The Legacy of Early Experience
Presented by L. Alan Sroufe, Ph.D.
This webinar was presented live on November 4th, 2022 at 4pm Eastern time. The recording of Professor Sroufe’s presentation is available here.
L. Alan Sroufe, Ph.D.
Three questions will be addressed in this presentation: (1) Why is there continuity in development? (2) How does change happen? (3) What then is the fate of early experience following developmental change. Answering these questions begins with an understanding of the nature of development itself, including the formative role of early experience. We will trace how the self emerges from early attachment relationships and how this sets a pathway for later development. Findings will be presented from the Minnesota Longitudinal Study of Risk and Adaptation, a comprehensive study of individual adaptation, vulnerability, and resilience from before birth into adulthood.
Alan Sroufe is Professor Emeritus of Child Psychology in the Institute of Child Development at the University of Minnesota. Professor Sroufe received his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Wisconsin with a clinical internship at the Langley Porter Neuropsychiatric Institute. Dr. Sroufe has been an Associate Editor of Developmental Psychology and Development and Psychopathology. An internationally recognized expert on early attachment relationships, emotional development, and developmental psychopathology, he has published seven books and 150 articles on these and related topics. His awards include the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award from the Society for Research in Child Development, the Bowlby Ainsworth Award for Contributions to Attachment Research, the G. Stanley Hall Award for Distinguished Scientific Contribution to Developmental Psychology (2007) and the Mentor Award (2013) from Division 7 of the American Psychology Association, an Honorary Doctorate Degree from the University of Leiden, and the Distinguished Teaching Award from the College of Education, University of Minnesota.
Selected References:
Sroufe, L. A., Egeland, B., Carlson, E., & Collins, W. A. (2005). The development of the person: The Minnesota Study of Risk and Adaptation from Birth to Adulthood. New York: Guilford Press.
Sroufe, L. A., Egeland, B., & Kreutzer, T. (1990). The fate of early experience following developmental change: Longitudinal approaches to individual adaptation in childhood. Child Development, 61, 1363-1373.
Sroufe, L. A. (1997). Psychopathology as an outcome of development. Development and Psychopathology, 9, 251-268.
Sroufe, L. A., Egeland, B., & Carlson, E. (1999). One social world: The integrated development of parent-child and peer relationships. In W. A. Collins & B. Laursen (Eds.), Relationships as developmental context: The 30th Minnesota syposium on child psychology (pp. 241-262). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum, 241-262.
Sroufe, L. A. (2005). Attachment and development: A prospective, longitudinal study from birth to adulthood, Attachment and Human Development, 7, 349-367.
Sroufe, L. A. (2009). The concept of development in developmental psychopathology. Child Development Perspectives, 3, 178-183.
Sroufe, L. A., Coffino, B., & Carlson, E. (2010). Conceptualizing the role of early experience. Lessons from the Minnesota longitudinal study. Developmental Review, 30 (1), 36-51.
Sroufe, L. A. (2020) A compelling idea: how we become the persons we are. Brandon, VT, Safer Society Press.
Q&A
“Wonderful, Dr. Sroufe! I am curious about your study of secondary attachments. For example, a child who shows a primarily secure attachment, but with some evidence of insecure-anxious attachment. What did you notice about outcomes in these cases? Did you measure these as well?”
In our study we measured attachment quality at both 12 and 18 months. Relevant to your question, some children had secure at one age and anxious attachment at the other. This group always came out between those with consistently secure histories and those with consistently anxious histories. Mary Main, who studied middle class families, studied attachment with both mother and father. She found that the most positive outcomes occurred when both relationships were secure and the most negative when neither were secure. When it was mixed, there were somewhat better outcomes if the secure relationship was with the mother. For both mothers and fathers sensitivity predicted attachment security. This has now been found in a number of studies.
“Any studies on attachment in children with Autism? In my experience, I observed over many years that children with Autism were very sensitive to their care givers emotions if not social cues. The same happened in the classrooms in their emotional status reflecting their teachers emotional response to them”.
I refer you to David Oppenheim at Haifa University. He would be able to give you good leads. In his own study he found that variations in caregiver sensitivity predicted variations in attachment security with autism spectrum cases, just as in other samples.
“Can Dr. Sroufe speak at all to the issue of decoupling the stress of racism from the stress of poverty and implications for attachment?
Sorry. I wish I could say something about this, but we were not able to do this in our study. (See my answer to # 6 below, for somewhat who might have some ideas)
“Thank you immensely for answering my question, Dr. Sroufe! I will take my developmental perspective with me as a clinician. I worked with Kathleen Thomas and Megan Gunnar at the U and miss the whole department dearly. I am eager to implement my knowledge of developmental psychology into my clinical practice. Thanks again!
“What recommendations might you give to a managed care organization that focuses on behavioral health of children? It seems it could be pertinent to reduce stress for families and ensure a child has a secure attachment with an adult. Are there any sources of stress more impactful than others? Are there measures you would recommend for assessment? Or goals for therapy that are most critical?”
I have consulted some with a man named Mark Ham in Duluth. He is doing a large study of adversity in this context.
“Dear Prof. I would like to hear your take of Keller's criticism of attachment!”
Two criticisms are frequently leveled against Bowlby’s attachment theory. The first is that it is claimed that infants are attached only to mothers. The second, championed by Keller and a few others, is that attachment theory is Eurocentric or applies only in Europe and North America—that it does not take into account cultural differences. Both of these critiques are poorly aimed and show little grasp of the literature.
First, Bowlby, and every other attachment theorist, has been clear that multiple attachments are the rule. Infants become attached to mothers, fathers, grandparents, nannies, and others, depending on history of experience with those persons. What Bowlby said is that there will be a “small hierarchy of attachment figures.” Put an infant in the center of a room playing, with mom in one corner, dad in the other; then scare the baby. The vast majority scramble to the mother. Have only dad in the room, they will scramble to dad. Evolution set it up this way so that infants would have no vacillation in the face of threat, yet still be able to form a new attachment if the primary caregiver was lost.
Attachment theory is not specific to European infants. It is actually is a trans-species theory, being as applicable to non-human primates a to humans, and the human groups that guided the theory were pre-agricultural hunter-gatherer communities. The first empirical test of the Bowlby/Ainsworth theory was conducted in a village in rural Uganda, hardly the center of Europe. By now attachment studies have been conducted on every continent except Antarctica, in situations ranging from indigenous mountain villages in Mexico to street children in Bogotá. Children studied have included those with cerebral palsy, Down syndrome, and, as noted above, autism. The core prediction from attachment theory is robust: caregiver sensitivity predicts attachment security in all these settings and with all these groups. Critiques often point to cultures where multiple people, including older children, care for “infants.” But these are generally toddlers. In the first year, most infants in hunter-gathering societies were carried, nursed and protected by one primary person. For further information, see the chapter by Posada in Gojman-de-millan, S., Herreman, C., & Sroufe, L. A. (2017). Attachment across clinical and cultural perspectives: A relational psychoanalytic approach: London and New York: Routledge.
Watch the webinar recording here.