Introduction Attachment is the strong emotional and affectionate connection which forms between infant and caregiver within the second half of the child’s first year (Santrock, 2012). It is a behaviour system whereby regulation of emotional distress is performed. Attachment consist of active behaviours and signalling behaviours to stimulate close proximity with parent (Bell & Ainsworth, 1972). Hence, babies who desire constant regular contact have separation anxiety and distress when parents leave them temporarily. Examples of attachment include touching parent’s face. Life-span development theory The Erikson’s life-span development theory consists of eight stages, whereby each stage consists of a developmental task with a crisis confrontation. …show more content…
Hence, negative reinforcement is used to stop the crying. Another article assessed the infants after observing infants and their mothers in the Strange Situation at 12 months. Positive reinforcement was used to soothe crying infants. When the infant cries, only 5% of mothers picked up infants in the first crying episode while 31.2% used interactions (Grossmann,Spangler,Suess,&Unzner, 1985). The other 22.7% of mothers diverted infants, but were deemed ineffective. Hence, physical contact was most effective, with 34 of 49 mothers using it once and with immediate ceasing of crying once they are carried. Moreover, soothing crying infants are encouraged as infants go through phases such as protest, despair and detachment. Therefore, trust and warmth is lost in the parent when infants stop crying not because of distress elimination, but, due to loss of hope for comfort. This forms mistrust in infants, which reduces confidence and warmth. Moreover, as duration and frequency of the infant 's crying episodes were closely related to maternal responsiveness, infants whose mothers attended to their cry, cried lesser and shorter and lesser interventions were used to soothe the infant