Pet Week 4: Pets and Human Attachment

Lorenz and his geese.

            If you’ve followed this blog for any length of time, hopefully, you have learned a little about the attachment relationship between mother and child.  Bowlby’sand Ainsworth’s now famous studies on maternal attachment have their roots in studies that had previously been completed through animal observations.  In animals, as with humans, the newborn’s instinctual ability to keep close proximity to its mother is a very necessary tool for survival.  While this is typically referred to as attachment in humans, in animals it is known as imprinting.    

            Konard Lorenz’s work with birds, especially ducks and goslings, shaped much of what we know about imprinting today.  He discovered that imprinting must take place during a critical period.  An animal will not be able to attach before this critical period, and, if after this critical period an attachment has not been formed, it will never be able to form an attachment to another being.  Later researchers determined that the critical period ends when the animals starts to exhibit signs of fear. 

            This idea of a critical period of attachment has also been found in human infants.  Bowlby’s work discovered that between birth and three months, babies will interact with anyone.  Between three and six months, they begin to favor individuals with whom they are familiar.  By 6 months, human infants show a clear preference for their primary caregiver, most often the mother, and will likely exhibit separation anxiety and a fear of strangers at 8 or 9 months.  Beyond this, research shows that babies who have started to emotionally attach with their mothers at 3 months are more likely to be securely attached at 12 months and demonstrate less behavior problems at 24 months.  Given these findings, it appears that the critical period of human infant attachment is within the first three months of life.  However, research certainly doesn’t show that this period is as critical as it is in some animals.  That is, babies who do not attach within the first three months of life certainly are not doomed to never attach to a human!

            During Lorenz’s research, he raised orphan goslings.  As he attended to them during their critical period, they actually imprinted on him!  They would follow him in a single line, paying no attention to other geese. 

So, back to the topic of pet week, can our pet dogs and cats attach to humans?  According to at least one study, dogs and their owners experience physical changes as a result of contact with each other.  The study measured levels of oxytocin, cortisol, and insulin in both the dogs and their owners before they were exposed to each other and after exposure after 3, 15, and 30 minute intervals.  These are hormones that measure levels of stress and increase feelings of love and belonging; oxytocin, specifically, is related to maternal attachment in humans as there are increases in oxytocin after childbirth and while breastfeeding.  The researchers discovered after the interaction between human and pet, stress levels and heart rate were reduced.   These are similar to the physical reactions that occur during interactions between a human mother and her infant.  So, it appears that humans may be able to serve as a secure base for their pets! 

Sources:

Crain, W. (2001). Theories of development: Concepts and applications. Prentice Hall: Boston.

Handlin, L.,  Hydbring-Sandberg, E. Nilsson, A., Ejdebäck, M.,  Jansson, A. Uvnäs-Moberg, K. (2011). Short-term interaction between dogs and their owners: Effects on oxytocin, cortisol, insulin and heart rate—An exploratory study. Anthrozoos: A Multidisciplinary Journal of The Interactions of People & Animal, 24(3), 301-315.

Maternal Attachment: Characteristics of the Child

  We have defined maternal attachment and looked at the characteristics of different mothering styles.  But, why does it all matter? How does it affect the child?  Below are three patterns of attachment observed by Mary Ainsworth. (Later researchers identified other attachment patterns as some observations show that as many as 15-20% of infants do not meet the below criteria. To read about this "unclassified" infants, check out this post)  If you have not already, be sure to check out the original post about maternal attachment so that you are familiar with the Strange Situation experiment as it used when describing the attachment patterns.

Securely Attached Infants
      Ainsworth considers this the healthy attachment pattern, and studies indicate it describes about 65% of infants in the United States.  Securely attached infants use their mother as a secure base from which to explore.  They play and practice moving about a room but have knowledge of the mother's whereabouts and might look back at her and smile or otherwise interact.  They enjoy physical contact with the mother.  When the mother leaves the room during the Strange Situation experiment, these infants might cry or otherwise become visibly upset. However, no severe signs of anxiety are expressed. and, their mood quickly improves when the mother returns.
     In the home observations, the mothers quickly responded to the baby's needs and happily comforted the baby.  Generally, the babies displayed little sign of stress at home.

Insecure-Avoidant Infants
    Here, the child and the mother seem to not be in-synch with each other.  This relationship is found in about 20% of infants in the United States. At times the mother may want to have physical contact with the child, but the child is engaged in play and is resentful of the mother's interruptions. Likewise, when the child activity seeks affection from the mother, she may ignore the child and continue her activities.  Eventually, the child will cease his attempts.  While the child may occasionally use the mother as a secure base, this is not always the case, and he can seem quite independent at times.  This may lead some to believe that the child is healthy and able to take care of himself. However, it is actually an indicator of detachment from the mother that is likely a result of the times he gave up fighting for her attention.  These children realize that they cannot always depend on their mothers for support and, thus, become self-protective.

Insecure-Ambivalent Infants
    These infants are scared to leave their mothers' side to explore.  When the mother leaves during the Strange Situation, the infant is very distressed and quickly goes to his mother upon her return.  At the same time, however, he is upset with her. He is torn between emotions.  During home observations, it was observed that the mothers to insecure-ambivalent infants were inconsistent in their treatment.  At times, they were loving, while other times, they ignored the infants.  This usually describes 10-15% of infants in the United States.

Sources:
Ainsworth, Mary. (1970). Criteria for Classification of One-Year-Olds in Terms of the Balance Between Exploratory and Attachment Behavior at Home. Retrieved from http://www.psychology.sunysb.edu/attachment/measures/content/home_secure_base_patterns.pdf
Crain, William. (2011). Theories of Development: Concepts and Application. New Jersey: Prentice Hall.

What is a secure base?

         Developed by developmental psychologist Mary Ainsworth, the secure base phenomenon describes how the primary caregiver (typically the mama) is attached to her baby or, in more technical terms, maternal-infant attachment patterns.  Within this phenomenon, the primary caregiver, serves as a "secure base" for the baby's exploration of his physical environment.  Ainsworth researched her secure base model in her experiment, the Strange Situation.  Within the Strange Situation experiment, infants 12 months old are observed with their mothers in progressively more stressful situations.  The infants and their mothers are placed in a room with toys for 21 minutes.  During this time, a stranger comes into the room and begins to play with the child; the mother leaves the room and then returns on two occasions, and, lastly, the stranger leaves and again enters the room.  Throughout the experiment, the infants’ behaviors of “proximity seeking, contact maintaining, avoidance [of interactions with the mother], and resistance [to any of the mother’s attempts at interaction]” (Huth-Bocks, Levendosky, Bogat, & von Eye, 2004, p.487) are observed.  Based upon these observations, infants are classified as secure, insecure-avoidant, insecure-ambivalent, or disorganized-disoriented.  The Strange Situation was combined with home observations to determine the mother's treatment of the infant during daily routines.

      In the observations, securely attached babies typically only cried when they noticed their mothers were missing, whereas crying by insecurely attached infants was unpredictable and seemingly unrelated to the mother’s actions.  So, securely attached babies look for and depend on their secure bases (mothers) for support in stressful situations, but babies that are not securely attached know that they cannot necessarily depend on their mothers.   

   Based upon these findings (which have been repeated by many researchers), we can conclude that responding to our babies needs is the most effective way to develop a secure attachment pattern with our babies.  Popular "cry it out" methods certainly do not meet this criteria!  

Sources:

Ainsworth, M. & Marvin, R.S. (1995). On the shaping of attachment theory and research: An interview with Mary D. S.Ainsworth (Fall 1994). Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 60(2/3), 2-21. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/1166167

Allen, J.P., McElhaney, K.B., Land, D.J., Kuperminc, & Jodl, K.M. (2004). Stability and change in attachment security across adolescence. Child Development, 75(6), 1792-1805. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/3696677 

Huth-Bocks, A.C., Levendosky, A.A., Bogat, G.B., & von Eye, A. (2004). The impact of maternal characteristics and contextual variables on infant-mother attachment. Child Development, 75(2), 480-496. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/3696653