Alright this is my second crack at taping this one. So I'm going to have to, I went 32 minutes last time. This shutting up thing is really hard for me to do, but I'm going to try to not, not talk quick. But be a little bit more efficient in my presentation. So here goes. we're going to kind of carry on. So in the Piaget, lecture, we talked about the cognitive stages that children go through. in this lecture, we're going to focus much more on very young children. And specifically we're going to focus on the relationship they form between themselves and their primary caregiver. I may slip into using the term mother quite a bit, because obviously, typically, the mother is the primary caregiver. But really I mean the primary caregiver, and the claim is that, that early relationship is very important in setting the tone for life. and so that's what we're going to talk about. Let's get into it. Alright, week eight lecture five. I'm dedicating this, this lecture to little Owen Walker here. Owen born you, you recall, about a week after this course started. this is a picture of him about a month old, so you know, I kind of think of him as, as growing along with the course, so to speak. He's a, he's a human biomarker of how far we've gone, and so I dedicate this lecture to him, and to Rob, and Nicole, who are his parents and hopefully they learn something that benefits everybody as we go through this lecture. put a real face on it. We're going to talk a lot about a procedure, really analyzed in depth by somebody named Mary Ainsworth, something called the strange situation test. It's a really interesting process for trying to get at how, well the relationship really between a primary caregiver and an infant. and Mary was the one that kind of started this procedure, did a lot of analysis on it, and ultimately claimed that when you really break things down, there's kind of four sorts of relationships. And she claimed that those relationships are highly predictive of the future relationships a child has, that they're really setting the stage. kind of creating a blueprint for social relationships. and so that first relationship, she claimed, is really critical. so what we're going to do is we're going to describe her procedure. Then I'm going to tell you about these four relationships both how they're exhibited as a child and how they then translate to adulthood. and then we're going to talk a little bit about the dynamics that actually may have created each kind of relationship. Okay? So, let's do the process of self strange situation test. This is a lab. A developmental psychology lab. Psychology labs take many different forms. This one takes the form of, essentially, a nice homey looking room. with some chairs and a table, and typically some toys and maybe some magazines. This would be a one-way glass. So the researchers are behind this one-way mirror and, and the way this would work at least the main condition, different conditions are sometimes tested, but the main condition that we're going to focus on works in the following the parent and child come in the room. the parent typically sits in a chair and reads a magazine. they're instructed, just go and do something, you know, to, by yourself, so to speak, because we're curious about, first thing, what the child does. So, the child is free to explore the room, and again, there's some toys and stuff around, some cool things. so they're free to explore the room, but the parent is not suppose to guide them in their exploration. The parent is supposed to sit still and kind of chill. and so the first thing we want to know is, what's the child do here? do they stick close to the parent? Do they go and explore the room, how explorative are they? so that's kind of important. Now, not long thereafter, a stranger enters the room. This is the strange situation. Stranger enters the room, talks to the parent for a little bit, and then approaches the child. And tries to interact with the child, maybe playing a game, something like that. In a game, here we're very curious about how the child reacts. Do they go to the parent for support, security? Do they interact with the stranger? Do they treat the stranger in any way differently than the parent? Do we see a clear preference for the parent? Or do they interact with a stranger, you know, much the same way they interact with a parent? So, we're curious about that. Now, here's a sort of critical one, and this is where, you know, some people who watch these videos, and you'll see the videos, find this part really hard. The parent leaves the room, leaving the child with a stranger. Many children are not happy about that. And many people watching the videos think, how could a parent bring a child into this situation? Because the child can get upset. They get angry. Well, not necessarily angry, but they get upset. They cry, they whatever, and the parent is away for a while. Stranger kind of tries to comfort, you know, does what they can, but at some point not too long thereafter, the parent returns, and attempts to comfort the child. Okay. And again, we want to know in both of these steps, how does the child react? and especially on the return, on what's called the reunion. Does the child go to the mother? Is the child happy, first of all, that the mother's back? Does it go to the mother for comfort and support? See I slipped into the primary caregiver, for comfort and support. or, does the child show some level of anger, or resentment or detachment when the parent comes back? Do they, do they steer clear of the parent? Do they seem miffed that the parent left and came back? Some children do, okay. And so as we ask these questions imagine someone behind the glass watching all these reactions. And based on their reactions they're ultimately going to classify a, an attachment, and this is what they call it, between the child and the parent. So this isn't about the child. It's not about the parent, although we're, it is going to be a little bit more about the parent. But r-, what this is really about is the attachment between the two. Okay and it's going to classify, the researchers are going to classify that attachments into one of 4 categories. The best, is a secure attachment. Okay, the sort of markers in the child,of a secure attachment, during this strange situation test. Is, first of all, they are able to separate from the parent. They explore when they first come in the room. they're not, you know, worried and stuck to their, to their parent. They actually go ahead and, and explore. when something frightens them, so for example when the stranger tries to interact with them, or even when the stranger first enters the room, anything that frightens them, they go and they go to the parent. They basically go to the parent for security, in a sense, when they're frightened. that's considered to be a good thing. That shows that they trust their parent to provide some sort of comfort when they need it. when the parents leave and then return, these children are very happy to see their parent return. so they're showing positive emotion and in general you see through the whole interaction that the child clearly has a preference for the parent over the stranger okay and so that's obvious road. So when you see these kind of indicators they suggest that this parent and child have what's called a secure attachment. and we know that these children, if we follow them through life. Tend to enter into trusting lasting relationships. They tend to be higher self esteem. They tend to be more comfortable sharing their feelings with friends and partners. And they seek out social interactions. Okay? So, to an extent, these children are socially. Competent and, and they seem to interact very well as social beings. And they seem successful as social beings, so this is, you know, the good one. Now we're going to talk about three not-so-good ones, and then we'll talk about how they come up better. So the first not-so-good one is called avoidant attachment. This is what you might see as an experimenter in the Ainsworth task. First of all, the child does not seem overly drawn to the parent at all. Even from right into the room, the child might, yes they're exploring but they're exploring in kind of a in a very different way. So these children will explore but they'll probably always keep tabs on where their parent is because if they're frightened they're going to go to their parent for support. These children Don't even seem to care that their parents are there. Okay? So they may explore. But they're exploring in a very different, more independent way. When, they are scared. Like, for example, when the stranger comes and talks to them or something. They do not go to their parent for comfort. Even when they clearly look distressed. [SOUND]. Their first reaction is certainly not to go running to the parent for comfort. Okay? And, in general, they just don't seem to be any more attached to their parent then they are to the strange individual. So you just really get the sense of a coldness between the parent and the child. And we call that an avoidant attachment, okay. These children, when they grow up, perhaps not surprisingly, have problems with intimacy. They really don't, they, they don't give much of themselves emotionally in romantic relationships. So, you know, we hear terms like someone's afraid to get hurt and so they don't invest too much in a relationship because if the relationship, doesn't work they don't want to be too broken up about it. unable or unwilling to share thoughts or feelings with others. So, so these children are socially not doing very well, in a very specific way. That very cold Keep things to themselves. You know, you can almost think of it as strong independence if you want to put a positive spin to it. But independence that's really seemingly getting in the way of social interactions. Now, here's two that are even to some extent a little more messed up. Although, maybe not, maybe you wouldn't say that to ambivalent. But ambivalent is the sense you get is that the child is somewhere in between those other two. So, so they're probably wary of strangers. and, and they may show a you know, in that, in that sense, a hint of a preference to the parent over the stranger. So, so they do have you know, a hint of that preference. They get really upset when the parent leaves, but they're not really comforted when the parent comes back. So let me, you know, contrast this. For a secure attachment situation, the infant is upset when the parent leaves, but when the parent comes back that reunion is critical, because when the parent comes back. The secure attachment children like, oh, thank goodness, I feel better now. These children are more like, oh, I can't trust you. Man. So it's like, there's still anger, and like, okay, you're back, fine. So, and you know, at some level, you imagine them happy the parent's back, but not happy to the point it's like, oh, okay, you're back, everything's fine. Everything's not fine, for these children. and again we'll get a sense of why in a second. for these kind of children. So there's, they're kind of in the middle. They want their parent around. They seem to prefer their parent. And yet, they don't just completely socially, interact in that positive way with their parents when they become adults. Reluctant to become close to others, always worried that their partner does not love them, and they become very upset when their relationship ends. these are hallmarks of one of these ambivalent attachment children, okay. So again, we're just thinking about the categorization mostly. Here's the third one it's really categorized. This disorganized one. People sometimes think of these things as catch all groups. Like okay, these first three you can kind of imagine these behaviors that you see linking somebody to groups. In this fourth category, the children are often just behaving bizarrely. They're showing a mix of all these kinds of behaviors, that tend to be negative. The point too here is the real critical one. They seem dazed, confused, or apprehensive. It's like they don't know what to do. Okay, the other children all, you kind of got a sense that something was going on in their minds, and they were either like, even in the ambivalent one, when the parent comes back, you get the sense that, the child is like, happy they're back but kind of pissed that they left. Right. in this case, it's like the child just doesn't understand, in the case of the disorganized. Doesn't understand what they should be doing, how they should be reacting. They're upset, emotional, confused, but not in any organized way. They seem kind of random in their reactions. Now, this will sound really odd but Just take this for now, and you'll understand in a second. So, as they get older, by age six already, they may take on a parental role, and may actually act as a caregiver towards the parent. This, what this really suggests, and what we're now going to talk about, is that sometimes these attachments are due to The, the way the mother and I'm going to focus on mothers for, for a little bit here, interact with her children and the signals that the mother's sending. So let's just go there. There's a lot in this table but it brings everything together in a way that makes sense. I'm going to start at the bottom with this disorganized becaue I think it makes the most sense. The claim here is, if we look at the mothers, typically, in this case, this, this is more common with younger mothers, more common with mothers who have substance abuse disorders, single mothers who still are in. distress of some sort, you know and not very good family support, that kind of thing. And the claim is that these mothers are anxious and worried and, and they, they don't feel like they're ready to be mothers. And they're scared of being a mother and all of that. And so that anxiety and, and neurosis kind of sneaks over to the child. The child feels all this tension, all this worry, all this incompetence in a sense. The mother feeling like they're not ready for this. The child ends up depressed, angry, passive, non-responsive. So the child is confused. They don't know how to, what to do, and what to expect, and what's going to happen next. and that's why by age six sometimes they become the primary caregiver, and it's like they are, they would rather take control. Because this parent they have is just not a very good parent, not a very capable parent. and so this disorganized attachment can really mess them up, and it can mess them all through life. so a lot of this is spoken in terms of their needs. So, when the parent is very chaotic like this, the child is doesn't know how to get what they need out of the parent because the parent is just too erratic. And so there's, there's no, rhyme or reason and, and so the parent, the child doesn't know how to behave essentially, doesn't know how to get its needs met. Now, think of that, with respect to say a secure attachment. So, we would all like a secure attachment. When you look at mother's in the case of a secure attachment. When the baby's upset, the mother is there. They, they intervene quickly, sensitively, and consistently. Okay? When the baby cries. And this is true of young babies. You know, eventually yes, they will learn to cry to get attention. But when they're young, they're crying because they need something. and these, the mothers that are there to help. that are sensitive and that are you know especially consistently there consistent will be the difference between some of these other ones. That tends to lead to the secure attachment because the baby believes and trusts that his needs will be met OK. Filling in the middle picture here. avoid an attachment. The notion is, why do you get this avoid, that's that could relationship between the parent and child. How does that come to be? Well, the claim is that happens when the parent is distracted. So, so imagine for example, you sometimes hear of situations of a single parent, where that single parent, primary caregiver, is still in the prime of their life and is still socially very active and maybe is still looking for that husband or wife. and, and so it's kind of like their life is still ongoing. They're not ready to just devote their life to the child. and so they may be distracted, they may be distant, they may be disengaged. And the child senses this. And starts to believe that hey, when I need something, often mommy or daddy are busy. And so they start to believe that: my needs won't be met. I'm on my own here. I can't count on someone else, and that's why they get that cold independence. Finally with this ambivalent one, it's sort of somewhere in between. So, you know, the parent in this case is inconsistent. Unlike the secure attachment, inconsistent. Sometimes they're like a secure attachment mother. They're there for the baby. They help them. Sometimes they're more like an avoidant attachment. They're busy. They're neglectful. And so the child now ends up in this middle stage, where sometimes their needs are met, but they can't count on it. Can't rely on it. And that makes them anxious, insecure, angry. Alright, so you get the full picture there. Now, okay, we've been talking first couple years and again, Ainsworth would say those are critical. That's where you're setting up the blue print for relationships and you get a sense of why she thinks that. Okay, so I'm going to let you think about that, but now we're going to move on to the rest of the child's life. And Robbie and Nicole, the next question is what kind of parent will you be when this child starts pushing the boundaries. A lot of this is about boundaries. And most people find this a really kind of interesting Way, everybody, everybody can't help but think of their parents and their children if they have parents and how they're parenting. A, a lot of psychologists believe you can take parenting style and kind of talk about them in terms of two, the names they give to these dimensions changes as you'll see in this case it's control. And support. Support, kind of meaning loving, intimacy. Control meaning just, you want control everything and so, if we imagine low control parents, but we imagine, well, let's start with the un-involved. So, low control, low support. This un-involved parent is a like that avoidant parent, in a sense. They don't set any rules for their children, they don't monitor their children, and they don't really offer any support. It's kind of like you're on your own. Learn from, so there's this little kids will be kids, you'll learn from your mistakes. So the parent is kind of busy. They're occupied. and so it's up to the child to now figure stuff out. Okay, I'm going to talk about the consequences of these in a moment, but let's just think about these quickly. The permissive parent is also, similar but different. The permissive parent shows more love for their child. They still allow the child to do just about anything they want to do, so they're still not setting rules, boundaries, limitations. They're letting the children do what they want to do, but they love the child, and sometimes these permissive parents are the ones that you see where they want to be their, a mother wants to be their daughters buddy, or the father wants to be their sons pal, they would rather be friends than parents is sort of the notion. So they don't want to be setting rules, they don't want to be that kind of person. They want to have fun, good times, they love their kids. But they let them do whatever they want. I'll trust you to do the right thing, is the phrase here. These are the kind of parents we all wanted. But should we have? Let's kind of hold on, and let's go to the two that kind of want more control. So these are the more controlling parents, but again there's kind of a bad and a good controlling parent. The bad is the authoritarian. So this is the my house, my rules, you do what I say Period, Buster, and if you don't do what I say, you will taste the belt, or something like that. So these people these parents are very tough, very strong. They have rules. They don't need the, they don't need to justify their rules. They don't need to explain them to you. it's their house, you will do as they say and if you don't You'll know it. so you know these, these are hard ass parents [LAUGH] to an extent. Versus similar but different and, and this distinction is critical. This is the kind of parent that is seen as the best kind of parent. Authoritative parent. So these parents still have rules. they still expect their children to follow them but they, they're willing to justify the rules. Okay, there's a rationale behind their rule. They often communicate this rationale to their children. They will allow rules to be bent if the general rationale still holds. so you know, one example of that is maybe you have to be home by ten p.m. every night because we have to know you're home and safe So that we can go to sleep feeling comfortable and relaxed. and a child might say yeah, but man, this particular night, we were having movie night at my friend's house and their parents will be there the whole time and, and htey will drive me home at midnight, and make sure I'm in and the door's locked. And blah, blah, blah and maybe a parent will say, okay in that case that's alright because you're still, we still know that you're safe and that's the central thing. So these parents will negotiate but ultimately they're still in control and, and everything is about, you know trying to be good parents. Like we're setting these rules not arbitrarily, but for good reason, and so, there's reasons like I'll care and I'll give you the freedoms you earn, but for safety related issues, you'll do as I say. Okay, so authoratative. Now, what's the result of these parenting styles? Okay, first of all, things have moved a little bit on this graph. relative to the, the previous one; it's kind of flipped. And they've called these things different, so this is now High Responsiveness. In the previous, that,s what would have been Support Responsiveness, Support High Demands, that's what in the previous one would be Control, okay. But again, same notion. so that these, these, these are now the more controlling ones. Now let's look at the authoritative first of all. The good one. Okay. In this case, when parents are authoritative their children tend to be self-assertive, independent, friendly, cooperative, motivated, competent. That's what you want, Robin Nicole. [LAUGH] You want this sort of style and this sort of child, generally. These authortitarians, their children tend to be kind of beaten down, withdrawn, apathetic. Girls tend to end up being very shy. Boys tend to end up being very angry. They've been held down for a long time and they're carrying along hostility. And they're both generally unmotivated, incompetent, okay? They, they've just been pushed down for too long and, and they, and they start to incorporate into the sense of who they are, so you know, not good. These are the two parents that are very, allowing their children to do anything they want. Now, these permissive parents. These are, these are the buddies. These are the ones that want to be friends with their kids, right? that's what we think we all want our parents to be. But when you look at the children. Later in life, from these permissive families, you see that they tend to be impulsive, dependent, undisciplined, immature, risk takers, manipulative, socially competent [NOISE] self centered. Okay, you don't want to have a relationship, with one of these children, because these children are use to being able to do anything they want. Any time they want with impunity. And while that may have owrked with their parents, it doesn't tend to work very well in other social situations. You know, they show all this impulsive blah blah blah blah. you know, I, I think I was somewhere, my parents were somewhere in between here, and I [LAUGH] think I maybe have a hint of both these characteristics at times. But anyway, that's the permissive. Now this is the uninvolved. This is the distracted parent who just doesn't you know really, the problem with an un-involved parent is the child doesn't feel loved. It's true in the authoritarian as well. With this low responsiveness, how loved do they feel? So again these people are unmotivated Self-effacing, indifferent, destructive, sometimes they personally, you know, feel like they're not worth anything and they should be hurt, or whatever, detached, socially incompetent. so, not good. Alright. So again, the morals from all of that from the Mary Ainsworth stuff, is for parents, you know, try to breed that secure attachment, and, and you do that by being responsive to your very young child. consistently and sensitively responsive. that's the best thing you can do as a very new mother very new caregiver, that you two wrote. that's the best thing you do. As they age then this style is one you would like to adopt. One where you do have rules, you do have boundaries, but you communicate them clearly with your children, you're willing to negotiate them in logical rational ways, and you're constantly giving the impression to your children that you do love them, you care them, for them. The rules are there for their. protection. and for their proper development, in a sense. That's the morals. There you go. Parenting 101. alright. So, some videos. these are just some videos related to everything we talked about. I'm just going to say that really quick. Check them out. You'll like them, especially the strange situation. It will really make that come home. These readings I threw in because we've done two lectures now on developmental psychology, but it would normally be a whole chapter. If you found those lectures really interesting, check these out, these will show you some of the other really interesting studies in developmental psych, alright. I'm going to shut up now, because I feel like I still went too long. Buh-bye, have a good day.
