Robertson and Bowlby (1952) found that prolonged separations from the mother lower the extent to which infants seek proximity to their mother. Although prolonged separations are no longer common today, some infants experience extremely long hours of nonmaternal care, which may lead them to seek less proximity to their mother. I examined this hypothesis using data from the National Institute of Child Health and Development: Early Child Care and Youth Development Study (N = 1,281). A series of regression analyses revealed that infants’ hours of nonmaternal care at 4 to 6, 7 to 9, and 10 to 12 months, but not at 1 to 3 or 13 to 15 months, were associated with their proximity-seeking behavior in the Strange Situation at 15 months. Using a polynomial regression analysis, I further found a cubic relation between the number of nonmaternal care hours at 7 to 9 months and infants’ proximity-seeking behavior. Specifically, proximity-seeking behavior rapidly declined during two time periods: when infants spent from 0 to 10 hours per week in nonmaternal care and when they spent over 60 hours per week in nonmaternal care. I also found that mothers’ and nonmaternal caregivers’ sensitivity was associated with infants’ proximity-seeking behavior, and proximity-seeking behavior predicted young children's ability to control their behavior and also the amount of time that they were able to focus their attention on their mother or their experimenter during a developmentally challenging task at 36 months. Findings reported in this dissertation highlight the important role of proximity-seeking behavior in the attachment relationship formed with the caregiver during infancy and the development of self-control and attention during the preschool years. / text

published_or_final_version / Clinical Psychology / Doctoral / Doctor of Psychology

There has been growing research attention on the topic of child anxiety applying the theoretical framework of Attachment Theory, and the results have been encouraging so far with consistent findings on the positive association between insecure attachment and child anxiety. Child anxiety has also been associated with a diminished sense of control with extensive empirical evidences. Nevertheless, despite the rich empirical support on the associations between insecure attachment and child anxiety, and between diminished sense of control and child anxiety, the potential pathways of anxiety transmission remain largely unclear. In their discussion on the development of child anxiety, Chopita and Barlow (1998) proposed a conceptual link between attachment security and sense of control, even though it has not been followed up with empirical studies. Since available empirical evidences have validated the role of attachment security and sense of control in the development of child anxiety, it will be conceptually meaningful to investigate the potential link between attachment security and sense of control, and their respective and interactive roles in the development of child anxiety. The current study also aspires to improve understanding on the relationships between parental anxiety, parent’s and child’s sense of control, and child anxiety within the context of children undergoing elective surgeries. Children of 151 parents were about to receive elective surgeries participated in this study. Among these parents, 59 of them have children reached age 6 or above and all these children also participated in the current study. Information from 144 parents (95.36%) and 51 children (86.44%) was used for subsequent analyses. Information from 7 parents (4.64%) and 8 children (13.56%) was excluded from further analyses as they filled in less than 30% of the questionnaire items. Findings from present study showed children with insecure attachment and/or high external LOC experienced increased anxiety in preoperative period. The findings are consistent with existing literature. Children with insecure attachment were also found to espouse a higher level of external LOC. Besides, regression analyses showed that attachment security moderated the relationships between child’s external LOC and anxiety. Results also support the notion that secure attachment could be a protective factor against child anxiety development. Moreover, mediation analyses indicated child’s LOC mediated the relationship between parental and child anxiety, thereby supporting the mediation model by Chopita and Barlow. From a theoretical standpoint, findings from current study provided initial support on the linkage between attachment security and sense of control. Child’s external LOC as a potential pathway for intergenerational transmission of anxiety was also supported. The findings also bear significant clinical implications. Specifically, early screening and identification of children with insecure attachment and external LOC would allow more effective allocation of resources targeting at anxiety management in preoperative setting. Besides, taking into consideration the impact of parental anxiety, intervention for child anxiety including components for parental anxiety management should be emphasized. / published_or_final_version / Clinical Psychology / Doctoral / Doctor of Psychology

In animals, humans and robots, imitative behaviours are very useful for acting, learning and communicating. Implementing imitation in autonomous robots is still a challenge and one of the main problems is to make them choose when and who to imitate. We start from minimalist architectures, following a bottom-up approach, to progressively complete them. Based on imitation processes in nature, many architectures have been developed and implemented to increase quality (essentially in terms of reproducing actions with accuracy) of imitation in robots. Nevertheless, autonomous robots need architectures where imitative behaviour is well integrated with the other behaviours like seeking for stability, exploration or exploitation. Moreover, whether to express imitative behaviours or not should also depend on the history of interactions (positive or negative) between robots and their interactive partners. In this thesis, we show with real robots how low-level imitation can emerge from other essential behaviours and how affect can modulate the way they are exhibited. On top of proposing a novel vision of imitation, we show how agents can autonomously switch between these behaviours depending on affective bonds they have developed. Moreover, with simple architectures, we are able to reproduce behaviours observed in nature, and we present a new way to tackle the issue of learning at different time scales in continuous time and space with discretization.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the connection between people and the hill of Bennachie in the Garioch region of North-East Scotland. The scholarly aim is to complete an inter-disciplinary study in Folkloristics and Anthropology and to enhance ethnological method with landscape theory. The methodology for the fieldwork involved a mix of qualitative research carried out through participant observation and oral history interviews. Whilst the focus of the interviews was on a core group of community volunteers, fieldwork ranged from solitary walking to group participation. Midway through the fieldwork an archival survey was commissioned and this information was used to complement the fieldwork and introduce a collaborative perspective. With a dual methodological focus the thesis approached community relationships with landscape through diverse routes: personal narrative; poetry; the dynamics of community woodland groups, and the interpretation and management of a twentieth century farm ruin. These appear to be very different scales of analysis, yet each topic was heavily influenced by the legacy of land change and clearance in Scotland during the Agricultural Improvements. Each element is related to landscape physically, particularly through walking, and are individual and group performances that generate and reproduce moral values. The principal conclusion is that relationships between people and land in North-East Scotland have been misrepresented through a historic and scholarly legacy of dispossession. Coupled with this misrepresentation is the continuing belief in the North-East that farm lifestyles and dialect is dead or dying. This thesis underlines an alignment between Improvement and antifeudalistic discourse with walking and looking in Scotland. It demonstrates the continuing primacy of landscape and language through looking at, walking on and writing about Bennachie. Landscape attachment is exemplified in these performances and demonstrates a strong co-constitutive relationship between the ‘Lan and the Fowk'.

This thesis examines the narratives of Black youth and their parents about their experiences in Winnipeg schools. The study looks at aspects of academic achievement and school engagement. The study explores similar research based in Eastern Canada and the United States. Youth and parents were interviewed individually as a way of cross referencing the lived experiences of the young people involved in the study. In the paper, it is argued that Black youth in Winnipeg may feel disconnected to school and schooling because they cannot attach to the curriculum, they cannot attach to their teachers, and/or they cannot attach to their peer groups. The author explores the factors that influence the engagement and achievement of Black youth. The paper concludes by pointing out the implications of these stories on the structure of schooling and the practice of educators.

The shared language, attitudes, practices and patterns of those who participate in “collecting" in the lower mainland area of British Columbia are described. Recurring themes and patterns emerge in the analysis of data obtained through interviews with thirty collector-informants. The generalizability of collecting as a phenomenon which exists outside of what is being collected is established. Collectors' roles as curators and the serious and consuming aspects of collecting, including the cycles of collecting, affection and sentiment held toward collected objects, and the strategies and approaches to the process of collecting are discussed. Propositions set out by previous researchers Belk, Danet and Katriel are examined in light of the data. Implications for museum studies and museum education specifically, are considered.

Wound-related pain is complex, integrating the experience of noncyclic acute wound pain, cyclic acute wound pain, and chronic wound pain (Krasner 1995). More than 80% of chronic wound patients report pain during wound dressing change. A constellation of physical and psychological factors may be involved in the mediation of pain during wound dressing change. A burgeoning body of evidence suggests the intricate relationship between anxiety and pain. In this study, the attachment framework was examined to determine how personal views of self (attachment anxiety) and others (attachment avoidance) may affect pain during dressing change. Attachment styles are systematic patterns of expectations, emotional reactivity, strategies for distress management and social behaviour that are based on an individual’s belief about the self and others. Internal working models are cognitive-affective schemas that guide the attachment patterns. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship of attachment style and pain during dressing change in an older population. In particular the study focussed on the role that anxiety, anticipatory self reported pain, and behavioural expression of pain play in this relationships. Method: A questionnaire was used in this cross-sectional study to classify 96 older subjects into four different categories of attachment styles. Subjects were asked to rate their levels of anticipatory pain and actual pain levels at different times during wound care using a numerical rating scale. Results: The results indicated that subjects experienced more pain during dressing change than at baseline. Secure subjects reported less pain and anxiety than subjects with other attachment styles. Results of regression analysis indicated that anxiety mediated the relationship between attachment and pain. Conclusion: The results of this study also support the role that attachment plays in the experience of pain in older adults. Clinicians must be cognizant of the impact of personality, anxiety, and anticipation of pain on the actual pain experience.

Integrating research on attachment anxiety, rejection, self-regulation and health behaviours, I investigated the interactive effect of attachment anxiety and relationship threat on self-regulation. I hypothesized that self-regulation would decrease following a threat to one’s romantic relationship. Moreover, I expected that this association would be moderated by attachment anxiety, such that it would be stronger for individuals high, relative to low, in attachment anxiety. In three laboratory experiments, relationship threat was made salient and participants were given the opportunity to consume snack foods. In a non-experimental diary study, participants’ relationship stress and health behaviours were measured for a period of seven days. The results for Study 1 indicated that women, but not men, high in attachment anxiety experienced self-regulation failure (i.e., ate more jelly beans) when relationship threat was elicited. In contrast, although women low in attachment anxiety demonstrated the same pattern, it was attenuated and non-significant. Study 2 was designed to replicate the findings from Study 1 using a more powerful relationship threat manipulation that I hoped would cause a consistent pattern for both genders. Contrary to hypotheses, both men and women high in attachment anxiety experienced increased self-regulation (i.e., ate fewer brownie pieces) in the experimental, compared to the control, condition. One important difference between these studies was the presence of the partner in the laboratory in Study 2. I hypothesized that this might account for the discrepant findings between these studies and designed Study 3 accordingly, such that participants either participated alone or with their partners. Unfortunately, this study did not reconcile the discrepancies between the first two studies: Only a main effect of relationship threat on number of jelly beans consumed emerged. For Study 4, individuals completed questionnaires for seven days that assessed how fluctuations in relationship stress interacted with attachment anxiety to affect health outcomes. Analyses of the same-day and lagged effects demonstrated several significant interactions consistent with the hypotheses. These four studies provide initial evidence for the interactive effect between attachment anxiety and relationship stress on health outcomes and well-being. Although the findings were inconsistent, two of the studies provided support for my hypotheses. / Thesis (Ph.D, Psychology) -- Queen's University, 2010-08-17 21:23:46.461

This study first investigated the association between individuals' chronic regulatory styles and their attachment models in adult close relationships, and then looked at how individuals' chronic regulatory styles interact with their attachment models to influence relationship maintenance strategies (RMS) such as accommodating one's partner's transgressions and making personal sacrifices for the relationship. One hundred twenty-one dating-students completed the computerized Selves Questionnaire (Higgins et al., 1997) assessing ideal and ought discrepancies and their chronic accessibility (promotion and prevention focus strength), and then answered questions addressing attachment, accommodation and willingness to sacrifice. Results revealed that ought discrepancies were associated with avoidant attachment for high prevention focus strength individuals, whereas ideal discrepancies were associated with anxious attachment for low promotion focus strength individuals. Furthermore, prevention focus strength interacted with avoidant attachment, such that individuals with a strong prevention focus engaged in RMS to the extent that they were not avoidantly attached.