1. Influences on Infant Attachment Security
According to attachment theory, the major influence is parental behavior (especially sensitivity)
Sensitivity: Consistent, prompt, and appropriate responses to infant signals

2. Expectations form the basis of an internal working model
Infants develop expectations about how caregivers are likely to respond to their signals
Expectations form the basis of an internal working model
IWM: Expectations about the nature of relationships and beliefs about the self

3. Expectations result from the quality of mother-infant interaction:
Sensitive Care: Infants expect caregiver to be available and responsive
Insensitive Care: Infants expect caregiver to be unresponsive/inconsistent or rejecting

4. Infants’ behavior in the Strange Situation reflects their expectations (early IWM)
Secure infants expect caregiver to be responsive
Insecure infants expect caregiver to be unresponsive/inconsistent or rejecting

5. Evidence for Parental Behavior as the Major Influence on Infant Attachment Security:
Parental sensitivity is correlated with infant attachment security, but the correlation is not strong
Disagreement about the importance of parental sensitivity in influencing attachment security
Other factors also affect attachment security

6. Temperament and Attachment Security
Some studies find that insecure infants are higher in distress during the first year of life
Difficult to know if this reflects temperament or parental behavior
In general, temperament is not strongly related to attachment security

7. Goodness-of-fit may be a better predictor of attachment security than either parental behavior or infant temperament alone

8. Study: Mangelsdorf et al., 1990
9-month-old infants: Measured “proneness to distress” (temperament dimension)
Mothers: Measured personality characteristics
“Constraint”: High scores indicate rigidity, inflexibility

9. If infants were high in proneness-to-distress and mothers were high in constraint, infants were more likely to be insecurely attached
Other combinations did NOT increase the probability of insecure attachment:
High constraint/low proneness-to-distress
Low constraint/low proneness-to-distress
Low constraint/high proneness to distress