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| Question | Answer |
| Attachment | An emotional bond between two people. It is a two-way process that endures over time. It leads to certain behaviours such as clinging and proximity seeking, and serves the function of protecting an infant. |
| Primary attachment figure | The person who has formed the closest bond with a child, demonstrated by the intensity of their relationship. |
| Learning theory | The name given to a group of explanations which explain behaviour in terms of learning rather than any inborn tendencies or higher order thinking |
| Innate | Refers to characteristics that are inborn, a product of genetic factors. Such traits may be apparent at birth or may appear later as a result of maturation. |
| Continuity hypothesis | The idea that emotionally secure infants go on to be emotionally secure, trusting and socially confident adults. |
| Imprinting | An innate readiness to develop a strong bond with a mother figure, which takes place during a critical or sensitive period. |
| Internal working model | A mental model of the world that enables individuals to predict and control their environment. |
| Monotropy | The idea that the one relationship that the infant has with his/her primary attachment figure is of special significance in emotional development. |
| Sensitive period | A biologically determined period of time during which the child is particularly sensitive to a specific form of stimulation, resulting in the development of a specific response or characteristic. |
| Critical period | A period during which development of all biological systems take place most rapidly and easily. |
| Social releasers | A social behaviour or characteristic that elicits a caregiver reaction. Bowlby suggested that these were innate and adaptive, and critical in the process of forming attachments. |
| Temperament hypothesis | The belief that children form secure attachments simply because they have a more "easy" temperament from birth, whereas innately difficult children are more likely to form insecure attachments and later relationships. |
| Secure attachment | A strong and contented attachment of an infant to his/her caregiver, which develops as a result of sensitive responding by the caregiver to the infant's needs. |
| Insecure attachment | A form on attachment between an infant and caregiver that develops as a result of the caregiver's lack of sensitive responding to an infant's needs. |
| Insecure-avoidant | A style of attachment characteristics that characterises those children who tend to avoid social interaction and intimacy with others. |
| Insecure-resistant (Ambivalent) | A style of attachment that characterises those who both seek and reject intimacy and social interaction. |
| Insecure-disorganised | A style of attachment that characterises those who lack consistent patterns of social behaviour. |
| Separation anxiety | The distress shown by an infant when separated from his/her primary attachment figure. |
| Stranger anxiety | The distress shown by an infant when approached or picked up by someone who is unfamiliar. |
| Cultural variations | The ways that different groups of people vary in terms of their social practices, and the effects these practices have on development and behaviour. |
| Culture | This refers to all the rules, customs, morals and ways of interacting that bind together members of a society or some other collection of people. |
| Collectivist culture | Any culture that places more value on the "collective" rather than an individual, and on interdependence rather than independence. |
| Individualist culture | Any culture that places more emphasis on the individual rather than the "collective", and on independence rather than interdependence. |
| Disinhibited attachment | A type of disorganised attachment where children do not discriminate between people they choose as attachment figures. |
| Privation | The lack of having any attachments due to the failure to develop such attachments in early life. |
| Day care (non-parental care) | A form of temporary care not given by family members or someone well known to the child, and usually outside the home. |
| Social development | The aspect of a child's growth concerned with the development of sociability, where the child learns how to relate to others, and with the process of socialisation, in which the child acquires the knowledge and skills appropriate to that society. |
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