Question

1) How does attachment and temperament, interact to achieve stable personality development?

Answer 1

Attachment is the process that is based on positive psychological and physical experiences that the infant has with its's caregiver. Depending on how the child's needs are met with and fulfilled by the parents/ mother the child is "attached" with the caregiver in a particular manner. It must be noted that the fulfillment of psychological plays a significant contributor to attachment and social skills as seen by Harlow's experiment on monkeys.

Depending on the type of attachments, their behavior also varies during stressful situations-This has effectively been demonstrated by Mary Ainsworth in her research where she comes up with the following types of attachment styles:

1. Securely attached: Being able to explore a novel situation in the presence of the mother, getting upset when she left and being joyful when she returned the room. Having a secure attachment enables children to learn skills such as resiliency and competency while sharing a good relationship with people and themselves as they grow up.They are also curios and self relaint.

2. Insecurely attached: When children are indifferent to the presence of their mothers in the room, they would sometimes cry when she left and be easily consoled by a stranger, and would usually not greet the mother or turn away when the mother returned. They were classified as having anxious/avoidant attachment. The other type of insecure attachment would be the anxious/resistant type, where the infants would behave clingy when the mother was near, get upset when she left, however, have mixed feelings of being with her once she came back. As they grow, children who are insecurely attached may have difficulties in forming relations with others either due to decreased trust in them, or a decreased trust in themselves. They may experience more of relationship conflicts and may have feelings of low self-worth.

If considered carefully, attachment is also a process that is not only influenced by how the parent's responses, but also the other aspects of the child's temperament-such as the activity level, attention span, mood, intensity and reaction to new stimuli. And this is why, how a parent responds to the child's needs and uses a certain parenting strategy impacts the child's development.

It is important for parenting to consider all aspects of attachment and the child's temperament for stable personality development.

If a parent has a child whose activity levels are high and constantly seeks to explore new things-constantly berating a child for being messy will actually impede his learning process and this child may have issues with positive self-efficacy as he grows. It would be important for the parent to establish a secure attachment with the child, allow him to explore while guiding him as an when required. Children learn to develop a positive self-efficacy as well as emotional regulation.

Since children use parents as a base to explore the world around them, the relations they have with their parents often serve as a blueprint for future relations they may have. Thus with the appropriate parenting style, keeping in mind the child's attachment and temperament, children learn appropriate social skills, emotional regulation skills and learn to develop a positive view of themselves and the world around them.