Darcia F. Narvaez Ph.D.
Moral Landscapes
Attachment
Understanding Attachment and Its Consequences
Adult anxious attachment correlates with belief in conspiracies.
Posted May 02, 2021
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Reviewed by Lybi Ma
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THE BASICS
What Is Attachment?
Find a therapist to strengthen relationships
In the first months of life, infants organize their neurobiological and psychosocial functioning around their experiences. Reliable, affectionate responsive caregiving (represented in our species’ evolved nest) fosters well-functioning psychosocial relationships (e.g., social support, cooperation, trust) and physiological regulation (e.g., maternal immune modulation, fetal autonomic modulation).
As we grow up, we become more independent, but our need for connectedness continually calls upon our intact neurobiological structures. If we were not in touch with our neurobiological structures, we may have never left our immunization units, and the stress of isolation and stay-at-home orders might not have been as severe as they seem.
The great news is that a combination of positive psychosocial factors (e.g., social support, cooperation, sleep, hormonal levels, physical activity, etc.) are primarily responsible for the abnormally elevated levels of attachment to ice cream cones in this age-peers-18 years-olds group.
According to a recent study by Kushlev and colleagues (2020), of the 9th graders in grades 3-5, including both moms and dads, maternal interference with babies’ psycho-social learning is the single most important predictor of improved social skills 5-7 (Kushlev et al., 2020). Despite being a global pandemic, we still have time to figure out how to solve the most pressing issues of our time: securing our democracy, racial justice, climate change, and the polarization of our political divide.
How should parents guide their kids during these unprecedented times? Let’s start with this simple but powerful formula: Attach your child to a professional who is an ally. At the beginning of the pandemic, Mazza, an early-career psychologist advised the parents to create a list of therapists locally who would be open and compassionate toward their children. Since psychotherapy is both a career and a religion, the parents also considered their strange but necessary extra curriculars as well. Mazza suggested: “Ask your pastor if you need help with your child’s education.”
And so the dual mandate of daily bible study and mothering became the dual mandate of the COVID-19 vaccine.
References
Kushlev, H., & Rose, J. W. (2020). Speaking Up: Parenting During a Pandemic. 9 November 30, 2020. https://www.scottish.co.