welcome to psych irl.
my name is donna.
Do you get into relationships easily?
do you like hugs?
do you not like hugs?
would you rather be alone?
would you rather be with lots of friends?
Now, all of these questions I just asked are some form of attachment and they describe
how easily or not easily you get attached to someone.
Attachment is the affectional or emotional tie between a person and the attachment figure.
This can happen between two adults, two children, a child and adult, and so forth, but why do
people differ in attachment styles.
Why are some people considered cold and distant while others are considered clingy?
In the 1960s John Bowlby began developing his theories on attachment.
He noticed this interesting dynamic between a child and mother being separated.
The mom and infant attachment is probably one of the most earliest forms of attachments
one can experience.
In the 70s a student of John Bowlby, Mary Ainsworth decided to investigate this further
by studying individual differences.
One of her most famous studies, the strange situation investigated this.
So this was between a mom and her infant, usually one to two years old.
In the experiment, a mom and her baby enter a room alone.
In this room there are a bunch of toys and they sit there for a minute just getting use
to the room.
Then a stranger joins and sits next to the mother.
Then the mom leaves the baby alone with the stranger.
They are also recording stranger anxiety and that's the distress when approached by unfamiliar
people.
The mom then returns then the stranger leaves.
The mom and baby are alone again for a while.
The mom leaves the baby alone.
With this they are measuring separation anxiety and that is the fear expressed when separated
from a major caretaker.
Then the stranger enters and attempts to console the baby.
After that the mom comes back.
In this experiment, the reunion between mom and infant are very important.
There are three types of attachment that were discovered from this experiment.
The first type is secure attachment.
So, securely attached infants do explore the room while the mom is around.
When the mom leaves, the infant may or may not cry but when the mother comes back the
infant is quickly consoled.
The parenting style for this infant is most likely that the parent was consistently there
for the child's needs.
Upon the mother's return the infant sees no need to cry anymore because the infant trusts
the mother won't leave again.
As adults, securely attached types are easier to get close to, usually happy and trusting
in their relationships.
The next type is insecure avoidant.
Upon the reunion of mother and infant, the infant usually ignores the mother.
Maybe pays attention more to the stranger.
This parenting style is most likely preoccupied.
The parent may have been too busy to attend to the child's needs.
Therefore at an early age, the child had to learn to fend for itself.
As adults these attachment types, find it hard to get into relationships, usually have
trust issues, and don't like to depend on others but themselves.
The next type is anxious ambivalent.
Upon reunion with the other these infants are usually very clingy and hard to console.
The parenting style they likely received is most likely inconsistent meaning that sometimes
they were given attention and sometimes they weren't.
This may be why they are hard to console.
They do not trust whether the mother will leave again or not.
As adults these types usually seek relationships but are unsure whether or not they are deserving
of that love, because of that they are usually clingy, obsessive, and easily jealous.
Now, just because you received those parenting styles doesn't mean you're doomed to fit into
that categorized relationship.
Relationships between a secure and anxious ambivalent person may cause the anxious ambivalent
person to feel secure because the person who is secure has made them feel secure.
Vice versa a person who was raised in a secure way may have a partner that constantly cheats
making them feel anxious ambivalent in this relationship.
So, thats the end of the video.
I hope you guys liked it.
Stay psyched.