.21
**p < .010. ***p < .001 (Mother =1; Father =0)
GEE analyses regressing toddler-initiated interactions with parents when toddlers
express negative emotion
Analyses
Toddler-initiated interactions
during positive emotion
Model 1 Model 2
Variables B (SE) B (SE)
Intercept 1.26 -0.13 -0.06 -0.26
Duration of positive emotion 0.18 *** -0.03 0.25 *** -0.03
Parent’s sex -0.03 -0.02 0.29 -0.19
Primary caregiver status -0.47 -0.26
Attachment security 0.1 -0.12 0.02 -0.19
***p < .001
GEE analyses regressing toddler-initiated interactions with parents when toddlers
express positive emotion
Analyses
Toddlers’ recovery from distress was predicted by their security of attachment with
the parent whom they approached when distressed.
Analyses
 Distressed toddlers prefer their primary caregiver or
mother, independent of their attachment security.
 Implications: Promoting secure attachment with the
primary caregiver (not the secondary caregiver) is
important for children in the triadic family context.
Attachment-based interventions (e.g., Marvin, Cooper,
Hoffman, & Powell, 2002; Dozier, 2003).
Conclusions
 I am wondering why do toddlers continue to prefer the primary
caregiver in case of distress even if this contact never results
in successful recovery from the stress (due to the insecure
attachment)? The primary caregiver is obviously not very
helpful in fulfilling the child’s emotional needs and helping
them recover from distress. Therefore I would expect the child
to learn from this experience and after trying couple times
and still not getting the soothing and recovery it was
expecting to gain from this interaction, I would expect the
toddler to start looking for some other person which would be
more successful in meeting his or her needs (e.g. the father, if
mother was the primary caregiver).
Attachment preferences during toddlerhood
(Umemura, Jacobvitz, Messina, & Hazen, 2013)
 You and your colleagues found that toddlers seek their
mothers in times of distress even when they are insecurely
attached to them. You clarify that it doesn’t lessen the
importance of attachment and attachment interventions. I
wonder if a secure attachment with father may have a
buffering effect on the child in such situations. I would also
like to know – do fathers to whom children are securely
attached play an important role in the attachment
interventions?
Attachment preferences during toddlerhood
(Umemura, Jacobvitz, Messina, & Hazen, 2013)
 Umemura et al. (2013) suggests that it might be possible that
children are biologically predisposed to prefer the mother over
the father. Would this possibility mean, that children prefer
all females? For example sister over brother.
Attachment preferences during toddlerhood
(Umemura, Jacobvitz, Messina, & Hazen, 2013)
 Is the any difference between babies, whose primary
caregiver is father and whose primary caregiver is mother?
 In this study was written that the combination of the parent’s
greater time spent with the child and greater involvement in
caregiving tasks (e.g., awaking child, dressing child,
supervising child at home, bathing child, putting child to bed,
and looking after child when sick) predicted the child’s
preference for that parent even after controlling for parent
gender. I was wondering if children whose spend more time
with father are different of children from classical families
where are mother the primary caregiver.
Attachment preferences during toddlerhood
(Umemura, Jacobvitz, Messina, & Hazen, 2013)