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| Adult Behavioral Stages of Attachment |
| Monday, May 31, 2004 |
| 1:30 PM–2:50 PM |
| Hampton |
| Area: DEV/DDA; Domain: Applied Research |
| Chair: Michael Lamport Commons (Harvard Medical School) |
| Discussant: Jacob L. Gewirtz (Florida International University) |
| Abstract: Learning Objectives
Learn about Adult Attachment, both health and impaired
Learn about Behavioral Stages of Development
Learn how to improve adult attachment |
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| A Theory of Adult Behavioral Developmental Stages of Attachment |
| PATRICE MARIE MILLER (Salem State University) |
| Abstract: The current dominant tradition in the research on adult attachment stems from a series of ideas proposed by John Bowlby (1969), and Mary Ainsworth (e.g. Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters & Wall, 1978). The Bowlby/Ainsworth theory, while recognizing the possibility of extending attachment theory into adulthood, relied on data from infants and young children. Since that theory was originally proposed, there has also been a great deal of work on adult development. This paper presents an integrative theory of lifespan attachment, combining a behavioral-developmental perspective (Commons, 1991), with ideas from the Bowlby/Ainsworth theory, and with what is known about adult development to show how goals, attachment processes or contingencies, behaviors, verbal explanations of attachment relationships, and other aspects of attachment will be different in adulthood as compared to infancy and childhood. |
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| Positive Adult Behavioral Developmental Stages of Attachment |
| SUZANNE LEE (Massachusetts General Hospital) |
| Abstract: Much of the current work on attachment in adults simply takes the Bowlby/Ainsworth conception and assumes that the same phenomena exist without transformation in adults. However, as argued in the first paper, adults are very different and more complex than infants, so transformation in attachment in adults should be the expectation. The current paper compares interviews on attachment losses that were done with children and with adults. It shows that the adults’ descriptions of their reactions to attachment losses can be classified into behavioral stages of development, using the behavioral developmental theory of stages of Commons and colleagues (Commons et al., 1998; Commons & Miller, 1998). The positive stages presented here represent the possible ways of acting that could be attained by adults whose development is not compromised by trauma or mental illness. The predominant stage of attachment for the adults interviewed in this study was the systematic stage. This is a stage in which individuals are able to consider more than one variable as a cause for behavior; they are most likely to view behavior as being due to a number of interacting causes. Implications of this view for relationships are discussed. |
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| Negative Adult Behavioral-Developmental Stages of Attachment |
| MICHAEL LAMPORT COMMONS (Harvard Medical School) |
| Abstract: Even with normal development, negative behavior stages of adult development of attachment are common, as shown by development stages of rape. At the Preoperational stage 6, people fail to predict the effects of their own behavior on others and to differentiate between fantasies and reality. They require constant supervision. At the Primary stage 7, people understand that their own behavior may causes others harm but do not understand how others will feel and often end of in jail because they only know what their own behavior obtains but not how the other people might feel about it. At the Concrete operational stage 8, people consider the feelings of others, but fail to discriminate social norms, forming most of the jail population At the Abstract stage 9, people care not about out- group people and behave in a prejudicial way. At the Formal stage 10, people in of bureaucracies harm others by blindly following regulations. At Systematic stage 11, people fail to use available means to settle conflicts, disrespecting their enemy and preferring to use power as legitimized by procedural due process. At the metasystematic stage 12, people fail to co-construct a reality with al the stakeholders, often harming them. |
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