PSY230: Developmental Perspective

Early Development §

The earliest people we see in our lives shape what we are

• Builds expectations for future relationship
  • Teach human what to expect and how to handle relationships in life

Objective Relation Theory §

Theory: Psychodynamic - Object Relations Theory

• Elements of satisfaction and fractions exist in all relationship
  • See the complicated part of caregivers
  • Lead to contradictory feelings in relationships
  • Can lead to feelings of love and hate
• Need to distinguish between parts of a love object and the whole person
  • Healthy development requires integrating the good and the bad parts of the object - in particular other people
• People have internal representation of the other people (the “parts” that either good or bad)
  • Stored in the unconscious part of one’s self
  • Unconsciously influence an individual and predicts their behavior in later adulthood

Attachment Theory §

Theory: Attachment Theory

• Infants has a strong desire to avoid separation from and get reunited with primary caregiver
• The ability for an individual to form emotional attachment to other person gives then sense of security
• Adult romantic relationships function like caregiver-child attachment relationships
  • prefer proximity, with distress upon separation
  • Turn to partner for support in danger
  • Derive security from partner, enable exploration and engagement with rest of the world
• First developed by John Bowlby: Shown in other species, thus, its a evolutional advantage
• Examined further by Mary Ainsworth — study: Strange Situation: Provides “secure base” for exploration

Attachment Types §

Avoidant/Dismissing Attachment §

• Caregiver is not responsive to child’s needs
• Child loose interest in relationships
• Low desire or fear of having close relationships

Anxious/Preoccupied Attachment §

• Caregiver is inconsistent to child’s needs
• Child become overly needing other’s attention
• Having extreme desire to be close to people

Secure Attachment §

• Caregiver respond to child’s needs appropriately
• Child develop healthy relationships
• Okay with close relationships but also can accept separation

Fearful/Disorganized Attachment §

• Caregiver is frightening or frightened (abusive or been abused)
• Child is constantly anxious and don’t know what to expect from relationship
• Needing close relationship (anxious) but when feeling of losing, start to push away (avoidant)

Recent Classification §

• Focus on dimensional measuring rather than simply classification
• Attachment style can change
• Research in done in Western middle class participants
  • Careful on assumption that it applies universally
  • Has moral issues with it (parenting types)

Insecure Attachment §

• Can lead to ambivalence in relationships (based on satisfaction)
• Impact of attention to threat and reward in relationship
• Low positive regard => negative commitment; needy dependence => positive commitment

Study

• Method
  • Recruited participation in romantic relationship
  • Measured attachment style
  • Measured perceptions of social threat and reward
• Result
  • Anxious attachment increase ambivalence because increased perception of threat
  • Avoidant attachment increase ambivalence because decreased perception of rewards

Temperament §

• Stable overtime
• Individual differences of how people respond to the world (nature and nurture)
• Related to personality, based people treat child differently from their temperament
• Biologically based, independent of experiences, stable
• Connected to parental style

Parenting Style §

Dimensions §

• Emotionality/negative affectively
• Activity
• Sociability/Extraversion
• Shyness (not = introversion)

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Parental Alienation §

Understand the difference from family abuse from alienation Not all child fall for it

• When divorce parents get along, spend similar amount of time with child, child can adapt well
• Parental Alienation - one parent intentionally (or unintentionally) engages in behaviours that lead a child to reject the other parent
  • A form of child abuse and intimate partner violence
  • Occurs in the context of separation or divorce
  • Manifest in hostility, anger, and/or fear toward other parent

Parent Behaviors

• Show anger, hostility, violence, fear to child when other parent visit
• Make the child feel guilty when/after other visit
  • Can cause the parental-child relationship to reverse (child feel responsible for parent)
• Tell child exaggerated/fake info about the other parent

Child Behaviours

• Can range mild to severe
• Manifest in hostility, anger, and/or fear toward the other parent

Reasons

• Use the child to make the other partner hurt
  • Due to jealous, anger, or fear
• Wanted fully control of the children
  • Can’t except that child wanted to be with other parent

8 Signs §

1. Denigration(诽谤)
   • Involves cognitive splitting: all bad toward rejected parent; all good about other parent
   • Does not happen in child/family abuse; child still can tell good memories after abuse
2. Lack of ambivalence
   • Completely trust the “good” parent
3. Independent thinker phenomenon
   • Child takes responsibility; defend the alienated parent
4. Frivolous or absurd rationalization
   • Rationalize the rejection of the rejected parent
   • Believe the exaggerated facts about rejected parent
5. Automatic support for alienating parent
   • Always jump to alienated parent’s defense
6. Absence of guilt
   • Child don’t feel bad toward rejected parent
   • Want the rejected parent to go away to defend themself
7. Borrowed scenarios
   • False memories/facts about rejected parent; mirror what the alienated parent is saying
   • These stories usually lack substance or detail
8. Spread of animosity
   • The negative emotions extend to the rejected parent’s external family

Cognitive Splitting §

A defense mechanism Can be found in some mental disorder (ex. Borderline)

• Cognitive Splitting: failure to bring both the positive and negative parts of a object together into a whole; leads to all or nothing thinking
• Connect to Objective Relation Theory
  • Due to psychological manipulation, they feel unsecure, so only except good sides of alienated parent to make them feel safe
  • Avoid the conflict necessary to be with other parent
• The child come to see one parent (alienated parent) as all good and the other parent (rejected parent) as all bad
• Ego defense mechanism: children do this to protect themselves against the loyalty conflict they are force in

Treatment §

• Parent with this behavior is often associated with personality disorders
• Need to resolve the cognitive splitting
• Ideally, remove the child from the alienating parent while treatment is ongoing
• Critical thinking- get the child to recognize what has been happening to them
• Controversial topic
  • False claims with child abuse make court different to recognize
  • False claims about alienation can lead child to be with abusive parent