Cognitive development and the internal working model of attachment - Essay Example

Cognitive development and the internal working model of attachment Cognitive development is the result of perceptions about the world that are put through processes in order to create knowledge. Attachment theory is the development of human relationships and the internal working model is the development of self as it relates to how human interaction takes place. The development of the internal model can create impediments to cognitive development as the sense of the self may have negative connotations that change the way in which knowledge is perceived. As the adolescent develops a relationship with the outside social world, the internal model has created a structure in which cognitive development continues to take place. It is the family that provides the initial structures in which the internal model is formed, with the relationships formed within the family becoming part of the dynamic from which interpretation takes place with the external world. The development of the internal working model of attachment creates a sense of self from which perspectives on the world and processes that have developed in relationship to the internal model of the self influence cognitive development. Attachment theory is the establishment of the idea of attachment as the way in which human beings connect to one another in order to create long term relationships. The raw and basic purpose of attachment is for survival, a baby attaching to the adults in their life in order to create bonds from which their needs are satisfied. Pietromonaco and Barrett (2009) state that “A central tenet of attachment theory is that people develop mental representations, or internal working models, that consist of expectations about the self, significant others, and the relationship between the two (p. 156). According to Pietromonaco and Barrett (2009) the internal working model is the theorem that supports the way in which adults create healthy and long term relationships with one another. Working models are created through an organized structure that has specific content about both the individual and those that the individual interacts with and is representative of expectations of the self through which an organized set of details are used in order to help create the self. These working models have processes through which interpretations about the world are formed. In exploring how the internal working model of attachment influences cognitive development, it is beneficial to explore when cognitive development is not relative to attachment. According to Taylor (2010) when children have difficulties with attachment it is often because they have created an internal working model of themselves as worthless which has in turn created a barrier in which others are seen as hostile and rejecting. This creates a flight or fight response paradigm in which the first reaction is defensive as fear has become a barrier to trust. This cycle creates an unconscious response in which cognitive functions do not play a part in the automatic response. This automatic response is produced in the amygdule as it response to what is perceived as a threat. Through the example of the automatic response, it is clear that attachment can create barriers to cognitive development as individuals who have had difficulty creating appropriate levels of attachment are subject to non-cognitive responses through fear and defensive posturing. Influences on cognitive development can be viewed as the influences that the working model has on how the world is interpreted. How the world is interpreted will create meaning for cognitive processes which will in turn influence how an individual chooses to respond to events. The working model of the self as one relates to the world around them influences how that individual creates meaning about the nature of the world. This can extend into most aspects of life. As an example, Albert and Horowitz (2009) discuss how the internal working model is a part of how the individual responds to the market. Consumer behavior is influenced by the internal working model as the sense of self influences the way in which a consumer will respond to product development. In returning to the idea of the child with attachment issues, the child with distorted internal working models of the self, Taylor (2010) discusses the way in which distortions of the working model of the self will affect the individual. There are five components to these distortions as they manifest: events are misinterpreted so that the otherness that is attributed to the self is reinforced, blocks are in place that prevent understanding strong emotional responses that would create a cognitive awareness of distortions, relationships are built with a foundation that supports the distorted self, relationships that challenge the distorted view of the self are avoided, and relationships are engaged that reinforce the negative view of the self which reinforces their sense of worthlessness. In order to counteract this development of the self through negative and distrustful structures, cognitive restructuring is required in order to support healthy and positive relationships. The way in which the cognitive structure is built in relationship to the internal working model formation of the self is crucial as the connection between the perspectives of the self informs cognitive development. Cognitive development becomes a cycle in which the internal model of the self influences the way in which others are viewed, which in turn elicits certain reactions in relationship to that view of the self, which then informs the individual about the world. Although a healthy interrelationship of the self and the world creates a healthy cognitive development, the cycle can be vicious and reinforcing to negative perspectives on the self (Mash & Barkley, 2006). It is the interpretation of the world that is the key to cognitive development and the key to cognitive development is in the way in the perspective under which those interpretations are made. The family becomes a core system in which the interpretations of the world are formed as well as the interpretation of the self. The formation of the internal model is created through the interaction of the family, each member creating behaviors that identify them within the structure of the family and are dependent upon the behaviors of the others. Vandewater and Lansford (2005) state the importance of the interactions of parents and children in relationship to the development of the self, which in turn influences the development of cognitive structures. In adolescence, as the child is developing both external social structures which come into conflict with the family structures. The interpretation of the external world becomes relevant to the internalized belief system about the self. Thought processes are developed concerning the sense of the self with perspectives influenced by the way in which the self has been placed within the world through an internalized model that informs the individual on how to see the world. In adolescence this perspective affects the way in which the child begins to enter the world and on how he or she should interact with it. Cognitive processes are put into place in such a way as to provide a structure in which to assign meaning to what is learned and to find ways in which to apply it. By the time of adolescence, a child has developed a set of structures through which the world is engaged. As the child engages the world, the needs that have been set up in those structures are fulfilled, rejected, or discarded as immaterial because of the way in which the self has evolved. These needs are how prioritizing of cognitive processes support learning capacities (Toth, Rogosch, Sturge-Apple, & Ciccheti, 2009). Relationships are formed according to how the internal model has laid out the needs of an individual and how it has been structured towards fulfilling goals of the self. In the end, it is the sense of need that is developed through the formation of the self that will provide for the structures through which cognitive development takes place, rejecting that which the structure cannot support or does not need, and embracing those things that support the perspective that the internal model has developed on the self and on its needs. The interpretation of the world is developed through this sense of the self and the way in which the individual approaches the need for knowledge and the way in which to process and acquire knowledge is based upon this perspective. Through the development of this structure within the family dynamic, the potential for relationships is built as it relates to how the individual was positioned for behavior within the family. The social sphere becomes an extension of the needs that were developed earlier in the attachment process, supporting the overall development of cognitive abilities in relationship to how those needs can be fulfilled. References Albert, L. S. & Horowitz, L. M. (July 2009). Attachment styles and ethical behavior: Their relationship and significance in the marketplace. Journal of Business Ethics. 87(3), 299-316. Pietromonaco, P.R. & Barrett, L. F. (2009). The internal working models concept: What do we really know about the self in relationship to others? Review of General Psychology. 4 (2), 155-175. Mash, E. J., & Barkley, R. A. (2006). Treatment of Childhood Disorders, Third Edition. New York: Guilford Publications. Taylor, C. (2010). A practical guide to caring for children and teenagers with attachment difficulties. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers. Toth, S. L., Rogosch, F. A., Sturge-Apple, M. & Ciccheti, C. (January-February 2009). Maternal depression, children’s attachment security, and representational development: An organizational perspective. Child Development. 80(1), 192-208. Vandewater, E. A. & Lansford, J. E. (February 2005). A family process model of problem behaviors in adolescents. Journal of Marriage and Family. 67 (1), 100-109. The theory of mind and the age of four When Jean Piaget developed his theories on child development, he appears to have looked at the end of the cycle of the development of the theory of mind rather than looking at it as a defined set of skills that took a progression of time to achieve. Through the examples of the ‘false belief task’, and then through research on the development of the skill of deception, children show that they begin to develop mind theory at the age of four and the progress advances until approximately the age of seven or eight. Language and how meanings are conveyed between individuals becomes the key to the progression of projecting and predicting actions through the knowledge of beliefs about someone. While this skill is attained at the age of four, the next step in being able to construct interpretations of how others understand the beliefs of yet other people. Through an exploration of the progression of developing mind theory, it can be seen that mind theory develops at the age of four, progressing until the age of seven or eight through learning to see others through their beliefs and predict how they will behave based on those beliefs. According to Piaget’s theory, a child is egocentric until they reach the age of seven. However, in centering the idea about how the mind develops on Piaget’s mostly insightful theories, researchers missed further exploration that has now led contemporary theorists to understand that children begin to understand the beliefs of others at around the age of four. Two primatologists, David Premack and Guy Woolf theorized in 1978 that through the ‘false belief task’ children can be tested for their understanding of what they believe others to believe. The task that was proposed was based upon a scenario enacted by the puppets Punch and Judy. They observed that children at about the age of four will “squeal with glee” in the anticipation of seeing Punch throw a box over a cliff that Punch believes holds Judy. Judy, on the other hand, has already escaped the box and the children have seen this escape (Doherty, 2009). The conclusion is that children at the age of four or five can predict behavior based upon what they think someone else believes. These ‘false belief tasks’ reveal that children at or around the age of four understand that the perception of the world that someone else might have is not necessarily an accurate belief. The Punch and Judy form of the task represents first order belief, where second order belief is a bit more complex. Second order belief would be for the child to assume what Judy thinks that Punch is thinking about during the event. To use the example that Smith, Cowie and Blades (2004) put forth, to understand secondary order belief would be if a child understood that John believed Mary to have gone somewhere to buy ice cream based on what John was told by Mary’s mother. Second order belief is when you can assess what someone else believes about the actions of yet another individual. This skill does not form until sometimes after the age of six. Therefore, while the child at the age of four can understand that one other person has a belief that may not be accurate, they most likely cannot fathom what an individual believes about the beliefs of yet another individual. According to Smith, Cowie and Blades (2004) the skills of the theory of mind are a process that takes several years. As an example, when children of the age six or seven are asked to predict what a character they have been shown a picture of will think, they most often are clear that they have no way of predicting what another will think because they cannot predict what someone else will think. At the age of four or five, however, this is far more difficult of a concept to grasp and children will most often not be able to say what choice someone else will make and cannot identify why they cannot predict what others will think. This distinction provides context for how the process of understanding complexities of beliefs as they relate to the perceptions is a continual state of progression. In predicting what others will do, deception is also a part of the progression in trying to understand what others will do. In a test that measures the capacity for deception, a nice puppet was brought in and children were asked by the puppet to pick a sticker that they wanted so that the puppet could also pick a sticker. The nice puppet picked a different sticker. Next in the experiment a mean puppet was brought in and the children were asked to pick a sticker that they wanted and while the three and four year olds in the experiment picked the sticker they wanted, only to have the mean puppet take that sticker, the five year olds routinely knew to pick a sticker they did not want in order to deceive the mean puppet. Even more interestingly, children who repeated the experiment that were four years old learned to deceive the mean puppet in order to not lose the sticker they wanted over the course of a couple of times exposed to the test. Three year olds, however, did not have the capacity to create deception and were upset as the same result repeated itself over and over although they did not change their behavior to accommodate the experience that they had previously (Smith, Cowie and Blades, 2004). The fact that three year olds could not form the intent for deception after repeated experiences that encouraged deception shows a break in the development of the mind between the age of three and four. During that time period more abstract thinking evolves in which the intent to manipulate the outcome of an event emerges. While three year olds did not seem to have the ability to project what they believed that another would do upon an event, four year olds could do so after exposure to the potential of the event in repeated experiences. This break between the age of three and four would seem to be significant in understanding at which point in development the mind develops with the capacity to understand the world outside of the egocentric concept that Piaget had first put forth. A concise way of seeing this perspective is provided by Harris, Rosnay and Pons (2005) state that “At around four years of age, children understand that people’s actions and utterances are guided by their beliefs, whether those beliefs are true or not” (p. 69). They go on to state that this is then connected to the emotions of sometime between the ages of about five and six. Throughout this process, the progression of understanding of a theory of mind is done in an orderly fashion, beginning at about the age of four and progressing with increasingly more complex connections from one step to the next. One of the keys to creating this progression is the way in which language cues children in on how to make these connections. Harris, Rosnay and Pons (2005) used the contrasts between relatively normal children and children with autism in order to connect language skills to the development of a theory of mind. The conclusion through the research into the children with autism was that when language skills are higher, a development of the theory of mind progresses at a higher rate, which was also apparent in normal children but with less marked contrasts because language at a similar level. At the age of four children are ready to start thinking beyond the immediacy of their own interpretations about the world. Through understanding what others see about the world, they can continue their own thinking through that of others in order to predict what their actions will be in relationship to their beliefs. As in the example of Punch and Judy as defined by the primatologists Premack and Woolf broke down the theory of Piaget and discovered that while a more full understanding of mind theory occurs by the age of seven, the beginning of developing mind theory happens at age four. In examining the way in which deceptive activities occur when faced with negative actions from another, children at the age of five will act deceptively from the initial experience, while learning occurs for those at the age of four. Children at the age of three do not change their actions in relationship to the deceptive test, suggesting that it is at the age of four that this skill is learned. The key to the rate of learning is in the development of language skills. While the development of mind theory is developed by the age of about seven, it is clear that the beginning of the development of mind theory starts at about the age of four. References Doherty, M. J. (2009). Theory of mind. How children understand others’ thoughts and feelings. East Sussex: Psychological Press. Harris, P. L. Rosnay, M. & Pons, F. (April 2005). Language and children’s understanding of mental states. Current Directions in Psychological Science. 14 (20), 69-78. Smith, P. K., Cowie, H., & Blades, M. (2004). Understanding childrens development. Malden MA. Read More