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Attachment behavior of day-care children: naturalistic and laboratory observations
Insights
Day care is compatible with normal child attachment patterns. Both naturalistic observations and laboratory tests showed secure mother-child bonds, even with full-day care, supporting healthy development.
Area of Science:
- Developmental Psychology
- Child Care Research
Background:
- Attachment theory is central to understanding child development.
- The impact of day care on early childhood attachment is a significant area of research.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the relationship between day care and infant attachment patterns.
- To compare attachment behaviors in children attending day care versus those reared at home.
Main Methods:
- Naturalistic observations of 20 middle-class day-care children (17-38 months).
- Laboratory comparison using the strange-situation procedure with 14 day-care and 14 matched home-reared children.
- Assessed preference for mother over other caregivers and reactions to separation and reunion.
Main Results:
- Naturalistic data confirmed expected attachment behaviors, including preference for mother.
- Attachment behaviors heightened after separations, and age trends were observed.
- In the strange situation, day-care children showed fewer interactions with strangers compared to home-reared children, with minimal differences in behavior towards mothers.
Conclusions:
- Day care is compatible with normal patterns of attachment.
- Findings from both naturalistic and laboratory settings support the security of attachment in children attending day care.
- Early childhood education settings do not appear to negatively impact secure mother-child relationships.
Abstract:
Relationships between day care and attachment were assessed with alternative procedures: (1) hypothesized normal patterns of attachment were tested naturalistically in day-care centers; (2) day-care and home-reared children were compared in a laboratory setting. Naturalistic observations were conducted on 20 middle-class day-care children, 17--38 months of age. 14 of the day-care children were compared with 14 matched home-reared children in a strange-situation procedure. Naturalistic data confirmed hypothesized patterns of attachment behavior. Preference for mother over familiar caregivers was demonstrated both in a comparison constructed to bias results against mother and in a less stringent test. Expected heightening of attachment behaviors following all-day separations, and predicted age trends also were found. In the strange situation, there were very few rearing group differences in children's behavior to mother; the day-care group, however, interacted less with the stranger. Complementary findings from naturalistic and laboratory situations indicate that day care is compatible with normal patterns of attachment behavior.