up:: Tags:: #🌱 Links:: [[Attachment plays a large role in your propensity for entering flow]] # Attachment theory Attachment theory theorizes that children come into the world pre-programmed to form attachments with others and that their early relationship experiences cause them to form one of four [[Attachment styles]]: secure, anxious ambivalent, anxious avoidant, and disorganized. ### Why do we form attachment bonds? Bolwby’s hypothesis was humans are some of the most altricial (dependent) species in the animal kingdom. We need to form a good attachment with some human being so that we can be helped during our period of most immaturity. Like we have an inborn physiological system for eating or drinking children have a inborn behavioral system for crying if they feel too far away from their most important attachment, generally the mother. #### Attachment Behavioral System Dynamics ![[C2277750-4FF9-47B8-8520-D40B9AB0E4A8.jpeg]] ### What determines who becomes an attachment figure? - Who's around? - Who's around **when the baby is distressed?** - Physical maturity (babies look for adults to attach to) - Physical intimacy - Ventral contact ### What defines attachment bonds? Who are the people that when you feel distressed, you reach out to? Who are the people that just knowing you have them in your life, helps you go out into the world and do things? ### What is Attachment Hierarchy? All attachments aren’t made the same. They exist on a hierarchy. When you become stressed there is a hierarchy of people that you likely go to to relieve that stress. The order you go through comprises your attachment hierarchy. ### What is monotropy? Monotropy is the idea that a child must form one attachment bond that is stronger than all the rest. This bond would be at the top of your attachment hierarchy. ### What’s the difference between attachment behaviors and bonds? Attachment Behaviors are behaviors that correspond with attachment like seeking comfort from a stranger. Attachment bonds are fleshed relationships of attachment we have with others. ### What is the ontogeny of attachment bonds? In other words the stages in bond formation? 0-2 Months: Pre-attachment 2-6 Month: Attachment in the making 6-8 Months: Clear cut attachment - Separation anxiety - Stranger anxiety - Self produced locomotion (crawling) 2 years: movement away from parents and toward peers 3 years: parallel play. Playing next to each other 4-6 years: - kids start thinking about gender. - Impose self segregation. - Kids start sexual imprinting. Ruling in the characteristics they find attractive in certain mates. - There is evidence of the Westermarck effect which shows that those who spend a significant amount of time around each other during this period are ruled out as potential mates. Possibly as an anti incest mechanism? This happens regardless of genetic relatedness. **It's different from sexual imprinting in that you rule out mates instead of rule in. ** ### How does our relationship toward our parents compared to our peers change across the first 17 years of life? Generally we shift who we want to spend time with and confide in to our peers instead of our parents. ### What happens when babies aren't cared for when they signal distress? There are three phases to this: 1. Protest: babies continue crying 2. Depression: babies experience a lot of physical problems like reduced growth hormone, heart beat, and more. 3. Detachment ### Does caregiver responsiveness outside the healthy norm effect biological factors? It effects not only behavioral metrics but also biological ones through epigenetics. Certain genes get turned on that wouldn't have in a normal caregiving relationship leading to different biological responses. # Resources