• Secure infants either seek proximity or contact or else greet the parent at a distance with a smile or wave.
  
• Secure adults find it relatively easy to get close to others and are comfortable depending on others and having others depend on them. Secure adults don't often worry about being abandoned or about someone getting too close to them.
• Avoidant infants avoid the parent.
  
• Avoidant adults are somewhat uncomfortable being close to others; they find it difficult to trust others completely, difficult to allow themselves to depend on others. Avoidant adults are nervous when anyone gets too close, and often, love partners want them to be more intimate than they feel comfortable being.
• Resistant / ambivalent infants either passively or actively show hostility toward the parent. 
• Anxious / ambivalent adults find that others are reluctant to get as close as they would like. Anxious / ambivalent adults often worry that their partner doesn't really love them or won't want to stay with them. Anxious / ambivalent adults want to merge completely with another person, and this desire sometimes scares people away.     (from: http://www.personalityresearch.org/attachment.html)  
  

• Attachment creates positive emotional reactions in parents.
• Attachment increases the likelihood that the child will be cared for, thus survive.
• Attachment increases the likelihood that the parents' genes will be passed along.

• better maternal care of infants
• prolonged breast feeding
• improved infant weight gain
• decreased rate of infections.  (in Lockard, Daley & Gunderson (1979) Maternal and Paternal Differences in Infant Carry: U.S. and African Data. The American Naturalist. Vol 113, No.2)
  

• Parents in different cultures carry infants on the Left side/hip about 80% of the time - closer to the sound of the heart.
• A survey of over 400 art works from 4 cultures, which show mother and infant have about 80% with mother carrying child on Left side.
• Recordings of heart beats at normal speed (72 bpm) soothed babies, but at 125 bpm babies became upset and agitated.
• Newborns who are rocked at the rate of normal heart rhythm are soothed more than those rocked faster or slower.
• Observations of over 2,000 babies in Dakar, Senegal wrapped to mothers' backs in pagnes leaned their heads to the mothers' left.
  
• (all in Lockard, Daley & Gunderson (1979) Maternal and Paternal Differences in Infant Carry: U.S. and African Data. The American Naturalist. Vol 113, No.2) 
  
• photos of babies in slings, looking left are from The World Bank photo collection on Flickr, CC,  link here.      
  

• Playing
• Bathing & Feeding
• Breastfeeding

BABY'S  ATTACHMENT  to  PARENTS
 

3 types of evidence that attachment has occurred:

Baby attempts to maintain contact with the parent. Baby shows distress when parent is absent. Baby is more relaxed with the parent and more fretful with other people.

Stranger Anxiety

Baby's discomfort or tension in the presence of unfamiliar people. There is obvious functional survival value. Usually begins a few months after birth. Adults show greater wariness of strangers than do children.

Separation Anxiety

Baby's discomfort when the preferred person is absent. May involve attempts to re-connect with preferred person. Not usually observed until about 9 months after birth. Situational factors influence the degree of negative reaction. (home vs. away, (un)familiar surrogate caregiver, etc.) Over time, kids tolerate and look forward to longer periods of separation.

Critical Period for Development of Attachment   

Study: Babies moved from Foster to Adoptive mothers.
    Before 6 months of age, no distress, easy adaptation if the needs were met.
    After 8 months of age, strong negative reactions, angry protest, withdrawal.
If there is a critical period, it begins after 6 months and ends at about 2 years.

Parents' Attachment to the Child

• Attachment is a two-way relationship.
• Few parents are willing to exchange their baby for another one.
• Shortly after labor, and during breast feeding, a woman's body releases Oxytocin, a hormone that produces a feeling of Social Pleasure. Oxytocin is also released during orgasm.
  
• Naming a child reflects the parents' connection - incorporating the infant as a person.
• Selecting and Giving a name is an important event in creating the bond, or attachment between Parents & Children. 
  
• " 'The naming of children,' writes historian Daniel Scott Smith, 'is culturally never a trivial act.' " (Hackett-Fischer, D. (1989) Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America.)
  
• There are many cultural effects of name selection:
  
• Immortality of the person through continuation of the name
  
• Bless the child with the traits of the loved one
  
• Imbue the child with traits associated with the name
  
• Create religious connection

• Paul Revere named 3 of his sons "John" before one of them lived long enough to carry it.
• The Necronym - Commonly practiced in Massachusetts colony, the practice of giving the name of a baby who dies, to the next born baby of the same sex.  (Albion's Seed) 
• George Foreman, the boxer, named all of his sons "George Foreman".
  
• Essay on Celebrity Names, like Moon Unit Zappa.
  
• Name Stories, some of which should have been stopped! 

Pygmalion Effect
Boys & Girls with names popular among teachers scored better in tests of skill & knowledge.
They also were rated higher on competence of essay writing.
Teachers expected these "normal" or "ideal" kids to do better, so they granted them the extra or benefit of the doubt because, "they knew the kids could do it."

Adjustment
Boys with "peculiar" names are more likely than girls to have adjustment problems.

Transporting Baby

Images, courtesy of Flickr.com group: Simple baby carriers. http://www.flickr.com/groups/526876@N22/

This proud mother has the baby in a car seat in a shopping cart - she doesn't have to touch the child.	One example from many cultures which use a cloth wrap to support and carry the baby.	Here, one doesn't even need to hold the carrying car seat:  www.safercarseatcarrier.com/use.html

Relevance of Attachment for Later Development

Securely attached kids as preschoolers show greater

• resilience
• self-control
• curiosity
  

Quality of Attachment has implications for the formation & maintenance of Later Relationships.
For Example: Young lovers exhibit many of the behaviors of parent-infant attachment:

• desire to maintain physical contact
• increased disclosure (blending of identities)
• increased responsiveness to loved one's needs
• effectiveness in providing/receiving comfort, reassurance and stress reduction
• exclusiveness & preferential response as compared to others

Interesting Internet Sites

La Leche League International - LLLI Philosophy
American Name Society