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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Attachment theory | 6/12 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attachment_theory | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T15:31:31.580137+00:00 | kb-cron |
=== Disorganized-disoriented attachment === Beginning in 1983, Crittenden offered A/C and other new organized classifications (see below). Drawing on records of behaviours discrepant with the A, B and C classifications, a fourth classification was added by Ainsworth's colleague Mary Main. In the Strange Situation, the attachment system is expected to be activated by the departure and return of the caregiver. If the infant's behaviour does not appear to the observer to be coordinated smoothly across episodes to achieve either proximity or some relative proximity with the caregiver, then it is considered 'disorganized', as it indicates a disruption or flooding of the attachment system (e.g., by fear). Infant behaviours in the Strange Situation Protocol coded as disorganized/disoriented include overt displays of fear; contradictory behaviours or affects occurring simultaneously or sequentially; stereotypic, asymmetric, misdirected or jerky movements; or freezing and apparent dissociation. Lyons-Ruth has urged, however, that it should be more widely "recognized that 52% of disorganized infants continue to approach the caregiver, seek comfort, and cease their distress without clear ambivalent or avoidant behavior".
=== Reactive attachment disorder and attachment disorder ===
One atypical attachment pattern is considered to be an actual disorder, known as reactive attachment disorder or RAD, which is a recognized psychiatric diagnosis (ICD-10 F94.1/2 and DSM-IV-TR 313.89). Against common misconception, this is not the same as 'disorganized attachment'. The essential feature of reactive attachment disorder is markedly disturbed and developmentally inappropriate social relatedness in most contexts that begins before age five years, associated with gross pathological care.
=== The dynamic-maturational model ===
The dynamic-maturational model of attachment and adaptation is a biopsychosocial model that describes the effects of attachment relationships on human development and functioning. It is especially focused on the effects of relationships between children and parents and between reproductive couples. The DMM was initially created by developmental psychologist Patricia McKinsey Crittenden and her colleagues, including David DiLalla, Angelika Claussen, Andrea Landini, Steve Farnfield, and Susan Spieker.
=== Significance of patterns === Research based on data from longitudinal studies, such as the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care and the Minnesota Study of Risk and Adaption from Birth to Adulthood, and from cross-sectional studies, seeking to show associations between early attachment classifications and peer relationships typically fails to control for social background variables when seeking correlations between attachment classifications and other child behaviours, such as competence with peers. This is a general problem. Lyons-Ruth, for example, found that 'for each additional withdrawing behavior displayed by mothers in relation to their infant's attachment cues in the Strange Situation Procedure, the likelihood of clinical referral by service providers was increased by 50%.' But no attempt was made to assess the social background of the children who had better or worse outcomes. Similar problems affect most longitudinal claims about secure children, for example, that they have more positive and fewer negative peer reactions and establish more and better friendships. The possibility that infants are competent in peer-groups before nine months of age (before caregiver-focused attachments have formed) has never been investigated in attachment research. Such group-interactional competence has now been demonstrated in babies as young as six months old. As a result, we may now ask whether attachment-formation is itself a consequence of how much experience pre-attachment babies have of interacting in groups, in extended families versus nuclear families for example. Few, if any, rigorous studies that control for children's social background variables show even a weak association between early experience and any comprehensive measure of social functioning in early adulthood. However, in studies which ignore social background, early experience may seem to predict early childhood representations of relationships, which in turn may be held to correlate with later self and relationship representations and social behaviour.
== Changes in attachment during childhood and adolescence ==