ORIGINS OF ATTACHMENT: CULTURE AND CUE SENSITIVITY (MATERIAL-INFANT, INTERACTION, FAMILY, PARENTS, PERINATAL).
Contributors: University of California, San Francisco.
Published: 1985
Number of pages: 341
Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing.
Description: A phenomenological study based on the works of Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty was conducted to gain understanding of the origins of human attachment. The development of cue sensitivity, as a precursor of attachment between mothers and their infants, was examined within the context of culture and the shared body experience of pregnancy and the early postpartum period.

Sixteen multiparous, upwardly mobile, Anglo-American mothers and their partners were interviewed and photographed four times between the eighth month of pregnancy and the eighth week postpartum. At each postpartum interview, the mothers completed The Mother's Assessment of the Behavior of Her Infant Scale and the investigator completed the Sensitivity in Mother-Infant Interactions: The AMIS Scale.

Photographic data and accounts of the pre- and postbirth experiences with the infant were treated as texts and systematically interpreted using the hermeneutic method. Consensual validation was sought with the participants. Repeated measured procedures were applied to the instrument scores to determine changes over time.

The data revealed the origins of attachment are in the embedded cultural meanings and embodied experiences. The value on individual success and achievement motivated the use of power and control to create a project-like, cognitive orientation to pregnancy and childrearing. The newborn's individuality, dependency, and softness had transforming power that enabled the parents to partially transcend the technological, cognitive orientation of the culture. Transactional experiences with the baby generated feelings of intense pleasure and satisfaction that motivated generosity with time and energy.

Maternal-infant sensitivity began with the sensing of the other during shared body experiences in pregnancy and a continuing proximity of the maternal and infant body postbirth. This body closeness led to maternal possessiveness and paternal protectiveness. As the infant developed, the mothers described the infant's behavior in constellations of cues, then patterns. Cue sensitivity is therefore better understood as pattern recognition.

The strong orientation to self-reliance and independence sometimes blunted sensitivity to the infant's capabilites. Episodes of overstimulation from the lifestyle of these urban mothers led to sleep disturbances and evening irritability in the infant.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 46-11, Section: B, page: 3786.

Thesis (D.N.S.)--UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN FRANCISCO, 1985.

School code: 0034.