Cooperation, caring, and empathy are learned in the secure attachment relationship. Secure attachment leads to healthy psychosocial development and is a protective factor guarding against the development of antisocial
behavior. It is also associated with fostering important prosocial values, attitudes, and behavior: empathy, caring, compassion, kindness, and morality.
The family, of course, is most influential in the child’s social and moral development, because it provides the initial learning environment. Socialization involves the transmission to the child of social and moral codes
by the family or other agents of society (e.g., school). The child acquires, by learning and identification in the early attachment relationships, both the content of the parents’ moral code and a willingness to act in accordance with those rules. When the family does not promote secure attachment and appropriate socialization experiences, as is the case with abuse, neglect, or multiple out-of-home placements and caregivers, the child is at risk of developing not only conduct disorders, but also a more pervasive lack of morality.
How does secure attachment promote the learning of empathy and the ideals of right human conduct? Empathy and morality are learned in the context of safe and secure attachment relationships by four psychological processes:
• modeling by parents or other attachment figures.
• internalizing the values and behavior of parents or other attachment
figures.
• experiencing synchronicity and reciprocity in early attachment
relationships.
• developing a positive sense of self.
Modeling:
Learning prosocial or antisocial values and behavior is a function of the nature of the caregiver–child relationship and the modeling provided. Simply stated, empathic parents rear empathic children. Research has shown
that children show signs of empathy as young as 1 year old, and by age 2, show concern for a peer in distress. Children with histories of secure attachment during infancy were found to be more caring toward peers and more likely to be sought out as playmates by age 3½, as compared to children with insecure/anxious attachments. At 4 and 5 years old, securely attached children were more caring and compassionate and had the best friendships, while avoidantly attached children were more often cruel, taking pleasure in a peer’s distress. These same patterns of empathy and friendships were found to continue through adolescence and into adulthood.
Parents who provide a balance of discipline, warmth, and positive experiences are more likely to rear children who are empathic and cooperative with others. Four and 5 year olds were found to display more empathy with peers when their parents used reasoning techniques with them to teach compassion and sensitivity. In contrast, children were less empathic when their parents used negative control practices, such as threats.
Internalization:
The second psychological process that contributes to developing empathy and morality is internalization. Internalization involves the learning of standards of conduct, not merely obeying rules, i.e., developing a moral
inner voice. Secure attachment involves internalizing prosocial values and behaviors, such as caring, compassion, kindness, and fairness. Securely attached children have an inner voice that guides them in the direction of prosocial behavior, providing self-control over selfish and aggressive impulses.
Children with relational trauma have often internalized antisocial standards, such as selfishness, violence, power, control, and dishonesty. Their inner voice, based on lack of trust and prior maltreatment, does not provide a viable conscience or feeling of remorse.
Synchronicity and Reciprocity:
The third aspect of secure attachment that fosters empathy and morality involves synchronicity and reciprocity: the way in which the primary attachment figure is finely attuned to the signals, needs, and emotions of the infant and developing child, and the ongoing give-and-take nature of the relationship. Children of sensitive, accepting, and cooperative mothers were found to show signs of internalizing prosocial standards and were more cooperative and self-controlled by 2 years of age. The same qualities of parenting that foster secure attachment (sensitive, attuned, affectionate, and consistently available caregiving) also encourage the child to follow and internalize the parent’s model. The child is “in-sync” with the parent and, therefore, learning to be aware of the feelings and needs of another person. Secure attachment implies greater awareness of the mental states of others, which not only produces a more rapid and effective evolution of morality, but also protects the child from antisocial behavior.
Sense of Self:
The route to caring for others always begins with a solid sense of self. A strong and positive self-identity, with clear boundaries between self and others, is the fourth necessary psychological process. During the second year the child
typically becomes increasingly oppositional (“terrible twos”), reflecting his or her initial efforts to be independent and autonomous. When there is a solid foundation of secure attachment, this transitional phase is managed and transcended without major negative or long-lasting consequences. The child with attachment disorder, conversely, lacks this solid and secure foundation and has a weak and negative sense of self, with blurred or violated self–other boundaries. The negativity and defiance characteristic of the second year become pervasive and chronic, as the child assumes a controlling, fearful, and punitive orientation toward others. There is no place for empathy, compassion, or kindness, as the child fights to survive in a world perceived as threatening.
