 This is part two of Lecture 10. So in the first part of the lecture, we already saw just how important relationships are for our general health and well-being. So it's actually not a surprise that from the very moments that we are born, the first thing we do is seeking contact with a person that will look after us. That's definitely the first instinct that human babies have the moment they are born. It's actually quite magical to witness. So from the moment we are born, we want to form relationships with others. And of course, in the first stages of our lives, this is with our caregivers, oftentimes our parents, the people that will look after us. And we need them, of course, to provide food and shelter, but also emotional comforts. And the very first theory basically on relationships, human relationships was especially on this part, our human need to form attachments. And this theory is called attachment theory. It's first developed by John Bulby in 1969. So this is approximately 10 years after Harry Harlow conducted his experiments on the baby monkeys. So at the core, what the attachment theory states is that the attachment, the very early attachment that we form to our parents and to our caregivers basically shapes our relationships for the rest of our lives. They basically form a working model for how we see relationships. And later on, this attachment theory has been further developed by Mary Ainsworth. And it's still a very influential theory in relationship science. And Mary Ainsworth showed that there's actually different ways in which we can attach to our caregivers. And she studies this in, I think, a very interesting way. This is an experiment done with mothers and their very young children. These children were oftentimes only one-year-olds. And these mothers and their infants basically came to the laboratory. And they took place in a room. And in this room, there were also toys. And they just started playing together. This experiment also has a name. It's called a strange situation because it's a very strange situation for a young baby to be in a laboratory setting at first with the mother. So they started to play together in this laboratory room full of toys. And then something upsetting happens for the baby because the mother leaves the room. And as a mother of one-year-olds, I can confirm the moment you leave the room, the baby starts crying. And that's totally normal. This is, you know, sometimes it's also just necessary. Sometimes you need to leave the room even when you're attending a baby. And that's perfectly fine. It's also fine that the baby starts crying because the baby needs a signal. You know, I cannot take care of myself. I need someone to look after me. It's just an instinct of the baby to start crying. So that's actually not the interesting part of the experiment. The interesting part of the experiment is what happens the moment the mother comes back into the room because the mother has just gone for maybe a minute or so and then she re-enters the room and a reunion follows. And what Mary Ainsworth was interested in is how the baby responds to the mother when she returns. And this says something about the way this infant, this child is attached to the mother. And I'll now show you the experiment on the strange situation and you also will see the different ways in which children can respond to a reunion with their caregiver. This experiment, which I watched through a two-way mirror, is designed to gauge how secure is the crucial relationship between mother and child. The bunny is going to go here and that bunny will be on top. The value of the test has been established in studies that would watch a child one-year-old and then follow it up and interview them about the relationships to their parents when they were 21 years old. So we're quite confident in the long-term significance of this relationship. After several minutes play, the mother is signaled to leave the room. I'll get you back in one minute. But she'll survive. The key moment in the experiment is the child's reaction to her mother's return. The important clue is whether the baby's able to become calmed down by the contact with the mother and get back to play. Sometimes it takes a couple of minutes. But you see, when the mother was out, she was only interested in the mother, no interest in the toys. Now she has a contact with the mother, she's beginning to show a little interest in the environment, and shortly she'll be right back with the toys where we started. So you would call this a secure one? Yes, yes. She's certainly much happier. Goes to the door following her. Now, we sent the mother right back in. The point here is not to distress the baby, we're just trying to challenge it. The baby puts her hands to her face, a sad expression, puts her face down. When she picks her up, she keeps her head down, her arms out, and then she sits in the chair holding the baby. The baby's still sullen. He's low-keyed. So you would call this insecure attached? Yes, insecure. He's avoidant. He's not engaging her, and the reunion's not effective. And it's important to remember here that the thing that upset him was her absence. Her return should be the solution to his problem. Now this is another pattern that we see in babies who are not good at using their mother as a secure base at home. This baby is also insecure. But you'll see we get a look at his play before the separation. Mother's left. When she returns, she picks him up. He can't calm down. He's still upset. She offers a toy to amuse him or to comfort him or to distract him and he slaps it away. She offers another. He slaps it away. He's angry. We call these babies resistant or ambivalent because they both want her back and yet can't use the contact. We think that the difficulty is that in the past, when he sought comfort, she's been inconsistent as to whether she's available and responsive or not. So in this experiment, you see different attachment styles. And it's important to realize that children form attachment styles but also when we grow up into adults and we form relationships with others, especially the romantic relationships, we also still have these attachment styles. And there's lots of different ways of naming the attachment styles. There's also a lot of different definitions. But I'll just stick to the definitions that are also in your book, just to make it more easy for you to understand. And in the book, there's three attachment styles that are central. The first one is the secure attachment style. The second one is the avoidant attachment style and the third one is the anxious attachment style. And these three different attachment styles really have a big impact on our relationship. So let's zoom into these three different attachment styles and we'll start with the secure attachment style. And if you are securely attached as a child but also later on in the relationships you form with your friends and with your romantic partner, then you have a positive view of yourself and you also have a positive view of others. You don't have any problems forming relationships and you also know that the moments that you are in distress, if you are in pain, in danger, if something is going on in your life, you reach out to others. You reach out to others for support. If you're insecure, if you feel threatened, that's what you do. And that's actually a very healthy way of forming attachments. And if you're securely attached to your parents when you grow up, then this also predicts long-term relationship success. So if you had parents that looked after you and were there for you the moments that you felt distressed and that just showed support and that you felt really warm, a warm caring relationship with, then it's a very high likelihood that you also are very well able to form good relationships with others when you grow up. And luckily, the majority of the population has a secure attachment style. 66% of the people, so there's a very high likelihood that you also are securely attached in your relationships. But of course, there's still quite a big chunk of people that do not fall into this category of secure attachment. They fall into the broader category of insecure attachment. And there's really a lot of different insecure attachment styles and I'll now zoom into two of them. And they are also the two that I think you will recognize the most. They're very nicely captured, I think, in this image. These are two people that might be in a relationship. It could be. And they have the complete opposite insecure attachment styles. One person is avoidant. And an avoidant attachment style, 25%, so one out of four people have an avoidant attachment style, they have actually difficulties developing intimate relationships. Oftentimes they distrust others. They have difficulties trusting others, often because they've been abandoned in the past. They feel like others are basically not worthy of their love and they really have this very strong desire to be independent. Sounds familiar for some of you, maybe? And I think as a general audience for non-experts, we can recognize this as people that have a fear of getting into a relationship, sort of bonding issues. Then you have the other insecure attachment style, and that is basically the opposite attachment style. That's the anxious attachment style. Approximately 90% of people have this attachment style. And if you have an anxious attachment style, you have a very high need to form relationships. So you desperately want to be in a relationship with others. But you feel unworthy. You feel like others might leave you because you're not worthy of their love or attention. And especially if these two people form a relationship together, this can be highly problematic because you have one person that really desperately wants to be in a relationship and wants to cling on to the other person, and you have the other person that might be avoidant and is very easily feels trapped in a relationship or feels suffocated in a relationship. So these two styles don't go well together, but you still see that oftentimes in other relationships together. At this moment in the lecture, you might also start feeling a little bit panicky or at least some discomfort. Maybe you recognize yourself in one of the insecure attachment styles, or maybe you think that maybe your partner or your best friend or someone in your close environment is insecurely attached. Or you might be thinking back to your childhood and thinking like, oh my god, my parents were actually like me when I was little. And does that now mean that I'm doomed to have bad relationships in the rest of my life? Well, that's definitely not the case. I just want to reassure you that these... in the first sort of development of the attachment theory, it was a little bit doomsday. Like if you have a bad attachment style, you are just stuck in bad relationships forever. And we now know that this is certainly not the case. Attachment styles can and will change over your lifetime. And it's also something that is based on your experiences. So for example, when you've been insecurely attached in your childhood, if you had parents that were not supportive, that basically were not looking after you the way they should have and not providing comfort at the crucial moments in your life and you were maybe insecurely attached, then if you grew up, maybe you formed relationships with your friends or with a romantic partner who actually was there for you and provided comfort, then you can become more securely attached. And also the attachment styles we have differ per relationship. So in one relationship, you might be a bit anxious, in the other relationship, you might be a bit avoidant, and in another relationship, you might be more secure. So there's lots of variations and you can definitely also change. In the lecture of this course, we see the situation also really plays a huge role in how we feel and also how we attach to others. Still, if you experience difficulties in relationships, maybe have difficulties connecting to other people, forming deep emotional bonds, then there's also some ways that you can change. And there are some tactics that you can use to work in your relationship. And you can do so, for example, with a therapist, with an individual therapist, or with a relationship therapist, if you are in a relationship. And if you then get some more insight into your own attachment style and your own patterns that you might be stuck in leading to more destructive behaviors, that can be really helpful in changing into a more secure and positively securely attached relationship style. So a therapist can give you some advice on how to deal with difficult moments in your relationship. Making sure that you can communicate what you need from a partner at a certain point in time. And if you experience difficulties in this part, this is something that I would definitely highly recommend. Even if you're not in a relationship right now, this can be really helpful investment into your future relationships and your future happiness.