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IB DP Psychology — Developmental Psychology (Contexts) | SL & HL | Paper 1
🎯 Learning Intentions By the end of this note, you will be able to:
- Define attachment, internal working models, and the self-concept using IB-aligned terminology.
- Explain how early attachment relationships shape the development of a child's sense of self.
- Describe Bowlby's attachment theory and the role of the caregiver in forming internal working models.
- Describe Ainsworth's Strange Situation and the four patterns of attachment it identified.
- Evaluate research evidence for attachment and self-development using supporting and opposing studies in ACAS format.
- Apply attachment concepts to a real-world case study from the sociocultural and cognitive perspectives.
- Discuss the extent to which early attachment experiences determine long-term psychological development.
- Analyse attachment research using relevant concept areas: Bias, Causality, Perspective, and Responsibility.
Introduction & Context
Think about the earliest memories you have of feeling safe — perhaps being held, comforted after a fall, or reassured during a frightening moment. These moments may seem small, but developmental psychologists argue they are among the most psychologically significant experiences of a human life. The way a caregiver responds to a helpless infant — consistently, warmly, or perhaps unpredictably — appears to leave a lasting imprint on how that child comes to understand themselves and others.
This raises a fascinating question: how does a child who cannot yet speak, reason abstractly, or reflect on their own emotions begin to develop a sense of who they are? The answer, according to developmental psychology, lies largely in the quality of the bond formed between infant and caregiver in the first years of life. This bond — known as attachment — is not simply about love or closeness. It is a functional psychological system that shapes how children interpret the world, regulate their emotions, and ultimately, how they come to see themselves.
Understanding attachment and its relationship to the development of self is central to developmental psychology. It draws together biological drives, cognitive representations, and social experience into a unified account of early human development — and its implications extend well into adulthood.
🔑 Analogy — The Blueprint Imagine a child's early attachment relationship as the first blueprint drawn for a building. The blueprint is not the building itself — it does not determine every room or fixture — but it shapes the foundational structure. Later renovations are possible, but they must work around (or consciously undo) what was laid down first. In the same way, early attachment experiences create a psychological blueprint — an internal working model — that guides how a person relates to others and understands themselves throughout life.
Core Concepts
Before we can understand how attachment shapes the self, we need to understand what attachment actually is. It is tempting to think of it simply as love or affection between a parent and child — but psychologists use the term in a much more precise and theoretically rich way. Attachment refers to a specific type of emotional bond with particular characteristics, and understanding those characteristics is essential for everything that