Emotion Regulation + Co-Regulation

• Emotion regulation = conscious + non-conscious strategies used to increase, maintain, or decrease emotional responses.
  • Upregulation → increase emotional response.
  • Downregulation → decrease emotional response.
• Infants have limited self-regulation → use gaze aversion, object engagement + self-soothing.
• Toddlers begin developing effortful control.
• Early co-regulation supports the gradual shift from external regulation → self-regulation.
• Caregiver co-regulation involves:
  • Warm, responsive relationships.
  • Structuring the environment.
  • Teaching/coaching self-regulation skills.
• Toddler capacities can develop faster than regulation → tantrums/meltdowns during periods of disequilibrium.
• Development is not linear → children cycle through periods of equilibrium and disequilibrium.

Attachment + Emotion Regulation

• Major task of the first year = co-creation of a secure attachment bond.
• Secure attachment develops through caregivers who are:
  • Sensitive
  • Responsive
  • Predictable
  • Consistent
  • Emotionally available
• Attachment can be understood as interactive regulation of emotion:
  • Distress → caregiver helps downregulate.
  • Positive emotion/play → caregiver helps upregulate.

Affect Attunement, Daniel Stern

• Attunement = caregiver communicates a shared emotional state without simply copying the infant.
• Matching is usually cross-modal → e.g. infant smiles/gurgles → caregiver responds with excited voice.
• Most important matched dimension = emotional intensity.
• Supports intersubjectivity → sense that caregiver and infant understand/share emotional experience.
• For distress, caregiver should reduce their own intensity, helping the infant downregulate rather than escalating too.

Attachment Theory

Bowlby & Ainsworth, Ethological Attachment Theory

• Attachment has an evolutionary function → protection of the young.
• Infants are biologically predisposed to form attachments.
• Caregivers have a complementary caregiving system.
• Attachment behaviours regulate distress by restoring proximity:
  • Crying/smiling/reaching.
  • Searching/approaching.
  • Clinging/cuddling.
  • Separation distress.
  • Joy/relief at reunion.

Harlow’s Monkeys

• Challenged the idea that attachment develops mainly because caregivers provide food.
• Monkeys strongly preferred the cloth mother over the wire mother providing food.
• Demonstrated importance of contact comfort + security.

Safe Haven vs Secure Base

• Safe haven = “come in” → caregiver provides comfort when distressed.
• Secure base = “go out” → caregiver’s presence allows safe exploration.
• Healthy attachment involves flexible movement between closeness ↔ exploration.
• Caregivers support this by soothing/validating AND stimulating/challenging/encouraging.

Internal Working Models (IWM)

• Mental representations of:
  • Self → “Am I worthy of care?”
  • Others → “Are caregivers accessible/reliable?”
• Form through repeated attachment experiences.
• Generalise into expectations about how relationships work.
• Influence behaviour particularly when stressed, frightened or sad.
• Can contribute to later defensive strategies/personality structures.

Development of Attachment

• Birth–2/3 months: indiscriminate social responsiveness.
• 2/3–6/7 months: discriminating responsiveness → preference for familiar caregivers.
• 6/7 months–3 years: active proximity seeking / true attachment → separation protest + proximity seeking.
• 3+ years: goal-corrected partnership → child can consider caregiver’s perspective/intentions.
• Development of mobility, object permanence, mental representation and later Theory of Mind supports increasingly sophisticated attachment behaviour.

Measuring Attachment, Strange Situation

• Ainsworth’s Strange Situation = ~20-minute procedure involving:
  • Play with caregiver.
  • Stranger entering.
  • Two caregiver separations.
  • Two reunions.
• Most important question isn’t simply “Does the infant cry?”
• Instead → does reunion with the caregiver effectively regulate the infant and allow return to exploration?
• Attachment concerns the quality of the relationship, not whether attachment exists.

Attachment Patterns

Secure — B

• Comfortable engaging with caregiver.
• Communicates distress.
• Readily soothed at reunion.
• Returns to exploration.
• Flexible balance of closeness + independence.
• Caregiver → prompt, predictable, sensitive, responsive.
• IWM → “I am lovable/worthy; others are reliable.”

Insecure-Avoidant — A

• Little caregiver interaction.
• May show little overt separation distress.
• Does not seek comfort at reunion.
• Focuses strongly on toys/exploration.
• Caregiver → often rejecting, insensitive/intrusive.
• Defensive strategy → minimise attachment needs / maximise independence.
• Attachment system = hypoactivated.

Insecure Anxious/Ambivalent — C

• Intense distress, sometimes angry.
• Seeks closeness but is difficult to soothe.
• Clings/monitors caregiver rather than returning to exploration.
• Caregiver → inconsistent/delayed responsiveness.
• Defensive strategy → amplify dependency needs.
• Attachment system = hyperactivated.

Key idea: attachment patterns lie on a continuum, not three rigid personality “types.” Secure attachment is characterised particularly by flexibility between closeness and exploration.

Disorganised Attachment, D

• Caregiver experienced as frightening or frightened/helpless.
• Creates paradox: caregiver = safe haven AND source of fear.
• No consistent strategy for resolving distress.
• May show:
  • Freezing.
  • Contradictory approaches.
  • Bewildered behaviour.
• Later → child may try to control/protect caregiver → role reversal/parentification.
• Disorganisation carries greater developmental risk than organised insecure strategies.

Attachment Across Development

• Middle childhood → Separation Anxiety Test / attachment narratives.
• Adolescence/adulthood → Adult Attachment Interview (AAI).
• Self-report questionnaires can also assess adult attachment but are limited by insight + socially desirable responding.

Does Attachment Predict Later Development?

Secure attachment is associated with:

• Better emotion regulation.
• Greater social competence.
• More positive self-regard.
• Better social problem-solving.

BUT: effects are modest, not deterministic.

• Secure attachment = protective factor.
• Insecure attachment = possible risk factor, NOT pathology.
• Outcomes also depend on temperament, parenting, family adversity + later experiences.

Cross-Cultural Considerations

• Basic attachment patterns have been observed across cultures.
• Majority of children in most studied cultures are classified secure.
• However, evidence base is limited and heavily culturally concentrated.
• Strange Situation may have different meanings/stress levels across cultures, affecting classifications.

Attachment-Based Interventions

• Aim = strengthen caregivers’ ability to provide co-regulation, safe haven + secure base.
• Circle of Security → recognise child’s need for both closeness and exploration.
• Tuning into Kids/Teens → focuses on emotional connection and emotion coaching.
• Emotion coaching:
  • Notice/accept emotion.
  • Validate it.
  • Help child regulate.
  • Then problem-solve.
• Validating an emotion ≠ approving inappropriate behaviour.
• Supporting children’s attachment also means supporting caregivers themselves.