Temperament And Attachment Essay

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The controversy in the relationship of infancies’ temperaments and maternal attachments are still debatable between temperament and attachment theorists down to our present day (De Wolff & Ijzendoorn, 1997). Temperament is termed as early projections of stable individual variations involving self regulation and reactivity that encompasses behaviors, emotions and attention (Boom, 1994). Attachment, on the other hand, is commonly known as having a bond that allows us to be comfortable with special people in our lives (Berk, 2006). According to Alexander Thomas and Stella Chess (1977), their research showed that the infant’s temperament is of intrinsic nature and how the process in developing of the child-adult interactions ultimately affects their attachment status (Coffman, Levitt, & Guacci-Franco, 1995). In addition, attachment theorists like Mary Ainsworth (1978) and John Bowlby (1969), however, suggested that maternal sensitivity and responsiveness from the caregiver mantles the infant’s temperament that is the determinant of attachment (Coffman et al., 1995). In this essay, considering the above mentioned, the essay will explore whether the antecedents on attachment are based on goodness of fit that consist of the infant’s in-born temperament and maternal perception caused by parenting style, or that it lies mainly from maternal sensitivity to the infant, and lastly, the association between infant’s temperament and maternal sensitivity and responsiveness.
Indications have shown that the infant’s temperament holds significance in affecting maternal perception which is influenced by maternal characteristic, thereby, leading to the outcome of attachment (Pauli-Pott, Mertesacker, Bade, Haverkock, Beckmann, 2003). Through the c...

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...future research can involve an equal number of mothers from different social background to compare. In search of the association between both infant temperament and maternal sensitivity of what was thought to be of independent factors, a closer relation can be observed between them through the above discussion.
In conclusion, the associations within infant’s temperament and maternal sensitivity holds the most significance in the development of the attachment in comparison with the considerations that maternal and infants’ characteristics are independent factors and the contribution in attachment that mainly comes from the mother. Therefore, instead of the endlessly debating between whether the antecedents of attachment are independent of each other, the focal point should be that of the acknowledgement between the correlation of infant temperament and attachment.

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