The Relevance of Attachment Theory to the Development of Social Phobia in Children and/or Adolescents - Coursework Example

Running head: THE RELEVANCE OF ATTACHMENT THEORY TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF SOCIAL PHOBIA IN CHILDREN AND/OR ADOLESCENTS The Relevance of Attachment Theory to the Development of Social Phobia in Children and/Or Adolescents [Writer’s name] [Institution’s name] The Relevance of Attachment Theory to the Development of Social Phobia in Children and/Or Adolescents Introduction Feeling anxious in some social situations, or in anticipation of some social situations, is familiar to most people. Being interviewed for a job, speaking in public, or asking someone new for a date may produce the physical components of anxiety, such as sweaty hands, rapid heart rate, a trembling voice, or a dry mouth. The physical sensations may be accompanied by cognitive and behavioural events. Thoughts like, “She's bound to say no,” or “Maybe they'll think I'm not clever enough” reflect fear of failure in the social task, and behaviours like gaze avoidance and reduced speaking time are typically associated with anxiety in social situations. However, for most people, these physical, cognitive, and behavioural phenomena are temporary and manageable, and the associated states of arousal and alertness may even be seen as conducive to optimal performance. When these phenomena co-occur in anticipation of, or in response to, social situations, they are known as social anxiety. A small proportion of people experience social anxiety to the extent that it interferes significantly with their daily lives. According to Davidson etal (1994) these patient are so scared of social gatherings that it infers with their work and social life. At this level of impairment, a clinical diagnosis of social phobia can be implemented. There is some disagreement in the literature about a distinction between social anxiety and social phobia. In the Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders social anxiety disorder is also used for social phobia (4th ed. [DSM-IV]; American Psychiatric Association, 1994). Analysis Social Anxiety and Attachment Theory Attachment theory can also be called an evolutionary theory as Bowlby (1982) made use of a lot of ideas from three of Darwin's theories. (Theory evolution, evolutionary biology, and object relations theory). Bowlby believed that to survive, the infant‘s caregiver should be able to protect and nurture it. The need to take the help of other people apart from their caregivers to survive is can be clearly send in the separation distress behaviours of children whose their [parents or caregivers abandon them. There might be an association between two factors 1.)The fear of separation from caregivers, called separation anxiety, and 2.) Fear of social exclusion or social rejection. For this factor Leary and Kowalski (1995) used the term social anxiety. In both cases, the fundamental assumption is that individuals are dependent, for their survival and reproductive success, on the individuals to whom they are attached or the social groups to which they belong. Whether threat signals, or separation from attachment figures, they trigger behaviours in an individual designed to ensure the continuing proximity of other members of the social network. Any integrative pathway to social anxiety will need to meet the following criteria: (a) It will need to have an evolutionary basis and be able to accommodate theories of the role of temperament in social anxiety; (b) it will need to have a powerful mental representation and beliefs component to accommodate existing cognitive theories; (c) this cognitive component will need to represent the self in relation to others (not the self in isolation), because social anxiety is, by definition, a response to relationship threats; and (d) it will need to have a behavioural component that could accommodate learning theories and account for the development of social skills. John Bowlby's (1982) attachment theory was predicated on the observation that human infants are particularly dependent on their caregivers for their survival. He proposed that the attachment system, assistance. Due to continuous interaction with the caretaker, a child develops internal working models, these models consists of how they perceive their caretaker. I.e. is the caretaker responsive or not. Fears of separation or exclusion or rejection are elicited by the absence of reassurance signals, the presence of caring, and also whether the self is worthy of care and attention and is competent. Not only do internal working models contain beliefs, they also contain procedural scripts that inform or direct behaviour. Zimmermann et al. (2000) made a comparison of two longitudinal studies of attachment. In understood as that set of behaviours designed to keep caregivers in close proximity, is innate and is activated whenever the infant perceives that he or she is threatened or in need of infancy, the Strange Situation Procedure was utilized in order to measure the kind of attachment behaviour which children show from infancy to adolescence ; the Adult Attachment Inventory with Q-Sort was used to measure the above mentioned behaviour in middle to late childhood and again in adolescence, the Adult Attachment Inventory with Q-Sort was utilized to evaluate both the parents' as well as the children's present representations of their experiences regarding their childhood. Interactive behaviours in a planning task with their mothers were also assessed. The results of the above mentioned studies proofed that there was no continuity in modes of attachment behaviours. This work suggests that discontinuities may be more a function of the instruments used to measure the behavioural aspects of attachment and the mental representations of attachment, than these dimensions themselves. According to Pietromonaco etal (2000) attachment styles, along with the working models that cause them, may be based on the personality as well the relationship of the child. Empirical literature supports both points of views, that attachment styles are compatible with a view of working models as both a general personality variable and as a relationship-specific variable. Therefore, although people might employ different strategies to achieve their attachment needs in different relationships, or in the same relationship in different situations, people are able to report a general attachment style (Baldwin, Keelan, Fehr, Enns, & Koh-Rangarajoo, 1996) Baldwin et al. (1996) found that most of relationships reported by participants were consistent with their generalized attachment style, and they more easily generated examples of relationships that matched their generalized style than a specific style. Bowlby described the four characteristics which are present in attachment as the behaviours associated with (a) seeking and maintaining physical proximity, (b) seeking comfort or aid when needed (a safe haven), (c) depending on the attachment figure for the necessary support to be able to explore the environment (a secure base), and (d) expressing distress and protestation when separated unexpectedly from the attachment figure. To summarize, attachment and other early social experiences produce relatively stable, general internal representations of the self, others, and the relationship between the two, as well as more specific representations of particular relationships. According to Shaver et al (1996) internal models seem to remain stable throughout the childhood, even though their structure is expected to develop across the lifespan, and thus they become more complicated and difficult due to the development of cognitive abilities and other social relations . The strategies that people use to achieve their attachment-related goals in particular kinds of relationships may show less continuity over time, but the goals underpinning those strategies, for instance, an uncontrollable desire for independence, might remain stable. According to Trinke & Bartholomew (1997) internal working models direct expectations along with perceptions of relationships, both at a both levels specific as well as general . Three essential points need to be taken under consideration .The first is it is automatically assumed that only secure attachment is normal and is easily adoptive . ”This represents a misunderstanding of biology, as Hinde (1982) has noted. He believed that both mothers and their children will be programmed by evolution to make relations which will change according situations.” (Atkinson & Zucker 1997p29 The second caution is that not all problems in attachment behaviours or representations necessarily have their roots in infancy. According to Cicchetti, Toth, and Lynch (1995), individuals are neither completely inoculated against future problems by having experienced positive early caregiving, nor are they doomed to develop maladaptively by having received negative early caregiving experiences. These authors view attachment as a transactional process and not as an unchanging trait within the person. According to Lewis (2001) the present environment interacts with the previous representation to produce a current representation. This author proposed that representations of early social experiences are formed as a result of the interaction between the child's characteristics and the characteristics of the environment at that time. One reason behind the discontinuities present between attachment behaviour in child’s early years of his life and attachment representations in which occur during his adolescence is that each time a new environment or stressor interacts with a past representation, a new representation is created that is carried forward. Such an explanation might predict that the more experiences a person has that are contrary to their early representations, the more different this representation will be from the early one. In contrast, Caspi and Roberts (2001) described three kinds of person-environment transactions that promote the continuity of personality throughout one’s life span and might control the course of the life itself. Reactive transactions take place when different children who are present in same environment experience it, understand it, and respond to it in a different way. Early temperamental characteristics combined along with early social experiences may facilitate anticipatory attitudes that cause the individual to project certain interpretations and thus this develops into social relationships (Rusting, 1998). Keltner (1996) states that the entire attachment theory is based on evocative transactions, as they take place when a person personality adopts certain characteristics from other’s such as facial expressions. Facial expressions tend to adopt certain similar and reciprocal responses, and proactive transactions take place when individuals choose or construct environments of their own. For example individuals always want to socialize with those who are similar to them (Ennett & Bauman, 1994). The fact remains that people who have a limited range of responses available to them (due to the limited nature of their previous experience, or the restricting nature of their past environments, or both) tend to remain trapped in repetitive cycles of selecting only limited environments and reacting to them in limited ways. It is the restricted range of their past representations and their current environments that provide the continuity that is noted. This is the fundamental characteristic of personality disorder—inflexibility and a limited repertoire of responses combined with a tendency to select a limited range of environments in which to operate. The third one is based on the fact that, attachment theorists were unwilling to believe the fact that there could be a possibility that even the child’s own characteristics may have an intense effect on the qualities of the attachment relationship, but it now seems apparent that children's temperaments, which are heritable, influence the way parents treat them (Plomin & Bergeman, 1991). It is also obvious that a temperamental factor which is associated with negative emotionality may be the root cause of insecurity. Attachment and attachment style is just one of countless things that in have an effect on the way a child reacts to separation and reunion (Rutter, 1995). For instance if a t child is warming up slowly , or is naturally difficult to handle, this provokes negative emotions in the caregivers as they have a hard time giving time care and attention and thus their response is also like wise (Maccoby, Snow, & Jacklin, 1984; Sirignano & Lachman, 1985; Thomas & Chess, 1977; Thomas, Chess, & Birch, 1970). However, the argument can be made that it is not the parenting style that increases the likelihood of child social anxiety, but the transmission of the parents' genes or the particular genetic makeup of the child. Parents who treat their children in controlling, insensitive, or overprotective ways may also carry a genetic predisposition to social anxiety, which they have passed on to their children. As demonstrated in an earlier section, there is little effect of shared environment (family environment or parents' characteristics) on the development of social phobia (although there seems to be more of an effect present in male twins than in female twins), thinking that parental characteristics do not have an important part in the development of social phobia. However, there is a relatively large effect of nonshared environment as noted in the two twin studies reported earlier (Kendler et al., 1992, 2001). According to Plomin et al. (1994), likely reasons behind nonshared environmental variance contain differential parental treatment and, thus , Intern this gives rise to differential personal relationships with their children. This opens the way for the influence of the individual parent-child relationship on the development of social phobia. According to the findings in McCrae and Costa (1994) study the relationship among parenting style and adult personality ( which can be measured by a number of diverse personality measures) is astonishingly small, and may lead to “paradox of parental influence.” However, once the adult person and his or her lifestyle is separated from personality traits, the paradox may be resolved. McCrae and Costa suggested a distinction between basic tendencies (the abstract potentials of the individual, including perceptual and cognitive abilities, physiologic drives, physical characteristics, and personality traits) and characteristic adaptations (the concrete and culturally bound realizations of these potentials in such forms as habits, attitudes, skills, roles, and relationships). From the perspective of this model, the paradox of parental influence can be resolved by stating that child-rearing practices have only a little effect on basic tendencies, but they are major influences on the individual's characteristic adaptations. These ideas provide additional support for the contribution of the parent-child relationship (a bidirectional relationship) to the development of adult personality and a tendency to be more or less socially anxious. Although the relations between parenting style and a need for approval have been established, the mechanisms by which early social experiences create the need for approval associated with social anxiety are not clear. It is necessary to identify the systems that permit interpersonal experience to be represented internally in a way that impacts on cognition, emotion, and behaviour. Thus the desire to make a particular impression on another person may be directly related to the internal working models which every child acquires. . Each individual is born with the propensity to elicit caregiving behaviours from primary caretakers. Consequently, insensitive care giving or being unresponsive to the child’ needs helps the child to create his shape the internal working models. However , if both of the above mentioned conditions occur due to their caregivers the same outcome may occur. Negative models of the self can be partly the result of maladaptive parenting in the individual's early years, combined with negative experiences further along the life path, and may drive a need for approval, resulting in high levels of motivation to make positive impressions on others and, thereby, contributing to social anxiety. Attachment theory suggests that as a result of ongoing social interactions during which individuals make attempts, when they feel threatened, to enlist the assistance of caregivers during infancy and early childhood, people develop internal working models of themselves and others. These models help them to predict social outcomes and provide procedural scripts of how to interact socially to achieve interpersonal goals. Internal working models contain representations of the self along with other people in a positive manner. The self as praiseworthy, lovable, and experienced and others as being responsive and available. They also contain knowledge of, and scripts for, the individual's interpersonal skills. These representations keep changing according it the interactions with significant caregivers, thus it can be said that parenting styles ( as per a particular relationship with a particular child ) have an influential effect on internal working models. The complex nature of the parent-child interactions is acknowledged in terms of the child's characteristics, the parent's characteristics, and the situational characteristics at different times. Learning about the self and others in ongoing interpersonal experience results in elaborations of internal working models. As time passes Internal working models become more complicated and as result may also be structured hierarchically, in which the general representation of the self and others will be on the to of the hierarchy whereas and representations of relationships which are less important will be at the lower end. It is also possible that an individual with internal working models that make him or her vulnerable to social anxiety, and who experiences a social event during which he or she experiences significant negative emotions—for example, humiliation, fear, or rejection—may have those models reinforced and social anxiety exacerbated. Thus in the same way if a child sees an significant going through an bad social experience, he might start using the mechanism of social referencing (Waldren, 1991), he may also reinforce avoidance negative expectations regarding the self in social situations. Internal working models contain beliefs about one's social competence, the worthiness of the self (and therefore how likely others are to value the self), and the availability and responsiveness of others (and therefore how likely others are to come to one' said or provide access to needed resources). Included in these models are beliefs about one's ability to influence others in desired ways (by regulating their emotions and cognitions and, thereby, eliciting associated behaviours). Conclusion Attachment theories are completely based on three conditions, these conditions are essential for social anxiety, 1.)The perception self and others, 2.) The point of view that there are shortcomings in the capacity to control other’s feelings , 3.)children believe that they may becomes victims of social exclusion and rejection, and thus they feel socially anxious, and act in ways related with social anxiety, social withdrawal or continuingly tiring half heartily to interact with others . Such behaviour by these children results in negative responses from others and, thus, verifies the individual's negative internal working models and thus they continue to feel noxious in social gatherings. In turn, aversive social experiences may lead to social avoidance and a lack of opportunity to experience success and challenge negative models. Therefore an attachment theory framework gives a complete guideline from social anxiety as an adaptive emotion to social anxiety disorder. It explains the how children develop social phobia if they do not get the attachment they deserve from their parents. Thus it is safe to say that attachment theory helps one to understand what may help a child develop in a healthy manner . References American Psychiatric Association. (1994). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (4th ed.). Washington, DC: Author. Atkinson Leslie & Zucker J. Kenneth (1997); Attachment and Psychopathology The Guilford Press; 1 edition p29 Baldwin, M. W., Keelan, J. P. R., Fehr, B., Enns, V., & Koh-Rangarajoo, E. (1996). Social-cognitive conceptualisation of attachment working models: Availability and accessibility effects. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71, 94–109. Bartholomew, K. (1990). Avoidance of intimacy: An attachment perspective. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 7, 147–178. Baumeister, R. F. (1997). Identity, self-concept, and self-esteem. In R. Hogan, J. Johnson, & S. Briggs (Eds.), Handbook of personality psychology (pp. 681–710). New York: Academic. Bowlby, J. (1982). Attachment and loss: Vol. 1. Attachment (2nd ed.). New York; Basic Books. Caspi, A., & Roberts, B. W. (2001). Personality development across the life course: The argument for change and continuity. Psychological Inquiry, 12, 49–66. Cicchetti, D., Toth, S. L., & Lynch, M. (1995). Bowlby's dream comes full circle: The application of attachment theory to risk and psychopathology. Advances in Clinical Child Psychology, 17, 1–75. Davidson, J. R. T., Hughes, D. C., George, L. K., & Blazer, D. G. (1994). The boundary of social phobia: Exploring the threshold. Archives of General Psychiatry, 51, 975–983. Ennett, S. T., & Bauman, K. E. (1994). The contribution of influence and selection to adolescent peer group homogeneity: The case of adolescent cigarette smoking. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67, 653–663.. Hinde, R. A. (1982). Ethology. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. Cited in Atkinson Leslie & Zucker J. Kenneth (1997); Attachment and Psychopathology The Guilford Press; 1 edition p29 Keltner, D. (1996). Facial expressions of emotion and personality. In C. Magai & S. H. McFadden (Eds.), Handbook of emotion: Adult development, and aging (pp. 385–401). San Diego, CA: Academic. Kendler, K. S., Myers, J., Prescott, C. A., & Neale, M. C. (2001). The genetic epidemiology of irrational fears and phobias in men. Archives of General Psychiatry, 58, 257–265. Kendler, K. S., Neale, M. C., Kessler, R. C., Heath, A. C., & Eaves, L. J. (1992). The genetic epidemiology of phobias in women. Archives of General Psychiatry, 49, 273–281. Leary, M. R. (1986). Affective and behavioral components of shyness. In W. H. Jones, J. M. Cheek, & S. R. Briggs (Eds.), Shyness: Perspectives on research and treatment (pp. 27–37). New York: Plenum. Leary, M. R. (1991). Social anxiety, shyness, and related constructs. In J. Robinson, P. Shaver, & L. Wrightsman (Eds.), Measures of personality and social psychological attitudes (pp. 161–194). New York: Academic. Leary, M. R. (2001a). The self we know and the self we show: Self-esteem, self presentation, and the maintenance of interpersonal relationships. In G. J. O. Fletcher and M. S. Clark (Eds.), The Blackwell handbook in social psychology: Interpersonal processes (pp. 457–477). Oxford, England: Blackwell. Leary, M. R. (2001b). Shyness and the self: Attentional, motivational, and cognitive self-processes in social anxiety and inhibition. In W. R. Crozier & L. E. Alden (Eds.), International handbook of social anxiety: Concepts, research and interventions relating to the self and shyness (pp. 217–234). New York: Wiley. Leary, M. R. (2001c). Social anxiety as an early warning system: A refinement and extension of the self-presentational theory. In S. G. Hofmann & P. M. DiBartolo (Eds.), From social anxiety to social phobia: Multiple perspectives (pp. 1–7). Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon. Leary, M. R., & Kowalski, R. M. (1995). Social anxiety. New York: Guilford. Lewis, M. (2001). Continuity and change: A reply. Psychological Inquiry, 12, 110–112. Maccoby, E. E., Snow, M. E., & Jacklin, C. N. (1984). Children's dispositions and mother-child interaction at 12 and 18 months: A short-term longitudinal study. Developmental Psychology, 20, 459–472. McCrae, R. R., & Costa, P. T. (1994). The paradox of parental influence: Understanding retrospective studies of parent-child relations and adult personality. In C. Perris, W. A. Arrindell, & M. Eisemann (Eds.), Parenting and psychopathology (pp. 108–125). New York: Wiley. Pietromonaco, P. R., & Feldman Barrett, L. (2000). The internal working models concept: What do we really know about the self in relation to others? Review of General Psychology, 4, 155–175. Plomin, R., & Bergeman, C. S. (1991). The nature of nurture: Genetic influence on environmental measures. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 14, 373–385. Plomin, R., Chipuer, H. M., & Neiderhiser, J. M. (1994). Behavioral genetic evidence for the importance of non-shared environment. In E. M. Hetherington, D. Reiss, & R. Plomin (Eds.), Separate social worlds of siblings: Importance of nonshared environment on development (pp. 1–31). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. Rusting, C. L. (1998). Personality, mood, and cognitive processing of emotional information: Three conceptual frameworks. Psychological Bulletin, 124, 165–196. Rutter, M. (1995). Clinical implications of attachment concepts: Retrospect and prospect. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 36, 549–571. Shaver, P. Shepperd, J. A., & Kwavnik, K. D. (1999). Maladaptive image maintenance. In R. M. Kowalski & M. R. Leary (Eds.), The social psychology of emotional and behavioral problems (pp. 249–277). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Sirignano, S. W., & Lachman, M. E. (1985). Personality change during the transition to parenthood: The role of perceived infant temperament. Developmental Psychology, 21, 558–567. Thomas, A., & Chess, S. (1977). Temperament and development. New York: Brunner/Mazel. Thomas, A., Chess, S., & Birch, H. (1970). The origins of personality. Scientific American, 223, 102–109. Trinke, S. J., & Bartholomew, K. (1997). Hierarchies of attachment relationships in young adulthood. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 14, 603–625. Waldren, T. A. (1991). Infant social referencing. In J. Garber & K. A. Dodge (Eds.), The development of emotion regulation and dysregulation (pp. 69–89). New York: Cambridge University Press. Zimmermann, P., Becker-Stoll, F., Grossmann, K., Grossmann, K. E., Scheuerer-Englisch, H., & Wartner, U. (2000). Longitudinal attachment development from infancy through adolescence. Psychologie in Erziehung und Unterricht, 47, 99–117. Read More

Any integrative pathway to social anxiety will need to meet the following criteria: (a) It will need to have an evolutionary basis and be able to accommodate theories of the role of temperament in social anxiety; (b) it will need to have a powerful mental representation and beliefs component to accommodate existing cognitive theories; (c) this cognitive component will need to represent the self in relation to others (not the self in isolation), because social anxiety is, by definition, a response to relationship threats; and (d) it will need to have a behavioural component that could accommodate learning theories and account for the development of social skills.

John Bowlby's (1982) attachment theory was predicated on the observation that human infants are particularly dependent on their caregivers for their survival. He proposed that the attachment system, assistance. Due to continuous interaction with the caretaker, a child develops internal working models, these models consists of how they perceive their caretaker. I.e. is the caretaker responsive or not. Fears of separation or exclusion or rejection are elicited by the absence of reassurance signals, the presence of caring, and also whether the self is worthy of care and attention and is competent.

Not only do internal working models contain beliefs, they also contain procedural scripts that inform or direct behaviour. Zimmermann et al. (2000) made a comparison of two longitudinal studies of attachment. In understood as that set of behaviours designed to keep caregivers in close proximity, is innate and is activated whenever the infant perceives that he or she is threatened or in need of infancy, the Strange Situation Procedure was utilized in order to measure the kind of attachment behaviour which children show from infancy to adolescence ; the Adult Attachment Inventory with Q-Sort was used to measure the above mentioned behaviour in middle to late childhood and again in adolescence, the Adult Attachment Inventory with Q-Sort was utilized to evaluate both the parents' as well as the children's present representations of their experiences regarding their childhood.

Interactive behaviours in a planning task with their mothers were also assessed. The results of the above mentioned studies proofed that there was no continuity in modes of attachment behaviours. This work suggests that discontinuities may be more a function of the instruments used to measure the behavioural aspects of attachment and the mental representations of attachment, than these dimensions themselves. According to Pietromonaco etal (2000) attachment styles, along with the working models that cause them, may be based on the personality as well the relationship of the child.

Empirical literature supports both points of views, that attachment styles are compatible with a view of working models as both a general personality variable and as a relationship-specific variable. Therefore, although people might employ different strategies to achieve their attachment needs in different relationships, or in the same relationship in different situations, people are able to report a general attachment style (Baldwin, Keelan, Fehr, Enns, & Koh-Rangarajoo, 1996) Baldwin et al. (1996) found that most of relationships reported by participants were consistent with their generalized attachment style, and they more easily generated examples of relationships that matched their generalized style than a specific style.

Bowlby described the four characteristics which are present in attachment as the behaviours associated with (a) seeking and maintaining physical proximity, (b) seeking comfort or aid when needed (a safe haven), (c) depending on the attachment figure for the necessary support to be able to explore the environment (a secure base), and (d) expressing distress and protestation when separated unexpectedly from the attachment figure. To summarize, attachment and other early social experiences produce relatively stable, general internal representations of the self, others, and the relationship between the two, as well as more specific representations of particular relationships.

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