Looking forwards and looking back: a synthesis of the evidence underpinning attachment theory

November 01, 2022

YCSC Grand Rounds October 25, 2022
Pasco Fearon, PhD
Director of the Centre of Family Research
Professor of Family Research, University of Cambridge

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00:00To get started. Remind you of our
00:05presentation next week and that is
00:07by Elizabeth Peacock Chambers and
00:08her talk will be parents in recovery
00:11from substance use disorders,
00:12adaptation, implementation,
00:13research of mothering from the inside out.
00:18And now I'd like to introduce my
00:20dear colleague and friend, and friend
00:22of the center, Dr Pasco Fearon.
00:25I've known and collaborated with with
00:28Doctor Fearon for probably close to 15 years,
00:31and it seems like just yesterday.
00:34So Pasco is recently the professor of Family
00:38research at the University of Cambridge.
00:42Because, you know, hello.
00:45He specializes in understanding early life
00:47determinants of healthy child development.
00:49His work focuses particularly on the
00:51role of child parent relationships,
00:53including attachment and caregiving,
00:54the interactions between social and
00:56genetic processes, and early development.
00:58He leads the children of the 2020 birth
01:01Cohort study in England and corrects the UK
01:04wide early life Cohort feasibility study.
01:07He also conducts extensive research
01:09predominantly with parents and
01:10young children in both the UK and
01:12in low and middle income countries,
01:14leveraging and nurturing care framework
01:16to promote child developmental outcomes.
01:18So without further ado,
01:20I give you doctor Pasco Ophira.
01:25Mike.
01:28Thanks. Thanks very much. Just make
01:32sure I have the tech working here.
01:38Seems to be working.
01:42That.
01:45And do you see what I see?
01:47Yes, you do. Great.
01:49So thank you Mike for that,
01:51for that introduction.
01:52Yeah, this is, I don't know,
01:55I guess this is pretty it's
01:58becoming a significant for you
01:59that you're starting to come back
02:01and reconnect with each other as
02:02an academic and clinical community
02:04here at the CHILD Study Center.
02:05For me, I mean it really is a huge
02:07one because I had a long association
02:09with the CHILD Study Center through
02:10Linda and through my control calendar
02:12and and arissa and Lois and and.
02:15That's been a pretty much a constant
02:17for me in the last 15 years.
02:19And although it's always been
02:20a little bit intermittent,
02:21it's it to me it's been unshakeable and
02:24a source of inspiration and wonderful
02:27collaborations and and fun and and
02:30creativity and it's just for me,
02:33it's wonderful to be back.
02:34So thank you to the organizing committee
02:36of the grand rounds for making this happen.
02:39Really, it's been too long and I'm,
02:40I'm so,
02:41so glad to be here with you today.
02:42So I'm going to be talking about attachment.
02:45Theory and and research.
02:47And I'm going to try to do the
02:49obviously impossible,
02:50which is to summarize the last
02:5230 or more years of attachment
02:54research and try to tell you pretty
02:56much where we stand on some of
02:59the major theoretical propositions
03:00of attachment theory.
03:02And my big mission is, I guess, twofold.
03:06One is to.
03:08Give you a pretty,
03:10pretty selective Fearon Esque
03:11synthesis of of where I think the
03:14whether the literature stands what
03:16we know and what we don't know yet.
03:18I unashamedly say that this is a
03:21fear on esque selective review.
03:23I can't cover everything,
03:24but I'll try to impart what I
03:26feel is my sort of modest amount
03:27of wisdom that I've accumulated
03:29at having kind of studied this
03:30subject for for a long time.
03:32And then the second bit is,
03:34is really a kind of a call to arms to to,
03:37to to.
03:37Get as many of you interested in
03:40this topic as possible to engage
03:42with it and to think about where
03:44it needs to go because my that
03:45the take home at the end of this
03:47will be well we've kind of figured
03:48a few things out and that's that
03:50doesn't happen often right.
03:51But but I think there are some
03:52things we kind of know and that's
03:54that's the that's the thing in itself
03:56within the very young psychological
03:58sciences broadly conceived that
03:59there are some things that seem to be
04:02reasonably settled but there's just
04:041000 miles to go before we really
04:06understand the full phenomenon of.
04:08Attachment and I guess even more
04:10importantly how we translate that into
04:13interventions and social programs
04:14that really make a difference
04:16for families in this country and
04:18and in the rest of the world.
04:20So that's so that you know,
04:21my my aim is,
04:22is in this talk is is not ambitious,
04:24but what I would like you know us to think
04:26about is something really ambitious,
04:28which is the future of this field and all
04:30the connected fields which are interested
04:32in the importance of early experience,
04:35the importance of relationships in
04:37human development and thriving.
04:39And how we can use those kinds of
04:41ideas to support families because I'm,
04:43of course Cambridge professor
04:45of Family Research. And that's,
04:46that's and that's what's on the job
04:49description is that's what I got to do.
04:50OK. So to get us going, oops,
04:53the the wheel of death appears.
04:56Oh, no, don't do that.
04:59Hmm, that is not good. So no, it's OK.
05:03Well there we go.
05:04It was just, it was just,
05:06it was just thinking about the
05:08over the top thing that I just
05:10said and how it could possibly.
05:12Before I begin,
05:12I have a really an amazing group
05:14of collaborators who've helped
05:15me do all of this work.
05:17And they're just,
05:17they're they're,
05:18they're pictured here on the screen
05:19actually won't go through all the
05:21names but some of them you'll know,
05:22some of you may not.
05:23But but perhaps another really
05:25important message that comes out of
05:27the work that I've done so far is
05:29that it's all about collaboration.
05:31I mean, you know,
05:32I don't think I've achieved nothing
05:34except with some support from amazing
05:36people and and these people in
05:39particular I'm incredibly indebted to.
05:41So I wanted to start in a,
05:44in a,
05:44in a relatively kind of not going
05:46into the science at all.
05:48I kind of want to start by getting
05:50us fixated on what is this
05:51thing called attachment.
05:52I've had lots of really
05:54wonderful conversations with,
05:55with,
05:55with colleagues at the center
05:56already over the last couple of days.
05:57And one of the things I've just keeps
05:59coming up for me is we often run
06:01the risk in in academic sciences of
06:04losing touch with our core phenomena.
06:06And it's really,
06:07really important that we don't do
06:09that every time we measure something.
06:11We abstract it and we lose something
06:13really profoundly important that is,
06:14is is in the essence of that phenomenon.
06:17And so I always try to say to my students,
06:19go back to observation,
06:20remember what it is your study
06:21and get to know children,
06:22look at how they work,
06:24don't just rely on the textbooks.
06:25You're in an unusual science where
06:27you can just kind of get your raw
06:29material all the time, right?
06:31I think about relations with all
06:32of you and that's that's actually
06:33data of a form and we shouldn't
06:35lose sight of that.
06:36So I'm going to look at attachment
06:38and I just want to start by sort
06:40of reminding you what it is so.
06:41Here's a video.
06:42I'm going to start with a species
06:43that's not our own. This is this is a.
06:48Ohh I wonder how this sounds
06:50gonna work here actually.
06:53It may not matter, but if you if
06:55you're if you know a clever way of
06:56making the sound work. Ohh should
06:59I have more videos with
07:02yeah OK OK shouldn't take long I guess.
07:06So share and then where's the ohh.
07:09I see? Brilliant. Thank you, thank you.
07:10OK, yeah, that sounds good.
07:12Actually, it's kind of cute. Oh.
07:19Multitasking. OK, so here's an
07:23example of attachment behavior,
07:24or something pretty similar to it.
07:31Still coming through here?
07:33It doesn't matter.
07:35Microphones too close to the
07:36speakers on you. OK, it's fine.
07:38It doesn't matter, it's fine.
07:40So this is a little a little lamb.
07:44He's been reared by humans and it's come.
07:47It's it's that big moment in this little
07:50lambs life where he's got to go out and
07:52fend for himself and be a member of of his,
07:54his, his sheep community.
07:56And you can see how enthusiastic he
08:00is with that idea with this video.
08:02Off he goes.
08:03Is placed there and attachment
08:05is has something to say about
08:07how this is going to go.
08:16And he's called sprouty.
08:17I don't know. I don't find that
08:19very cute that he's called sprouty.
08:21And so sprouty is clearly developed some
08:24fairly significant and profound attachment
08:25to this caregiver who is not even of
08:28the same species as he accused him.
08:30Which tells you something very interesting,
08:32right, about the neurobiology
08:33of this because this is,
08:34this is something highly preprogrammed,
08:36clearly. But there's a massive amount
08:38of learning going on because there's
08:40no way that humans were much of the.
08:42Evolutionary history of sheep, right?
08:44Not much going back at least.
08:49In in modern societies.
08:51Here's another example.
08:52This is actually currently my favorite video.
08:54This and this doesn't have sound
08:55so we don't even have to feel like
08:57we're missing out on the sand.
08:58But this is an elephant telling friends
09:00recently that I was in in Kenya recently.
09:02This is not my own home video by the way.
09:04I wish it was, but check this out.
09:07Here's a here's a little toddler,
09:10I would say elephant.
09:12And what's he doing?
09:14Chasing the birds, right?
09:16What do human toddlers do?
09:18They chase the birds, right?
09:19They're going to find this amazing.
09:29Isn't that kind of amazing?
09:30Now I think you know,
09:31I defy anybody to, apart from the
09:34presence of a very large trunk,
09:36to to see any differences there really
09:38between the behavior that we saw there
09:40and the behavior you see every day in
09:43parks and playgrounds in natural settings.
09:45That that that this is not
09:47only isomorphic really with the
09:49behavior that we see in in humans,
09:52but it's also the stuff of.
09:55So many moments in everyday life that matter
09:58for children and matter for families, right?
10:00So this is not like a a little
10:02side project niche topic here.
10:03This is like the fundamentals of
10:05much of what happens with young
10:08children and their parents play,
10:10by the way,
10:10because it's a really important
10:11part of play here.
10:12He's really enjoying chasing the birds.
10:15It's just that it goes a bit wrong and
10:16he hurts himself and then suddenly
10:18players switched off and something else
10:20is happening and that's what we call
10:22attachment and you can see proximity seeking,
10:24highly organized.
10:25Very automatic, very smooth,
10:27happening kind of effortlessly.
10:29And the the,
10:31the the young elephant seeks his
10:33carer and makes contact and he feels better.
10:36I'm pretty sure they don't
10:37have the video for this,
10:38that he's about to go back and play with
10:40the birds more and probably fall over again
10:42and she'll have to be there to help him.
10:43This is so I find it very fascinating.
10:46And I think we forget sometimes just
10:48how profoundly rooted in our biology
10:50this kind of pattern of behavior must,
10:51must be,
10:52because it's in almost all mammals,
10:55let alone.
10:55Prime Minister,
10:56the other thing I think is really neat and
10:58I just watch it for that reason I'm going to
11:00watch it again with you is look at the mum.
11:02I was,
11:03I was looking at the baby.
11:03I don't know about you,
11:04but if you look at the mom,
11:05she's got one eye.
11:07I think it's only on one side of her head.
11:12But she's looking there.
11:15Now there's something really cool about this.
11:17She was already moving before he fell.
11:20Did you notice that?
11:22This is a good mom, right?
11:24She's like. Very attentive.
11:26I think she like, you know,
11:27and I joked that she I can already.
11:29I can almost.
11:29If you're going to have like a
11:30caption competition for this,
11:31it's like you're gonna hurt yourself.
11:33I don't. I'm not going to say I told you so.
11:37Look, she sees.
11:38She's like ohh, she can tell he's actually
11:41taking that corner too fast, I think,
11:43and my anthropomorphizing too much,
11:46maybe, but maybe not.
11:47There's a there's she knows a
11:49lot about what's happening here,
11:51and she's paying attention.
11:52She's doing other things too,
11:53but there's a level of
11:55attention that she's paying,
11:55which is about making sure that
11:57he's safe and being ready to to
12:00be there and initiate caregiving
12:01when when it's when it's required.
12:04In this case, it was.
12:07So that's that's attachment in animals.
12:09Here's a couple of examples
12:11of attachment in humans.
12:13So here's a video.
12:14This would maybe actually, do you know what?
12:16This is better without the sound,
12:17because with the sound is
12:18actually too emotional.
12:19I'll probably get choked up,
12:21but this is a kid whose dad has
12:22been deployed in the military
12:23for quite a long time.
12:25He's not seen his dad for six months or so.
12:29And he's playing football.
12:31He's playing soccer.
12:32And he just suddenly realizes,
12:34Oh my God,
12:34this is my dad.
12:38Look at the speed you could move.
12:45Yeah, and it.
12:49You see how long he hangs on it?
12:51I mean, this is, you know.
12:54There's a lot of something going on in
12:56in that, in that interaction, actually.
12:58What you can't hear in that
12:59video is the mom is take.
13:00You can hear her because she's recording
13:02it and the mom is surprised and she
13:03actually kind of laughs at one point
13:05because she's like, what's the matter?
13:07It's just your dad.
13:08Which is an interesting thing in itself.
13:10I think adults forget how
13:11profound this stuff is.
13:13But for that kid, he, you know,
13:14like really was so happy to see his dad
13:17and needed a major recharge in kind
13:19of and really reconnect with his dad.
13:22And that's like really,
13:24really powerful stuff.
13:25And again, so sort of going back to what
13:27I said at the beginning and not so long ago,
13:30if you don't want,
13:31you know this thing about not
13:32losing touch with the.
13:34Powerful feelings around some of this stuff,
13:36the powerful kind of extent to
13:37which it's rooted in our biology,
13:39and which is rooted within our the
13:42way that societies are organized.
13:44Easy to lose sight of,
13:46maybe good for you.
13:46Good for all of us to spend a few
13:49occasions watching on YouTube
13:50reminding ourselves this this stuff
13:52is really powerful if you work.
13:53And some of you I'm sure do work with
13:56children who have been in the care system.
13:58We've all been very disturbed and and
14:00worried about kids who've been separated
14:01from their parents at the border,
14:03for example.
14:03This is,
14:04you know,
14:05those kinds of experiences are
14:07challenging the powerful emotions
14:08and the powerful biology of these
14:10kind of attachment experiences.
14:12And again it kind of,
14:14you know,
14:14society sometimes encourages us not
14:15to think too much about that but
14:17when you see what was that kid was
14:18going through in what was unsure
14:20really well functioning family,
14:21everything was basically OK and it
14:22was totally fine with his mum had
14:24just been right from the start,
14:25you know, under the best circumstances.
14:27That was still like a really profound.
14:29Reconnection with this, with his dad.
14:31So we're talking about really,
14:32really important stuff.
14:33And and yeah, this is in,
14:35I suppose it's I I don't know.
14:37I I suppose I would the reason partly
14:39why I'm going on about this is that
14:41sometimes attachment research is
14:42seen as a little bit of a kind of
14:44backwater or a niche subject like niche.
14:46This is like we breathe,
14:49we walk around, we have attachments.
14:52There's not a lot else that we do.
14:53I mean we do a few other things.
14:55We have jobs.
14:55But if you think about what
14:57goes on in human societies,
14:58Mike and I were talking about this.
14:59You just decide you want to go and observe.
15:02You know,
15:03imagine you're an alien landing
15:04from a different planet,
15:06and you want to describe how do these
15:08humans kind of organize themselves.
15:10One of the most striking
15:11things you'll see is that
15:12they would say, I believe,
15:14is that there are powerful attachments,
15:16people that have these strong
15:17connections to each other.
15:18They're emotional connections,
15:19and they seem to be really important because
15:22they go to enormous lengths to kind of.
15:24Look after those and maintain them
15:25and they really care for their young
15:27as well and things like this, right.
15:29So. So it's a, it's a,
15:31it's a reminder of just how significant
15:33these experiences are for children.
15:35And if we're in the business of trying
15:37to understand human development,
15:39attachment is one of the things,
15:40not the only by any means,
15:41but one of the things that's right there.
15:43Central is one of the phenomena
15:45we have to kind of understand.
15:47And and then the second reason is that I,
15:49as I said, I think we tend to,
15:51I don't know,
15:52maybe it's because it's clinicians,
15:53some of this stuff is quite
15:55troubling for ourselves.
15:56If we see it working with children
15:58who've experienced pretty tremendous
15:59attachment traumas for example,
16:00that it's hard to process that ourselves.
16:03And so you know.
16:05We don't always want to think too
16:07much about just how powerful that
16:08stuff is because it's you know,
16:09it's it's it's hard but it's but that's
16:11actually that's the reality of the
16:13human business that we're in folks.
16:15OK I know you know that I'm going
16:16to skip this one actually because
16:17it does depend on the sound.
16:19OK.
16:19But here's a here's a human that's in
16:22the strange situation procedure which
16:23is the kind of the quintessential tool
16:25that people have used to say the attachment.
16:28And again just quick.
16:31It's not that wrong.
16:32Just to remind us what that looks like here.
16:34You kind of would could do with the sound,
16:36but you can see he's he's distressed,
16:37his mum's popped out.
16:40He wouldn't accept comfort from a stranger.
16:44A very nice stranger, no doubt. And his mom.
16:50And boom, very quickly he settles.
16:56He really cuddles in there
16:57and he's a little bit extra.
16:58There was a moment when Mom thought
17:00maybe this is what we've done there.
17:01And he was like, no, no,
17:02we're not quite done, little bit more,
17:05a little bit more contact required.
17:07And again, so I think to me this,
17:10this behavior is incredibly rich
17:11and it's dynamic and it's organized,
17:14it's patterned.
17:14Bobby actually did a brilliant job of
17:16kind of describing this sort of behavior.
17:18Why is it organized in the way that it is?
17:20What's his purpose?
17:21What's his evolutionary function?
17:23What's it sort of psychological function?
17:26But we've we've moved like painfully
17:29slowly in actually furthering
17:31the science of of that, of that,
17:34that sort of really interesting complex and
17:37highly conserved pattern of of behavior.
17:40So there's just so much more work to do.
17:42And and I believe that clinicians
17:46and behavioral neuroscientists and
17:48anthropologists and psychologists all
17:50have really important contributions
17:52to trying to understand this stuff.
17:54And we don't do and there's not a lot enough.
17:56Crossover work with animals by the way,
17:58I mean it's it's so obvious that this
17:59would this was a very natural and easy
18:01which we struggle so in so many occasions,
18:03right to have animal models of something.
18:07Here we have like the perfect
18:09animal model or something.
18:10It is because it's almost
18:12certainly exactly the same thing.
18:13Well you know,
18:15with various caveats.
18:17So there's a lot we could do that we
18:19haven't done yet in terms of studying
18:21the the neurobiology of attachment.
18:22OK, so that's, that's, that's my,
18:24that's my little advert at the beginning,
18:25to get you confused by studying
18:27attachment and to think of it as as like,
18:29fundamental to human behavioral sciences.
18:32Not a niche subject,
18:33not some branch of psychoanalysis
18:35like by the way,
18:36I came to studying.
18:37Question because I I was a biologist
18:38and doing work on behavioral ecology of
18:41animals and so that that's partly why
18:43there's so many animals in this talk.
18:44I came at it and it was like I looked
18:46at psychology and thought a lot of this
18:48stuff doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
18:50And then I saw attachment research
18:51thought well that makes sense,
18:52that's evolutionary,
18:53you know,
18:54plausible and I can see a function
18:56there and I can see how,
18:57you know the underlying neurobiology
18:59of affect and behavior and so on
19:01would would actually fit with that.
19:03So it was my first experience of
19:04a of a sort of a serious bit of
19:06psychology that looked really well
19:07informed from the point of view
19:09of somebody who came at this from
19:11a from a kind of developmental
19:13evolutionary biology perspective.
19:15Yeah.
19:15So and So what I'm going to do the
19:17rest of this talk is just take
19:19you through where I think we've
19:20got on three of the,
19:21the,
19:22the sort of main propositions of the
19:25theory that that that that sits around
19:28this phenomenon that we call attachment.
19:30The first is that so the theory of these
19:33individual differences in attachment.
19:34Uh behavior in young children that
19:36I'm sure you're familiar with that
19:39those very individual differences
19:41are in environmentally caused.
19:43That's that's a that's a that's a theory.
19:44That's a hypothesis and we'll look
19:46at how convincing is that evidence
19:48because there's lots of interesting
19:50behavior we just saw in that video.
19:52But is that is that you know if we
19:53saw children behaving doing that in a
19:55different way are we sure that that's
19:57something to do with the environment
19:59and their caregiving and not something
20:00to do with them and their genetic
20:03dispositions and temperaments and so on.
20:05The second really important
20:06sort of assertion of of of,
20:08of the theory around this is that
20:11attachment styles or patterns are
20:12laid down in early life and they
20:14they are very stable over time.
20:16And they kind of you carry them with you
20:19even when you're no longer around the
20:21people directly with the people with
20:22whom you develop those attachments,
20:24so that they're stable over time.
20:27They're internalized as internal
20:28working models,
20:29these kind of cognitive affective
20:31structures that are thought to
20:33sort of organize your behavior.
20:35With respect to attachment,
20:37those are presumed to sort of stay with
20:40you and they help and make sense of.
20:43The tendency we believe to be the case,
20:46or some people believe to be the case,
20:47that attachment is quite.
20:50Consistent over time.
20:51And not only that,
20:52but it might be transmitted from
20:54one generation to the next.
20:56So we'll look at the evidence for that.
20:58And then finally I guess it really if
21:00you're interested in mental health,
21:02which I think all of us here are,
21:04then the the final question that's
21:06really important and is in the session
21:08again of of many people working in this area,
21:10that attachment is a really important
21:12part of the puzzle for understanding
21:14children's well-being in their in their
21:16mental health and then we're going to
21:18review the evidence from that too.
21:20OK,
21:21so let's look at the environment
21:23first of all.
21:24Umm.
21:25So many of you would probably be aware
21:27that there's a there has been many,
21:29many studies over the years,
21:31starting really with Mary Ainsworth
21:32seminal work that she began in Uganda and
21:34then and then took to Baltimore in the US,
21:36where she was trying to
21:38understand attachment behavior.
21:39And she was also trying to understand
21:40the home based experiences that might
21:42help her to understand why some children
21:44seem to show this sort of what we
21:45call a secure pattern of attachment
21:47and some children don't and in 1997.
21:52Dewolf and Van Eisenhorn collected a
21:54lot of the evidence that have been
21:58produced to date that had assessed
22:00some measure of caregiving behavior,
22:01and in particular this kind of
22:03construct of sensitivity that
22:05Mary Ainsworth had identified.
22:07She believed that that was the
22:08sort of the key ingredient,
22:09if you like,
22:10patterns of parental
22:12behavior where the parent
22:13is highly responsive,
22:15a little bit like the elephant, actually.
22:16I mean, it's funnily enough,
22:18Ainsworth will definitely have coded that
22:20quite highly because she talked about.
22:22You know attentive level of awareness
22:23is like the first point the first
22:25piece of the puzzle of sensitivity.
22:27Does the parents sort of have a a nascent
22:29sense of not you know where is my child
22:31that's that's an important that not
22:33all families you know do that so well.
22:36But not just where is my child?
22:37Where are they at right now?
22:39Are they happy? Are they sad?
22:40What just happened? How are they feeling?
22:41What are they thinking?
22:42What are they into?
22:43And this doesn't need to be like,
22:44and usually it isn't like,
22:45heavy cognitive work.
22:46This is just a effortless,
22:48subtle, basic level of awareness.
22:51Like that elephant,
22:51they had one eye on the chart
22:53whilst also doing something else.
22:54That's awareness is important.
22:55And then there's a kind of they may
22:58be aware of the signal of some kind
23:00that may be important to the baby.
23:01Are they then responding in some way?
23:03Is that, is that response fairly timely?
23:05And most importantly,
23:06does it seem to be kind of fitting?
23:07Well, with what the baby seemed to need.
23:09So if the baby's tired,
23:10the parents sort of seems to know that
23:12responds and coaxes the baby to sleep.
23:14If the baby is distressed
23:16and hurt themselves,
23:16they kind of quickly get that and
23:18provide a response that's soothing and
23:19helpful in that context and so on.
23:21And that's the kind of what Mary
23:22Ainsworth is really getting at when she,
23:24she mentioned sensitive caregiving
23:27and in 1997,
23:29the the correlation across multiple studies.
23:35Between sensitive caregiving and
23:38attachment security versus insecurity
23:40was you know robustly non zero and
23:43clearly significant and consistent
23:45largely across these studies.
23:47It was also pretty small.
23:49So you can see the correlation
23:50there is a correlation of .22.
23:52So it's kind of like.
23:53Glass is half empty or maybe it's half
23:56half full, depends how you look at it.
23:57So yes, clearly an association there,
24:00but it's not a not a huge association.
24:03And there's been a lot of kind
24:04of heartache and puzzling and
24:06thinking about this like what are
24:07we missing and and that's not sold,
24:09we'll come back to this and for a while.
24:11But actually there's still a lot to
24:12do in terms of actually understanding
24:14what are the kind of it, you know,
24:16assuming they are environmental
24:18and caregiving drivers of these
24:20individual differences in attachment.
24:22We've still got quite a long
24:23way to pin all of that.
24:24Yeah.
24:24And that's really important because so much
24:27of our intervention work is based on that.
24:29We just recently completed a A
24:31kind of grand update of the Van
24:34Heisendong and Venison Dawn study.
24:35They at the time there were one that was,
24:38I mean it's really small if you think
24:39about it was a really important paper,
24:40but it was only 1666 participants
24:43all pulled from lots of different
24:46studies at the time.
24:48We now managed to find 159 studies
24:51that had had assessed this 21,000.
24:54483 different participants included
24:56in this kind of much more recent.
24:59Major update of the evidence based on
25:01the relationship between caregiving
25:03and attachment security and security.
25:07It would have been more fun if the
25:09answer was like and it's totally
25:10different folks but it's not I mean it's
25:12really quite the evidence has remained
25:14very consistent actually since then.
25:15So the correlation is now it's crept
25:17up a little bit which is interesting
25:20to about .26 but you can see it's
25:22so it's it remains highly robust.
25:24I think that's probably important for
25:26you to to to to to hold on to because
25:29there are many phenomena that we
25:30study where the 1st 10 studies seem
25:32to be wonderful and then you know
25:34it's called the winners curse and
25:36then you know actually affects sizes.
25:37Just decline and decline and you can
25:40almost see them heading towards the 0.
25:42This is a phenomenon that is true
25:44across many branches of science and
25:46but in the in and in the case of the
25:49sensitivity to attachment question,
25:50we're not really seeing that.
25:51It's pretty consistent and has been
25:54stable over time with much larger
25:59with a much larger evidence base.
26:00The other thing by the way just to point out,
26:02sorry to go back throughout,
26:04quite a lot of what I'm describing here
26:06as somebody who does quite a lot of
26:09synthetic synthesis work not just in
26:10the attachment field but in other fields too.
26:12The thing that I really appreciate about
26:14attachment theory and research is that they
26:17do measure things reasonably consistently.
26:19Like when I do a study of mental health,
26:21like 25 different measures of depression,
26:23like, oh great,
26:24thanks guys.
26:25That's not made my job much easier.
26:28That's true for many fields.
26:29But what attachment has done
26:30really well is on the whole,
26:32measure things in a pretty consistent
26:34way and to have fairly centralized
26:36trainings and coding systems.
26:38So when you know,
26:39and that makes the metro analyst
26:41jobs so much easier.
26:42And it's not just about making
26:43my life easier.
26:44It's also about having a corpus of
26:47evidence that is reasonably possible
26:49to synthesize and make draw reasonably
26:53you know logical conclusions from.
26:55Because there's just a level of like
26:58measuring the same thing in the same way.
27:01I don't know why that's been hard for so
27:02I've called for the psychological sciences,
27:04but it remains a major problem
27:05the welcome trust in the UK,
27:07I think NIH might be doing something
27:09similar in the US is trying to sort that
27:11out by by really demanding that people.
27:13You have an extremely good reason not
27:15to measure depression with the same
27:16measure that everyone else is using,
27:17for example,
27:18and I really fully support that anyway.
27:20So that's just a little diversion
27:22in that review.
27:24There are quite a number of sort
27:27of interesting.
27:29Side stories about variation in in
27:31the strength of the association
27:32that that we observe in studies
27:34of sensitivity and caregiving.
27:36I'm just going to pull out a couple
27:37that I think are particularly important.
27:39The first is that if you look at there,
27:41there are enough studies of dads.
27:42Now dads are terribly neglected in
27:45this field and many other fields,
27:47but we now do have a good number of
27:50studies of dads and the caregiving
27:52quality of of parental care and
27:54it predicts the attachment that
27:56that that has to that child just.
27:58As well as it does with moms
28:00and you can see those those,
28:01those are just the effect sizes there
28:03and they're exactly the same for moms
28:05and dads across quite a lot of studies.
28:06So caregiving matters and it's just
28:08and it's there's nothing about the
28:10parents gender here that we can
28:11see in terms of that relationship.
28:13That's I think pretty important.
28:15You can also see this is mostly a
28:17a bunch of slides about how things
28:20don't matter.
28:20So the other interesting thing is that
28:22if you look at the different subtypes
28:24of attachment security or insecurity,
28:26again doesn't seem to matter too much.
28:28The effect sizes are are
28:29more or less the same.
28:31There's some numerical differences there.
28:33Maybe if if we had an even larger samples
28:35and less heterogeneity across studies,
28:37perhaps we'd see that the resistant
28:39group has a slightly smaller effect
28:41size that I could believe that,
28:42but at the moment we have to conclude
28:44that it's basically the same.
28:47And then what really comes through,
28:49interestingly enough,
28:49is that there's quite a lot of
28:51methodological factors that are explaining
28:53some of the variability and effect size.
28:55So studies that use.
28:59Whom based assessment of attachment
29:01produces a large the produce a larger
29:04effect size for the sensitivity
29:06to attachment association.
29:07If you just go this is I
29:09think this is really cool.
29:10It's so obvious but it's it's easy
29:12again to neglect that if you look
29:15at the studies that reported higher
29:17rates of interrater reliability
29:19on the assessment of attachment.
29:21You get a stronger association.
29:23Psychometric theory told us
29:24that would be the case, right?
29:25But but actually we it's very
29:27convenient sometimes to wish that
29:29that weren't weren't the case.
29:30But it is to effect sizes on some
29:32of the variabilities just because
29:33we're not measuring it very well.
29:37And and and finally,
29:38it looks like there's some variation
29:40in the type of assessment of of
29:42sensitivity that that that makes
29:43a difference and it does appear to
29:45be the case that the longer the
29:47assessment the more predictive it is.
29:49Wow, look at huge revelation.
29:52I mean of course it makes sense, right.
29:53I mean you're trying to make
29:55inferences about things,
29:56patterns of care that are likely you
29:59know to be important only when they are
30:02characteristic of the everyday regular
30:05long run experience that the child.
30:08And we use a 5 minute observation
30:09to try and make all of those
30:11enormous leaps of inference.
30:13That's that's a that's a
30:14big ask for our tools.
30:15And the longer they are,
30:16the more in depth they are.
30:17It looks like the more,
30:18the more predictable the the these
30:21kind of relationships become.
30:22So again, no surprise,
30:23but I think it just emphasizes
30:25some really important things
30:26about methodology and I'm going
30:27to come back to that methodology,
30:29measurement quality super important and
30:31I'll come back to that in a little while.
30:33OK.
30:34So that's that's the first part of
30:35the question on, on environment.
30:36So that the association is
30:38really clearly there.
30:39Some of the facts,
30:40some of the lower associations that we see,
30:42it's probably methodological.
30:43There's also probably not a
30:45massive association either.
30:46So there's quite a bit more to learn
30:48in terms of how to properly measure
30:50the parental behaviors involved and.
30:52And whether we're even in the right
30:54ballpark for the kinds of behaviors
30:55that are relevant even that's probably
30:57something we need to be thinking about.
30:59But even if this is pure association studies,
31:01right.
31:01So you all know that the potential
31:04counter argument is that, well,
31:05this is just like epiphenomenal.
31:07It's not, you know,
31:08yes,
31:08this sort of correlated
31:09patterns of parental behavior,
31:11but that's because they're responding
31:12to what the child is doing.
31:13Maybe this is just a kind of
31:15what we call a gene environment
31:17correlation and that it's not really
31:19a truly environmental process,
31:20right,
31:20so.
31:21Genetics is something that until
31:23relatively recently hadn't been
31:25ruled out as a as a possible
31:27explanation for the variability and
31:29attachment behavior that we see.
31:32And attachment theory does make this
31:34really kind of brave prediction.
31:37Brave in the sense that everybody
31:39who studies Psych 101 or whatever
31:41and knows that every behavior
31:42you care to mention is strongly
31:44influenced by genetics, right?
31:46That's I make this kind of like
31:47slightly tired joke now that
31:49I never set this on the exam,
31:50because the answer is always 50%.
31:5350% heritability is pretty much
31:54true for almost everything.
31:56So attachment stands out as
31:58saying not in this case.
32:00In this case, it's 100% environment,
32:02which is a pretty brave and
32:05strong prediction given what we
32:07know about so many other domains
32:09of human behavioral difference.
32:10So it becomes pretty interesting to
32:12think about what would what if you
32:15were to subject attachment to the
32:16kind of methodological interrogation
32:18that we do other domains of development,
32:20like for example, using a twin study. What?
32:23How does that look and Can you imagine?
32:25I always thought it would be kind of.
32:27I didn't think about this at the
32:28time when we were doing this work,
32:29but but subsequently I thought about it.
32:31But what would it have looked like if
32:33identical twins just behaved in an
32:35incredibly similar way in the strange
32:37situation and non identical twins didn't?
32:40And that would be incredibly
32:41interesting right.
32:42And surprising and and challenging
32:44for the for the field.
32:46But it wasn't really tested until a group
32:48of us back in the early 2000s started
32:50started looking at that directly using
32:52that kind of powerful twin methodology.
32:54And the short answer to that is
32:56that his this is this is showing
32:58you the proportion of variability
33:00from that first study we did with
33:02twins at 12 months that could be
33:04explained by genes and environment.
33:06And I make the lame joke that the pink
33:08bar is the bit that's to do with.
33:10Essex there is no people,
33:12right?
33:12So we found that that that really
33:14we couldn't see any sign of genetic
33:16influence on attachment and they
33:17really were behaving quite similarly
33:19in the strange situation with
33:21respect to the same caregiver.
33:23But identical twins were doing it
33:24to exactly the same extent that
33:26non identical twins were doing it,
33:28which is a kind of hallmark
33:30characteristic of something that
33:31is environmentally determined.
33:33And it's particularly determined by
33:35what we call the shared environment.
33:37And I'm sure you kind of know
33:38all this terminology already,
33:39but the shared environment makes
33:41particular sense in the context of
33:43attachment research because we're
33:45assuming that there's a consistent
33:47disposition that a caregiver has to
33:50being sensitive or less sensitive.
33:52And and that's what's driving these
33:54individual differences in attachment.
33:55And if that's your theory,
33:56then you'd expect to see a really
33:58strong common environment effect,
34:00which again the other thing everybody
34:02remembers about behavioral genetics
34:04site 101 is that there aren't really
34:06any strong shared environmental
34:08effects in most areas of behavior and
34:10attachment from the study we did back
34:12then and some other since really seems
34:15to be an important exception to that rule,
34:17just as attachment theory had predicted.
34:20This was nice replication
34:22by Rose Mccraley in 2008.
34:23The larger scale shows
34:25very much the same thing.
34:28So oh,
34:28and also actually if you if you look at the,
34:32if you try to analyze the parental
34:34behavior at the same time,
34:35you also find that the parental
34:37behavior shows very little sign
34:38of gene environment correlation.
34:39So it doesn't look as if the parental
34:41behavior is kind of influenced
34:43by the child's genes.
34:44And it's lots of common environment in that.
34:46And that common environment correlates
34:49with the common environmental
34:50variability we see in attachment,
34:52which all ties up pretty elegantly with
34:54what attachment theorists had had predicted.
34:58And you know,
34:59kind of I suppose in hindsight a
35:00bit of kind of miraculous.
35:01It could have been a bit earth
35:03shattering at this point like Ohh
35:05Fearon and his colleagues are
35:06just ruined attachment theory.
35:07And, you know, it would have been,
35:10it would have been a pretty
35:11major challenge right,
35:11if we found that that were not was not
35:13the case and it could easily happen.
35:14And that's there aren't many
35:16experiments you can do in psychology
35:18where the answer could be quite as
35:20clear cut and pretty kind of earth
35:22shattering in terms of a treasured
35:24hypothesis within within the field.
35:27But in this case that that that
35:29didn't happen and actually the
35:31evidence is pretty consistent with
35:33predictions of attachment theory.
35:34Oh. Why did I put that twice?
35:36Oh no, it's fine.
35:37The other thing to mention is that this
35:39shouldn't have been much of a surprise,
35:41I don't think,
35:42because actually it was built
35:44on fairly strong foundations.
35:46The the,
35:46the most important is actually that there
35:48was quite a lot of evidence already
35:50that if you studied the attachment behavior,
35:52a child had to add mum and then to a dad,
35:55they were often completely different,
35:56like secure with one,
35:57insecure with the other,
35:58and vice versa.
35:59That's already quite a clue that
36:01there's something that's that's
36:02a kind of adaptation to that
36:04particular caregiver that's going on.
36:06It's not a sort of cross situationally
36:08stable pattern of behavior that you
36:09might expect if it was some sort of
36:11genetic or temperamental factor.
36:13So there's already quite a strong
36:14clue from the from evidence
36:16with mothers and fathers.
36:17There was also some evidence coming from
36:19studies of children in foster care,
36:21where of course there's no
36:22genetic link between the foster
36:24carer and the child and the the,
36:25the child's,
36:26you know,
36:27attachment to that foster carer was
36:29predictable from characteristics
36:30of the parent and again gives
36:32you the adoptive parent,
36:34which gives you another pretty strong.
36:36Tell you this is really quite an
36:39environmentally determined thing.
36:41OK.
36:41So actually the evidence is actually
36:44really consistent with that.
36:45I'm pretty convinced even though
36:46I'd love to see a much bigger
36:47study and I'm going to come back
36:48to that in a little while.
36:49But I'm pretty convinced that the,
36:52that attachment theory was on the
36:53money in terms of this being a
36:55particularly and very interestingly
36:57highly plastic early behavioral
36:58system that learns a lot and adapts
37:00to the caregiving environment.
37:01That seems to be, you know,
37:03the evidence is pretty good
37:04on that I would say,
37:05but what about later in development
37:06because we mentioned at the
37:08beginning this is supposed to
37:09be kind of a construct that is
37:10consistent right across the lifespan.
37:11And certainly it's,
37:12it's relevant right across the lifespan.
37:14So what about in other stages of development?
37:16So relatively recently we decided to
37:19do this kind of whole thing again.
37:22But look at adolescence attachment
37:23simulation to their parents.
37:25We used a tool called the
37:26Child Attachment Interview,
37:27which many of you here I think
37:28would be familiar with it.
37:29It's a different kind of tool.
37:30It's it's not looking at
37:32live attachment behavior,
37:33it's looking at patterns of speech really
37:35and narrative in a in an interview.
37:36So different kind of thing,
37:38but in theory supposed to be measuring
37:40attachment we did in a big twin study.
37:42Um, relatively back, at least for
37:44this kind of intensive measurement.
37:46551 same-sex twin pairs.
37:50And you know, and we were very
37:51careful about the methodology here.
37:53So there's no way that they could
37:55have been any kind of crosstalk
37:57between these measurements.
37:58And we did the same thing.
37:59We just tested whether this was
38:01going to show a similar pattern of
38:04very strong environmental influence.
38:06And very strong influence,
38:08particularly of the shared environment
38:11and so as not to keep you waiting.
38:12This is what we found if you
38:15don't know this study already.
38:17This time, the pink.
38:19Portion of the pie chart
38:21was the shared environment.
38:23It was absolutely zero.
38:24We saw no evidence of shared
38:26environmental influence on
38:28attachment in adolescence at all.
38:30Look, this is just tried my effort
38:32to prove to you that I'm, I'm, I'm,
38:34I'm, I'm, I just go with the data.
38:36This was definitely not my hypothesis,
38:38but this, the data is really clear on it.
38:40From this particular study,
38:42we saw about 40% of the variance
38:45was accounted for by genetics.
38:47And the remainder was really
38:49non shared environment.
38:50So this was like.
38:51A little bit of a shock,
38:52in a way.
38:53It certainly does not suggest that the
38:56determinants of attachment in adolescence.
38:59Are the same as the determinants
39:01of attachment in infancy and
39:03that's a pretty important and
39:05so far not understood process.
39:08But to me the evidence is pretty clear.
39:10It's it's the one big study on this right.
39:12So we're definitely needs replicating.
39:15You could definitely think about
39:16other measures that could be
39:17used to assess attachment in
39:18different ways and adolescence.
39:19But from the data we got so far it
39:22looks to me like there's an important
39:24shift that potentially happens
39:25between infancy and adolescence
39:27where the adolescence genetic.
39:29Kind of dispositions starts to play a
39:31much more important role in attachment
39:33of that age than it did in infancy.
39:37Oh, I've just more or less said that the,
39:39the. Now the. I suppose the question is,
39:41and I put it to you actually,
39:42the question is why?
39:43Like how do we understand this?
39:44Like, what's what's going on developmentally?
39:46We don't know the answer to that.
39:47And clearly, but I think the most
39:51plausible explanation is that over time.
39:54The child's dispositions start to really
39:56impact on parent child interactions
39:59in significant ways and actually
40:01again if you think if I went to,
40:03you know, Joe Bloggs.
40:04She's a very British way of putting it,
40:07but somebody, you know,
40:07random guy on the street,
40:08what's is there an American
40:10version of Joe Bloggs?
40:11It's like audio.
40:12You do say, Joe Bloggs.
40:14Oh great.
40:17If I asked Joe Bloggs,
40:18he would say, well yeah obviously,
40:20you know teenagers are totally
40:22different proposition to a baby.
40:24A teenager will give you a hell of a lot
40:26more you know to think about than a baby.
40:27And and the power is totally
40:29different and there's lots more
40:30that the teenager brings to your
40:32interactions than with the baby where
40:34actually the baby brings something.
40:36But there's there's a there's a
40:37hugely different kind of level
40:39of dependency and and and in a
40:41sense a lack of relative agency
40:43in those interactions compared to
40:44an adolescence where it's huge.
40:47Alright, so I suspect that what's
40:49happening is that there's overtime
40:51developed what we call gene
40:53environment correlation really
40:54starts to embed itself in parent
40:56child interactions which then starts
40:58to of course impact on their young
41:01persons attachments to those parents.
41:04From that point of view it is not
41:06intended to mean that there are
41:07genes and they go straight into the
41:09attachment system in the brain.
41:10It's that it's which is possible
41:12by the way but but from this point
41:15of view what I'm arguing is that.
41:17Probably what's happening is that
41:18it's that environmental experiences
41:20that matter for your feelings of
41:21attachment to the people around you
41:23start to be influenced by how you
41:25manage your interactions with other people.
41:26If your tendency is to become
41:29hostile and angry and upset,
41:30or to go out and do crazy
41:33things with your friends,
41:34and then your parents get
41:34upset with you and so on,
41:35these sorts of things,
41:36which may be partly genetic,
41:37it will impact on your relationships.
41:39They may get upset with you and angry.
41:41That can then affect how secure
41:42you feel with them and so on,
41:43and that so you and your personality
41:45starts to shape in a much more.
41:47Positive way your attachment relationship
41:48than it would have done if you were a baby.
41:51I think that's pretty plausible.
41:53We do have a little bit of
41:55evidence in support of that.
41:56So just recently my PhD student.
41:59Andrea Danesi, which is not there is
42:01another Andrea Denesha by the way,
42:03but it's not the same one.
42:06Yeah,
42:06but they're both fantastic and both Italian.
42:09And when we, when we looked at sensitivity,
42:11I mentioned this earlier,
42:12we found that it was like very strong.
42:13If you just look at the parenting behavior,
42:15it's just you don't see any sign of the
42:17child's genes in the variation in that.
42:19If you look at adolescence,
42:21in adolescence, we coded like, Oh my God,
42:22this is a huge amount of work,
42:23by the way.
42:25More than 1000 observations of
42:29adolescent parent interactions.
42:31Then what you find is that the
42:34sensitivity apparently of the
42:35caregiver has a strong kind
42:37of imprint on it of the child,
42:39the adolescence genetics.
42:39So you know about 1/3 of the variability
42:42seemed to be attributable to the
42:44adolescence genes which is a really
42:46strong clue that this that the child's
42:48genes are kind of driving
42:49some of this interaction.
42:51And so you know as we said that's what
42:53we call gene environment correlation.
42:56We also found what Andrea did
42:57that if you if you do the same
43:00analysis you remember that.
43:01Before where you try and link the the,
43:04the, the sort of genes or
43:06environments of sensitivity and he's
43:07trying to link that to the genes
43:09and environments of attachment.
43:11Then he found that about 1/3 of
43:13the correlation that doesn't,
43:14it's not easy to see that actually,
43:15sorry about that but but but about 1/3
43:17of the correlation between attachment
43:19and sensitivity in adolescence seem
43:21to be attributable to common genes
43:23that are influencing both of those,
43:25which again really,
43:27I mean pretty strong cross-sectional
43:29evidence that genetics are playing
43:31quite an important role in driving
43:34caregiving interactions and therefore
43:35impacting on attachment adolescence.
43:37OK great.
43:38So that's that's the attachment
43:40environment story.
43:41What it's just very briefly for the
43:43technical people in the crowd to to
43:46to just fly one little flag for.
43:48There's a pretty major caveat on the
43:50strong statement that I made about
43:52the absence of genetic influence
43:54on attachment in infancy which is
43:56this slightly dry looking slide that
43:58shows you that the relationship
44:00between genetic effect sizes and and
44:03the power to that you would need
44:05to or the sample size you'd need.
44:08To reliably detect a genetic and
44:10effect effect and you can basically
44:11see on this on this slide here that
44:14I have a decent chance of detecting
44:16a genetic effect of somewhere
44:17between .3 and .2 which is which
44:20is modest but but not at all tiny.
44:23You need pretty large samples and and
44:26quite quickly it you're needing more
44:28than 500 you might need 1000 or even more.
44:31So actually the studies we've done so far,
44:33they're pretty pretty convincing
44:34at the highest level but they
44:36absolutely can't rule out.
44:38Some smaller genetic effects and it would
44:40be great if more work could be done on that.
44:43OK,
44:44last two bits of the story,
44:47attachment continuity.
44:48So you remember I said that attachment
44:50is believed to be very stable over
44:52time and that it's transmitted
44:53from one generation to the next.
44:55So we're going to have a quick look
44:56at the the first part of that story.
44:58Part A is about continuity
45:00over developmental time.
45:01So from infancy until we haven't
45:03actually got as far as this guy on the
45:06right here yet in our longitudinal studies,
45:09the the longest running studies
45:11have been about 30 to 35 years so.
45:13This is like hard work, right?
45:15I mean, I did one of these studies
45:16with my colleague Lynn Murray.
45:18We followed.
45:18We saw them as babies.
45:19Now they're like, well,
45:20the last time I saw them, 22,
45:22that was a long wait for that,
45:23for that data.
45:24So you can see this is quite
45:26hard research to do.
45:27But the NIH study that was done
45:29here in the US is probably the
45:31best data we've
45:32got really, on this at the moment.
45:34So it's worked by calling Booth,
45:37Laforce, Glenn Roisman,
45:38people like that.
45:38Ashley grow 819 of the babies that
45:42were seen in the strange situation.
45:44Way back in the 90s.
45:47Recess for attachment in multiple ways
45:49in infancy and early childhood and
45:51then they were assessed for attachment
45:52using the adult Attachment interview
45:54at age 18 and they're really important
45:57kind of strong pretty strong test
45:59of whether the stability over those
46:01that over that period of time and
46:03and this is what the study found.
46:05That's a tiny correlation.
46:08Absolutely microscopically small.
46:10That's the strange situation of 15 months.
46:13The attachment queue set at age 24 months,
46:16slightly better,
46:17a little bit more continuity.
46:19Still pretty weak,
46:20but there's something there.
46:22They touched me,
46:23said sometimes people worry doesn't isn't
46:25the cleanest measure of attachment,
46:27so it could be that there's
46:29something else sneaking into that.
46:31And then if you come and then the
46:33modified strain situation at 36 months,
46:35even less continuity up until
46:39age 18 and skip that one.
46:41I've also just put together all
46:44of the studies that I know of.
46:46This isn't the most formalized
46:47meta analysis I've ever done,
46:49but but these studies you normally
46:50know about because they're so few.
46:52But these are all of the studies so
46:54far that I know of that have these
46:57really long term follow-ups over like
46:5920 years or more from infancy to adulthood.
47:02And you can cast your eye across that,
47:04and you can see that they're all pretty low.
47:05There are a couple of strange,
47:07very, very high associations.
47:09But the the oops.
47:12Doesn't know.
47:12Oh yeah, sorry, it's at the bottom.
47:14You can see here it's, it's quite small,
47:15but the on the text here,
47:17the meta analytic correlation average is .09,
47:20which is actually pretty similar to
47:23what we saw in the Nic HD study itself.
47:26If you take out one or two of
47:28the strange looking,
47:29either the very high or the very
47:31low effect sizes out of this set,
47:32just because you think that might be
47:34throwing it off doesn't make a difference.
47:35It's still about point O 9,
47:37something like that.
47:39So.
47:40The conclusion now I think really has
47:42to be that continuity is the exception
47:45rather than the rule in terms of
47:48attachment over long stretches of time.
47:50We know the shorter periods
47:52of time it's more stable,
47:53but long term continuity is low
47:55and there's a lot of change and
47:57we don't know a lot about the kind
47:59of processes that drive those
48:01the continuity and change it.
48:03You have to say also that
48:05measurement error and noise of
48:06course always looks like change.
48:08So that's and and this keeps coming up.
48:10It came up already that measurement
48:12error may be an important factor here,
48:14so bear that in mind too.
48:16It's still not going to push these
48:18correlations from .09 up to .6, right?
48:20That's not going to happen.
48:21I don't think so.
48:22I think we have to conclude
48:24that that proposition by attachment
48:27theory theorists that it's,
48:29you know, highly stable over time,
48:31is laid down in the first years
48:32of life and doesn't change.
48:34It's just wrong.
48:35That's not going to be as bold as
48:37saying that's probably just not right.
48:39Could be wrong, but.
48:40That's how the data looks to me.
48:42OK, and then, but that's a very
48:44different question to the one about
48:45intergenerational continuity.
48:46So from parents to child. On.
48:53As opposed to child, baby,
48:55child to adult child.
48:57That makes sense.
48:59Marina Spanish and done did did
49:00again a great as he always does,
49:02a great master analysis of this
49:04field at the time that had studied
49:07this intergenerational question by
49:08measuring attachment in the adult
49:11using adult attachment interview,
49:12which some of you I'm sure will
49:14know won't go into the details,
49:15and seeing whether that helps you
49:17predict whether the baby will have
49:19a secure and insecure attachment.
49:20Some of those studies like the the the
49:22GREAT study actually done in London
49:24by Howard Miriam Steele and Peter
49:26Fonagy back in 1991 did those AI?
49:28Interviews before the baby was
49:30born during pregnancy, and then,
49:32you know,
49:32followed the baby up when they
49:34were one year old and beyond.
49:36So the prediction was like,
49:37you know, before the baby existed.
49:41And he reviewed those studies,
49:42have found that nine at the association was,
49:45well, actually as we look back on it now,
49:48enormous a correlation of
49:50.47 is a huge association.
49:52He also found that caregiving helped us
49:55understand why that correlation exists,
49:57so to speak.
49:57It kind of appeared to mediate
49:59some of that association,
50:00but only a small portion of it.
50:01And there was quite a lot
50:03that wasn't explained by
50:04assessments of sensitivity that.
50:0835% seem to be kind of missing.
50:09You could find this association between
50:11the I and attachment of the child,
50:13but you just couldn't explain
50:14all of that by just measuring
50:17sensitive caregiving and venison.
50:19Doing this great term,
50:20the transmission gap which kind
50:21of created this search for
50:23like what are we missing here,
50:25what are we still,
50:26what have we not understood about the
50:29behavioral causes of of attachment
50:32differences and that continues.
50:34We updated this this meta analysis in
50:372016 because actually a huge amount
50:40of research that happened since
50:42venison dawns earlier paper and also.
50:47Quite a few of us, in fact.
50:50This is, this is private, right?
50:51No one knows this.
50:52This is not going anywhere.
50:55Put from the Internet.
50:56But the the, the,
50:58the the history of this paper is that
51:01there was a slightly rowdy dinner at SRCD.
51:04Myself, color shingle,
51:06Sherry Madigan,
51:07some others I think where we started
51:09confessing that we had file draw studies.
51:12Like, we had this study, we ran it.
51:14We didn't understand what happened was really
51:16no association between the AI and attachment.
51:18And we didn't really know what
51:19to do with this.
51:19And other people started saying,
51:21yeah, I've had that problem too.
51:22And we thought we said, well,
51:23we have to do something about this,
51:24let's, let's, let's redo the.
51:27Meta analysis and see whether actually this
51:28this was a winner's curse kind of problem.
51:30Maybe, maybe actually some.
51:32You know,
51:33maybe the the effect is the
51:34phenomenon is not as robust as.
51:36As we believed it to be and we were
51:39really keen to make sure that we got as
51:42much unpublished data as as we could,
51:44so we set off.
51:46We had a fantastic, huge number of
51:48people involved in this enterprise.
51:49It became a brilliant collaboration.
51:54Called the cats the Cats Consortium
51:55and it's continued ever since,
51:57which is really wonderful.
52:00This is how much things have changed.
52:01So in 1995 there were 19 studies
52:03on this subject.
52:04By 2015 when we reviewed it,
52:06there were 95 studies.
52:08So you know,
52:09just absolutely dwarfed the the
52:10data that existed when when the
52:12first measure analysis was done.
52:14So the potential for the results to
52:16completely wipe out what we thought
52:18was were true was fairly high,
52:20I think.
52:22The other thing is that more than
52:24half of the literature we were
52:26able to get was unpublished.
52:28Which was also pretty wonderful.
52:29Actually, we were very lucky,
52:30but I suppose because it is
52:32a slightly kind of.
52:33You know, it's this funny small community,
52:35so you kind of know everybody.
52:36So it was possible for us to tap
52:38most people on the shoulder and say,
52:39come on guys, you got me.
52:41You got any data you'd like to share with us?
52:42And people were really generous with that.
52:44So we got lots of, we got lots of.
52:47Unpublished data.
52:49And this is basically the the the.
52:50To cut the Long story short,
52:52we found that the association was
52:54nevertheless very robust,
52:55the correlation of .31,
52:57but it clearly come down a lot from .47.
53:00I think in hindsight just a
53:03much more realistic effect size.
53:06Nevertheless, really quite robust.
53:07So I remain pretty impressed by how
53:10consistent that is even though it's
53:11not the kind of what we might think of
53:14now as slightly implausible effects
53:15slices that we saw back in 2000.
53:18In 1995, Gosh,
53:19you realize I'm going overtime,
53:21so I'm just going to quickly.
53:24Skip ahead to outcomes and
53:25then call it a day. So.
53:27And this is actually a short
53:29but interesting story.
53:30So we also did a bunch of meta
53:32analysis on the association
53:34between attachment and outcomes.
53:36And started with externalizing
53:38outcomes like aggression.
53:40And what is the evidence for that?
53:42Does that really stand out that children
53:44know insecure will be more aggressive?
53:46These were the results again in a nutshell,
53:50clearly non 0 associations between
53:52early attachment and in most
53:54cases later behavioral problems.
53:56But you can see on the X axis there
53:57that the effect sizes are small.
53:59These are kind of standard deviations.
54:01So the largest effect we saw was
54:03for disorganized attachment and
54:05that's just a little bit over
54:061/3 of the standard deviation.
54:08So it's there,
54:09highly statistically significant,
54:11but it's not a huge effect size and you
54:14can see for resistance and avoidance,
54:15it's really quite small.
54:18Again significant actually for avoidance
54:20but not but but but pretty small.
54:22We also found quite a lot of methodological
54:25variables were important here.
54:26So well methodological and
54:29potentially developmental.
54:30So older children,
54:31if you set studied attachment
54:33later you saw stronger effects.
54:36If you used measures other
54:37than the strain situation,
54:39you saw stronger effects.
54:40If you use clinical groups or males,
54:43you tended to see stronger effects.
54:45So we took to conclude you know more.
54:47Approximately.
54:48That development might be important here,
54:50that things might consolidate over
54:52time and become more predictable.
54:54Measurement issues are probably important
54:56and probably at risk status matters as well.
54:59We switched to internalizing
55:01problems and this is what we found.
55:04Some people said we'd find stronger effects,
55:05but we didn't at all.
55:06It was really,
55:07you can see they're quite a lot
55:08weaker if you put them side by side.
55:09It's really clear that those are the
55:11externalizing effects that we saw before.
55:13It's like double the size, more or less so.
55:17Conclusion #2 is really that yes,
55:19attachment does have some but very
55:21weak association with internal lens
55:23internalising outcomes in childhood.
55:25I have to say that's an important caveat.
55:27And then finally we ended
55:29this whole enterprise.
55:30Of the third of kind of back breaking meta
55:34analytic syntheses on social competence.
55:38And this is what we found
55:40now going in reverse order.
55:41So if we,
55:42if we present them together,
55:43what we found,
55:44there's the internalizing effect
55:45sizes that we've seen just a second
55:47ago that was the smallest effect.
55:49When you layer on top of that,
55:50you see the externalizing outcomes.
55:51They're quite a lot stronger,
55:53but again, not not huge.
55:54And then if you look at social competence,
55:57that was the strongest association we
55:59found across the three metro analysis
56:02between insecurity of attachment
56:03and an outcome in in childhood.
56:06What's also important to point out is that
56:08the difference between social competence
56:10and externalizing outcomes is not huge.
56:12I mean, they're in the same ballpark.
56:14So I wouldn't want to make too strong a
56:15claim that that's a a more powerful effect,
56:17but it does say something about.
56:19I suspect it says something important
56:20about what attachment is doing,
56:21because both externalizing problems,
56:23aggression and social competence,
56:25they're very kind of socially
56:27mediated processes,
56:28and it makes sense that attachment would
56:30be pretty important in those really
56:33important domains of children's functioning.
56:36So and then finally important coder
56:38on all of this so we we we there is
56:41an association between attachment and
56:42and behavioral problems but it's not
56:44the be all and end all that's that's
56:46why there are definitely many other
56:48factors that are important attachment
56:49is maybe a part of the puzzle and most
56:51of this evidence is correlational
56:53at this stage but it it it probably
56:54plays a there's a good chance it
56:56plays a role but it's it's part of
56:58a multi determined outcome surprise
57:00surprise right what what isn't.
57:04And importantly, all of these
57:05studies have looked at one parent.
57:08Now, if you have a secure attachment
57:09with one parent and an insecure
57:10attachment with the other, well,
57:11what's that going to do to your outcomes?
57:12Right. It's such an obvious question
57:14that hadn't really been addressed
57:15properly and there's evidence.
57:17There's a really nice paper by
57:18Kichefski and Kim in 2013 that looked
57:20at this and found that, you know,
57:23if you had two insecure attachments,
57:25that was more strongly associated
57:26with an outcome than if you, you know,
57:28there was a kind of buffering
57:30process that's going on and our great
57:31colleague or Dagan has just recently.
57:34Done an independent individual
57:36participant database analysis of
57:38that those same sorts of studies
57:40of about 1000 infants and more or
57:43less replicated what could chansky
57:45and Kim showed which is that there
57:47is some kind of buffering going on.
57:48So when we think about the weak
57:51associations with attachment and outcomes,
57:52we need to bear in mind,
57:53well that probably isn't surprising because
57:55kids have more than one attachment.
57:57Dads, grannies, childcare minders, who knows?
58:00I mean actually the other thing
58:01that we know for sure from a lot
58:03of research is that children can.
58:04And multiple attachments.
58:05And we've barely scratched the
58:06surface of really studying how all
58:08of that plays out in a complex
58:10developmental system like the family.
58:11And that's all work remaining for you
58:14guys to do hopefully in the future.
58:17And then I better stop. Thank you.
58:18I'm sorry for getting a little bit over.
58:30So much.
58:34So I I think we are just about at time,
58:36but if anyone.
58:37So if anyone does need to leave,
58:38please feel free to do so.
58:39If anyone wants to stay and has
58:41questions for Doctor Fearon,
58:43please raise your hand and
58:44we'll take some questions now.
58:53Thank you. Very interesting and thorough.
58:55I have two questions. One is.
58:59You mentioned the personality with
59:01the adolescents, but I was curious
59:03about temperament with the infants.
59:04And you know, we recently had
59:06Nathan Fox here and he spoke a lot
59:08about temperament as a moderator.
59:10So that's question number one.
59:12And the second one is what's the
59:14latest news on oxytocin and it's.
59:18Oh yeah. And so yes,
59:21so temperament is a temperament is
59:23a complex story because you know
59:26temperament itself is not is is multi
59:29determined so it has genetic roots but
59:32it also has some environmental ones.
59:35So it's a little bit unclear what we
59:39should expect with respect to temperament.
59:42Having said that,
59:43the most recent work we've done on that
59:45suggests that the association between
59:47attachment temperament is is very,
59:50is is well is weak to very weak.
59:53There is a there is one exception
59:55it seems to that which is resistant
59:58attachment we where we're seeing stronger
01:00:00correlations with with temperament.
01:00:02So I think that's very interesting and
01:00:06it certainly is reason to to consider
01:00:09the possibility that temperament is
01:00:11playing more of a role in resistance
01:00:14attachment than the other categories.
01:00:16The the the reason these problems are really
01:00:19hard is is how do we know what that means so.
01:00:22You know,
01:00:22a measure of temperament is asking a parent,
01:00:25does your child cry inconsolably?
01:00:28You know, regularly across the
01:00:29course of the day and when we met,
01:00:30when we measure it, ambivalent
01:00:32attachment or resistant attachment,
01:00:34we observe children who cry
01:00:37inconsolably in separation,
01:00:38reunion situations.
01:00:40So it's hard to know who gets ownership
01:00:44of this construct right who how do
01:00:46we understand the the nature of the
01:00:49behavior that that we're describing?
01:00:51And and.
01:00:51So at this point,
01:00:53I'm kind of neutral about whether that
01:00:55means that attachment influences temperament,
01:00:58temperament influences attachment.
01:00:59There's some third variable that's
01:01:01influencing better than I'm,
01:01:02I'm not sure.
01:01:03So I think that's a really interesting issue.
01:01:05The other thing is that the resistant
01:01:08classification is usually the
01:01:09smallest group within any one study.
01:01:12So our level of uncertainty about the
01:01:14causes of that is by far the greatest,
01:01:16I would say,
01:01:17of all of the sort of types of attachment.
01:01:20So for example, in our.
01:01:22Twin studies,
01:01:22we would never have had power to
01:01:25specifically look at resistant
01:01:26attachment and know what the genetic
01:01:29contributions might be there.
01:01:30So I would absolutely not rule
01:01:32out the possibility that.
01:01:33That particular pattern of of
01:01:35of behaviour has more of a kind
01:01:39of temperamental underpinning to
01:01:40it than the others.
01:01:41We just don't know at this stage.
01:01:44On the oxytocin, I think probably
01:01:45others are better placed than me.
01:01:47I would I suspect to answer that
01:01:49that question there have not been.
01:01:52I mean,
01:01:53obviously Ruth Feldman does a lot of the the,
01:01:55the, the really. Right, right.
01:01:57Yeah.
01:01:58So it's such a big question.
01:02:02Yeah,
01:02:02I mean,
01:02:03maybe that's sort of more like another
01:02:05lecture.
01:02:10I'll tell you what I would can I use
01:02:12it as an excuse to say something else,
01:02:13which is that one thing that we do not study
01:02:17at all and it's so obviously important,
01:02:20is how attachments develop.
01:02:22I mean, we just don't do that.
01:02:24Emerson and Schaefer back in 1964 did that.
01:02:27They would look at a baby that
01:02:28didn't have an attachment, right.
01:02:30So you babies don't show selective attachment
01:02:32behavior when they're two months old.
01:02:34It starts to emerge gradually and
01:02:35it's really clear by about six
01:02:37or seven or eight months of age.
01:02:38And we know so little about what,
01:02:40yeah, I guess I've become even,
01:02:42but I think that probably those
01:02:45the psychobiology of that emerging
01:02:47developmental process is really,
01:02:48really important and we've done so
01:02:49little on that. But yeah, go ahead.
01:02:54Right.
01:02:57Yeah, exactly. So those, yeah, right.
01:02:59And those that those,
01:03:01those questions have more has been just
01:03:04like put to sleep since 1960 and we
01:03:06really don't understand that at all.
01:03:08I'm sure that's where oxytocin and you
01:03:10know the the sort of psychobiology of
01:03:12care that the animal researchers study
01:03:14is probably really, really important.
01:03:16But we don't even have the tools
01:03:17to do it that well, you know,
01:03:19the strange situation assumes that there
01:03:21is already an established attachment
01:03:23and there aren't actually brilliant
01:03:25tools for studying it but, but.
01:03:27That doesn't mean we can't come up
01:03:29with them, right?
01:03:29We could definitely come up with them.
01:03:32Say that.
01:03:38I just wanted to say that having
01:03:40studied this for 40 years,
01:03:41this was a phenomenal talk
01:03:43and I thank you very much.
01:03:44It was just a Tour de force and
01:03:46I learned so much, so thank you.
01:03:51That means a lot coming from you. Thank you,
01:03:54Mr How do I follow that?
01:03:56You could say it was rubbish.
01:04:00So my question is.
01:04:03He talked about a lack of continuity in
01:04:05attachment from childhood to adulthood,
01:04:08and I'm wondering if it's an
01:04:10issue of methods in that.
01:04:12And I I think we've probably
01:04:13talked about this years ago,
01:04:15but I just just cured to me
01:04:17that the strange situation is
01:04:19really about reunions and the
01:04:20AI is not about reunions.
01:04:22And so if people looked at that,
01:04:23are they looking at reunions
01:04:24and other context and trying to
01:04:26look at continuity there? Or
01:04:26yeah, I would, it would be so great
01:04:29if someone were to do that the.
01:04:32The the methodology I I think
01:04:33this is like absolutely crucial.
01:04:37It's it's part, yeah.
01:04:38It's partly about reunions.
01:04:40It's also partly about just even
01:04:42more generally attachment behavior.
01:04:44So as as, as, as like I said,
01:04:46as someone who started off more in
01:04:47the kind of behavioral ecology world,
01:04:49if I don't see well defined behavior,
01:04:51I'm nervous.
01:04:51Yeah, the adult attachment interview to
01:04:53me is like a deeply interesting thing,
01:04:55but I'm not sure what the
01:04:57behavior is that I'm seeing.
01:04:58And as you say,
01:05:00it certainly doesn't have
01:05:01clear proximity seeking in it.
01:05:03It there isn't a clear separation or union.
01:05:06So we are in a sense, in my view,
01:05:09detached from some of the things
01:05:11that give us confidence about the
01:05:13meaning and function of the behavior,
01:05:14which is where.
01:05:15A lot of the work that Bobby did
01:05:17inspired by people like Robert Hind
01:05:19who really knew how to do this stuff.
01:05:20You know that's where they started.
01:05:22So I do think that's a genuine
01:05:24possibility that that the AI is
01:05:26measuring something different not
01:05:28something unimportant because it
01:05:29you know it's something really
01:05:31interesting about don't say that
01:05:33but it's but it's just may not
01:05:36be attachment behavior itself.
01:05:38And then the question is well how
01:05:40would you study separation and
01:05:41reunions in teenagers or in in
01:05:43although we saw a great video right.
01:05:45I mean that was.
01:05:46But sending their dads off to be
01:05:48deployed for six months is never
01:05:50going to get you past an IRB.
01:05:51So the question is how to get
01:05:54good experimental handle on that?
01:05:56On on isomorphism? Isomorphic behavior?
01:06:01With adults, you know you see
01:06:03in on the playground some kids
01:06:04have a hard time and then they hover,
01:06:06they don't go back in or you
01:06:07in a in a couples relationship
01:06:09with things are not going well.
01:06:10You know they make up or does it stay
01:06:12you know I think I think that's the kind
01:06:14of territory that we need to be looking at.
01:06:16I completely agree. I don't know if
01:06:18you ever ever at Waters has done some
01:06:21nice coding of couple of interactions.
01:06:23Where he explicitly tries to codify the
01:06:25behavior as being attachment behavior.
01:06:27So you know you're feeling distressed,
01:06:29so do you. In what way do you kind of
01:06:31reach out and try to create psychological
01:06:33proximity or it may even be physical,
01:06:35actually, of course with with your
01:06:38partner and to me that's a that's a better
01:06:40approximation for explicit attachment
01:06:42behavior than what is happening in the AI,
01:06:44which is something much kind of
01:06:46more complex and psychological.
01:06:48So I think I think there's a lot of
01:06:51potential there there and there have been.
01:06:53Some studies, not enough of them,
01:06:54I think, to be able to sort of conclude
01:06:58that the continuity is higher.
01:07:00If you measure it like this,
01:07:01then if you measured it using AI,
01:07:03but that that is a possibility.
01:07:05That has certainly been one study
01:07:06I can think of from Everett,
01:07:08Wash this team that suggests that
01:07:09reasonably high level of continuity.
01:07:11So I think that is an important way to go.
01:07:14Great. Well, we're out of time,
01:07:16so I'd like to thank you and appreciate
01:07:19a wonderful talk.