A Study on the Reasons and the Meaning of Object Attachment Occurrence in Infancy and Early Childhood

유아의 대물애착현상의 발생원인 및 의미에 관한 연구

The purpose of this study is to investigate the reasons of Object Attachment Occurrence in infant and the meanings of it in his early development. For this purpose, the following hypotheses were supposed. 1. Infant's object Attachment will be a substitutional for mother attachment when he has opportunities to his mother during his first years. 2. Infant's Object Attachment will not impede the infant's normal development. In order to test this hypotheses 28 mothers whose infants show or have shown this phenomenon and 28 mothers whose infants show or have shown this phenomenon and 28 mothers whose infants do not show this one were interviewed about their child rearing practice and attitude. They were selected by the random sampling method from 310 household wives living at a delux Apt. in Seoul. The results obtained in this study are as follow ; 1. The less opportunities infant has for 1) his mother's breast feeding 2) having physical contact with his mother 3) spending time with his mother 4) receiving prompt response from his mother to his crying, the more he is apt to show this phenomenon. And infant whose first main attachment figure is not his mother also shows the same apt. 2. There was no difference between two groups in intelligence and personality. So it can be concluded that infant's Object Attachment is a substitutional phenomenon for mother attachment in the mother during his first years, and it does not impede infant's normal development.