Reunion Behavior Research Articles

Multiple dimensions of social motivation in adult female degus.

Many animals become more motivated to interact after a period of isolation. This phenomenon may involve general drives, e.g. for social touch or companionship, as well as drives that are specific to particular peers, and which ultimately serve to reestablish relationships between the individuals. Female degus are known to be affiliative with multiple other individuals, including unrelated and unfamiliar conspecifics, offering an opportunity to study social motivation independent from exclusive pair-bonds or overt, same-sex competition. We attempted to disentangle factors driving peer interaction by examining reunion behavior across several social isolation and separation manipulations. High levels of interaction were observed between adult females who had been separated even without isolation, revealing a drive to re-establish relationships with specific peers. The content of separation-only reunions differed from isolation, with the latter involving more early-session interaction, higher levels of allogrooming before rear-sniffing, and a higher ratio of chitter vocalizations. To assess whether post-isolation behavior was related to stress, we examined reunions following a non-social (footshock) stressor. Like isolation, footshock increased early-session interactions, but did not increase allogrooming before rear-sniffing or chittering, as compared with controls. To test whether separation-only reunion behavior shared qualities with relationship formation, we also examined reunions of new (stranger) dyads. Strangers exhibited higher levels of interaction than cagemates, with particularly high levels of late-session rear-sniffing. Like separation-only reunions, strangers showed more non-chitter vocalizations and lower levels of allogrooming before rear-sniffing. Across experiments, an exploratory clustering method was used to identify vocalizations that differed between conditions. This yielded promising leads for future investigation, including a chaff-type syllable that may have been more common during relationship renewal. Overall, results are consistent with the hypothesis that female degu reunions are supported by both general and peer-stimulus specific drives, expressed through the structure of physical and vocal interactions over time.

Identidade e coletividade italiana em Porto Alegre: Um estudo de Caso

Este artigo surge a partir da dissertação da autora que analisou a trajetória de um imigrante siciliano em Porto Alegre e seus meios de inserção, principalmente profissional, no contexto gaúcho desde sua chegada em 1925 até o fechamento de sua fábrica de gênero alimentício em 1968. O artigo está dividido em duas partes principais, primeiramente terá uma breve revisão histórica das maneiras de reunião da coletividade italiana no Rio Grande do Sul, com uma análise das principais formas de inserção destes grupos migratórios em diversas cidades gaúchas, principalmente nas regiões não conhecidas como central do processo imigratório, como as cidades fronteiriças. A segunda parte é a revisão da coletividade italiana em Porto Alegre, e uma análise sobre as formas de associação de um grupo específico imigratório a partir da Banda Municipal de Porto Alegre.

Between the Familiar and the Stranger: Attachment Security, Mutual Desire, and Reclaimed Love

This article explores the idea that relationships of attachment security are simultaneously relationships of mutual desire. Seen through this lens, separation and reunion behavior become increasingly psychologically charged: infant and mother as well as patient and analyst must revisit their willingness to expose their desire in each encounter. By recognizing that personal agency is vital to both healthy attachment and romantic desire, we can begin to appreciate the dawning of romantic desire, not so much as promoting “separation-individuation” as often conceived, but as exerting a gravitational pull to revisit an original love—one that is now erotically reconceived. We reclaim an original love but now in a relational context between mother and the Other, the pre-Oedipal and the Oedipal, the familiar and the stranger.

Reunion behavior after social separation is associated with enhanced HPA recovery in young marmoset monkeys

The relationships that offspring develop with caregivers can exert a powerful influence on behavior and physiology, including the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. In many mammalian species, offspring-caregiver relationships are largely limited to interactions with mother. Marmoset monkeys receive care in early life from multiple classes of caregivers in addition to the mother, including fathers and siblings. We evaluated whether affiliative social interactions with family members in marmosets were associated with differences in cortisol reactivity to a short-term social separation stressor, and whether these variations in affiliative interactions upon reunion predicted how well marmosets subsequently regulated HPA axis function after cessation of the stressor. Marmosets were separated from the family for 8h at three developmental time points (6-, 12-, and 18-months of age), and interactions of the separated marmoset with the family group were recorded during reunion. Urinary cortisol was measured prior to social separation, every 2h during the separation, and on the morning after separation. Heightened cortisol reactivity during social separation did not predict affiliative social behavior upon reunion but higher rates of grooming and play behavior predicted enhanced HPA regulation. Marmosets with higher rates of grooming and play with family members upon reunion had post-stress cortisol levels closer to preseparation baseline than marmosets with lower rates of affiliative reunion behavior. Combined with previous research showing the early programming effects of social interactions with caregivers, as well as the buffering effect of a close social partner during stress, the current study highlights the high degree of behavioral and HPA adaptability to social stressors across development in marmoset monkeys.

Evaluating the Strange Situation Procedure (SSP) to Assess the Bond between Dogs and Humans

The Strange Situation Procedure (SSP) is increasingly being used to study attachment between dogs and humans. It has been developed from the Ainsworth Strange Situation Procedure, which is used extensively to investigate attachment between children and their parents. In this experiment, 12 female beagle dogs were tested in two treatments to identify possible order effects in the test, a potential weakness in the SSP. In one treatment (FS), dogs participated together with a ‘familiar person’ and a ‘stranger’. In a control treatment (SS), the same dogs participated together with two unfamiliar people, ‘stranger A’ and ‘stranger B’. Comparisons were made between episodes within as well as between treatments. As predicted in FS, dogs explored more in the presence of the familiar person than the stranger. Importantly, they also explored more in the presence of stranger A (who appeared in the same order as the familiar person and followed the same procedure) than stranger B in SS. Furthermore, comparisons between treatments, where a familiar person was present in FS and stranger A was present in SS, showed no differences in exploration. In combination, these results indicate that the effect of a familiar person on dogs' exploratory behaviour, a key feature when assessing secure attachment styles, could not be tested reliably due to the order in which the familiar person and the stranger appear. It is proposed that in the future only counterbalanced versions of the SSP are used. Alternatively, since dogs reliably initiated more contact with the familiar person compared to the strangers, it is suggested that future studies on attachment in dogs towards humans should focus either on the behaviour of the dog in those episodes of the SSP when the person returns, or on reunion behaviour in other studies, specially designed to address dog-human interactions at this time.

Play it again: neural responses to reunion with excluders predicted by attachment patterns

Reunion behavior following stressful separations from caregivers is often considered the single most sensitive clue to infant attachment patterns. Extending these ideas to middle childhood/early adolescence, we examined participants' neural responses to reunion with peers who had previously excluded them. We recorded event-related potentials among nineteen 11- to 15-year-old youth previously classified on attachment interviews (11 secure and 8 insecure-dismissing) while they played a virtual ball-toss game (Cyberball) with peers that involved fair play, exclusion and reunion phases. Compared to secure participants, dismissing participants displayed a greater increment in the N2 during reunion relative to fair play, a neural marker commonly linked to expectancy violation. These data suggest a greater tendency toward continued expectations of rejection among dismissing children, even after cessation of social exclusion. In turn, the link between self-reported ostracism distress and neural signs of negative expectancy at reunion was moderated by attachment, such that self-reports were discordant with the neural index of expectancy violation for dismissing, but not for secure children.

Attachment in young children with autism spectrum disorders: An examination of separation and reunion behaviors with both mothers and fathers

Most studies examining attachment in children with autism spectrum disorder used a strange situation paradigm and have found few significant group differences between children with autism spectrum disorder and comparisons. However, these studies predominantly used formal attachment categorizations (e.g. secure vs insecure), a method that may obscure more nuanced differences between groups. In this study, we utilized a qualitative approach to examine attachment behaviors in young children with autism spectrum disorder. Based on the results of previous studies, we looked at (a) parental gender, (b) child diagnosis, and (c) child cognitive skills to examine the role of these three factors on attachment behaviors elicited during a modified strange situation paradigm. Participants were 2- to 3-year-old children with autism spectrum disorder (n = 166) or nonspectrum disorders (n = 45), as well as a sample of 56 children with typical development. Over the three groups, 393 observations of a modified strange situation paradigm with mothers and 127 observations with fathers were collected. Parental gender, child diagnosis, and child cognitive skills each had significant main effects on attachment behaviors elicited during reunion. These results underscore the importance of the father's role in parent-child interactions, with implications for both clinical and research efforts. In addition, the results emphasize the importance of considering a child's diagnosis and cognitive skills when examining attachment behaviors.

Convergence between attachment classifications and natural reunion behavior among children and parents in a child care setting

The current study examined the convergence between young children's attachment classifications in the laboratory-based Strange Situation Procedure and children's and parents' behaviors during naturalistic reunions after a day in child care. Fifty-eight parent–child dyads participated in this study. Children's attachment security assessed from the Strange Situation Procedure was significantly associated with ratings of children's security, avoidance, and delight toward their parents during the natural reunion episodes, and with parents' responsiveness during the natural reunion episodes. These findings suggest that natural reunions at the end of the day in child care reflect the quality of attachment relationships between young children and their parents.

Maternal sensitivity assessed during the Strange Situation Procedure predicts child's attachment quality and reunion behaviors

The 72-item version maternal behavior Q-set (MBQS; Pederson & Moran, 1995) was used to assess maternal behaviors ( N = 74) during the Strange Situation Procedure. Results indicated that the MBQS scores significantly differentiated infant attachment categories and were significantly associated with a series of infants’ reunion behaviors.

Mother–offspring reunion in the South American sea lion Otaria flavescens at Isla de Lobos (Uruguay): use of spatial, acoustic and olfactory cues

In the South American sea lion (Otaria flavescens), mothers and pups are regularly separated throughout lactation, demanding a well-developed individual recognition system. The aim of this study was to investigate and quantify the searching and reunion behaviour between mothers and pups at Isla de Lobos, Uruguay. We recorded details of searches and reunions using focal animal sampling during two breeding seasons. Our results support the hypotheses that mother–pup dyads combine spatial, acoustic and olfactory cues for successful recognition and reunion behaviour and that pups play an active role in the process. A total of 74% of the females returning from sea visited the last zone (4 × 4 m grid cell) where they had been with their pup prior to separating. Pups spent close to 23% of their time at that location while their mothers were away foraging at sea. Female call rate was significantly higher in successful searches (i.e. those resulting in a reunion) compared to unsuccessful ones (Mann–Whitney test U = 72.5, P < 0.001). During reunions, 90% of the pups called prior to physical contact and search success varied significantly with their movement towards the mother (Fisher exact test P = 0.039). Lastly, mothers conducted olfactory investigations of their offspring during 97.6% of the reunions; they also conducted olfactory investigations of 53.6% of the non-offspring that approached them. In sum, multiple sensory modalities appear to play important roles during O. flavescens mother–offspring reunion behaviour, as has often been described but rarely quantified for other otariid species.

Parental defence of an empty nest after catastrophic brood loss

We studied parental care behaviour in a field population of convict cichlids, Amatitlania siquia , a fish with biparental care of its free-swimming young (fry). We simulated catastrophic brood loss by removing all of the young from 26 broods of various ages. We recorded parental defence behaviour for 5 min preremoval and three consecutive 5 min postremoval intervals. We then returned all of the young and recorded 5 min of parent–offspring reunion behaviour. Following brood loss, both parents defended the empty territory and searched for missing young. Females spent more time in the empty territory and performed more attacks in defence of the empty territory than did males. Females searched and defended a significantly larger area than males did. During the 15 min fry-absent period, males increasingly spent more time away, whereas females maintained a constant level of investment in searching the brood area. Four of 26 males (15%) engaged in courtship with a new female within 15 min of brood loss. Attacks to repel potential predators from the brood area declined in frequency over the 15 min fry-absent period in both sexes. Standard length (age) of young was positively correlated with parental investment for females but not males. Number of young was positively correlated with parental investment for males but not for females. We conclude that post-brood-loss behaviours are search and recovery tactics that contribute to parental inclusive fitness in the event of incomplete brood predation.

Attachment Dimensions and Young Children’s Response to Pain

The present study examined the relationship between attachment dimensions and child pain behaviour following both an everyday pain incident (eg, bumps and scrapes) and acute pain incident (eg, immunization) in 66 five-year-old children. Secure, avoidant, ambivalent and controlling attachment dimensions were assessed using aggregates of laboratory-based reunion behaviour, performance on representational measures of attachment and the measure of emotion regulation. Child pain behaviour, during immunization and everyday pain incidents, was rated in terms of reactivity, anger and calming time. The ambivalence and controlling attachment dimensions were differentially related to child pain behaviour. Specifically, children with either more ambivalent or controlling attachment had a relatively greater reaction to both the immunization procedure and everyday pain incident. Children with more controlling attachment also took more time to calm down following the immunization and displayed greater anger. Security and avoidance, however, were not systematically related to child pain behaviour. Results are discussed in terms of Bowlby's theory of attachment relationships and pain as an important distress signal to children.

Attachment and behavior problems in middle childhood as reported by adult and child informants

The predictive relation between attachment and mother, teacher, and self-reported psychopathology was examined for a diverse socioeconomic status French Canadian sample of 96 children. Attachment classifications were assigned on the basis of reunion behavior with mother when the children were approximately 6 years old, and child problem behavior was assessed 2 years later using the Child Behavior Checklist (mother report), the Social Behavior Questionaire (teacher report), and the Dominic Questionnaire (child self-report). Results indicated that both insecure/ambivalent and insecure/controlling children children were rated higher than secure children on a composite measure of externalizing problems. Concerning internalizing problems, only the controlling group was significantly higher on both a composite adult (teacher and mother) and self-report measure of internalizing problems. Analyses of clinical cutoff scores showed that only the controlling group had a significantly greater likelihood of overall problem behavior than other children.

Early parenting and children's relational and physical aggression in the preschool and home contexts

This study investigated early parent–child relationships and how children's use of relational and physical aggression varies with aspects of those relationships during the preschool years. Specifically, parenting styles, parents' use of psychological control, and parents' report of their children's reunion behaviors were assessed. Analyses revealed significant associations between children's use of both relational and physical aggression and parents' reports of their own and their partner's parenting style, psychological control behaviors, and indicators of the attachment relationship. The results highlight the importance of investigating both mothers' and fathers' parenting and the sex of the child in studies of potential links between parenting behaviors and young children's relational and physical aggression. Findings were considered in the context of each perspective and suggestions for future research and implications for intervention and prevention are discussed.

Coherence of mind in daughter caregivers of mothers with dementia: Links with their mothers' joy and relatedness on reunion in a strange situation

This paper reports on a small sample (n = 17) of daughter caregivers of mothers with dementia who were interviewed with the Adult Attachment Interview, while their mothers stayed in an adjoining university room. Daughters were then reunited with their mothers, after a one-hour separation. Joyful and related ‘secure’ maternal behaviors, including proximity seeking, contact maintaining and overall responsiveness, were positively correlated with coherence of mind, and coherence of transcript ratings derived from the daughters' AAIs. Controlling for the severity of dementia in the mothers did not alter the power of these associations. Discussion addresses the lifelong significance of reunion behavior, the survival of ‘secure’ attachment behavior even into the late stages of dementia, and the clinical relevance of the Adult Attachment Interview.

Separation as a natural cue to danger in the spotted hyena (Crocuta crocuta).

Spotted hyena biology suggests mothers and infants will exhibit one of two alternative responses to separation: (a) Due to prolonged dependency, infants will act similarly to Old World monkeys, displaying distress and proximity seeking behaviors; or (b) because mother-infant separations are frequent in the wild, infants will exhibit little distress or change in reunion behavior. Hence, reunion behavior following mother-infant separation was compared to control periods in captive hyena (Crocuta crocuta) mothers and infants at two developmental periods. Significant increases (p < or =.05) in distress (i.e., agitated arousal and increased vocalization) and proximity maintenance (i.e., cub and maternal approaches, and maternal monitoring) as well as a trend towards increased sibling aggression following separation were observed. Responsibility for proximity maintenance, assessed by the Hinde Index, adhered to patterns common to primates---with cubs assuming increased responsibility later in development. Findings are discussed in light of hyena ecology and Attachment Theory.

Child emotionality and maternal responsiveness as predictors of reunion behaviors in the strange situation: links mediated and unmediated by separation distress.

Children's emotionality--fear, anger, and joy--observed outside of the relationship with the mother (in standard laboratory paradigms), and within that relationship (in mother-child interactions), and mothers' responsiveness, all at 9 and 14 months, were examined as predictors of the reunion behaviors in the Strange Situation at 14 months in 112 children. Many predictors were linked to the reunion behaviors, but most of those relations were at least partially mediated by children's separation distress, which itself strongly predicted the reunion behaviors. Those relations were no longer significant when distress was controlled. Several links, however, remained significant, and they were unmediated by distress: Almost all involved measures assessed within the context of the mother-child relationship. In particular, possible markers of a suboptimal relationship (children's dampened joy and increased anger in interactions with the mother, poor maternal responsiveness) were associated with more avoidance and resistance upon reunion, even after accounting for the strong impact of distress. Studying how factors measured outside of and within early relationships influence the components of the attachment system may foster understanding of child behavior in the Strange Situation.

Correlates of Attachment at School Age: Maternal Reported Stress, Mother‐Child Interaction, and Behavior Problems

The contribution of attachment, maternal reported stress, and mother-child interaction to the prediction of teacher-reported behavior problems was examined for a French-Canadian sample of 121 school-age children. Attachment classifications were assigned on the basis of reunion behavior with mother when the children were between 5 and 7 years of age. Maternal reported stress and mother-child interaction patterns were assessed concurrent to the attachment measure, whereas behavior problems were evaluated both at ages 5 to 7 and 7 to 9 years. Security of attachment significantly predicted the likelihood of school-age behavior problems: Controlling/other children were most at risk for both externalizing and internalizing problems across both age periods. Younger ambivalent children presented clinical cut-off levels of externalizing problems, and older avoidant boys had higher internalizing scores. Patterns of maternal-reported stress and mother-child interaction differed across attachment groups and contributed to prediction of school-age behavior problems, partially mediating the relation between attachment and adaptation. Results support the importance of attachment in explaining school-age adaptation and validity of attachment coding for children of this age.

Concordance Between Parent Inventory and Directly Observed Measures of Attachment*

This study was a further development of a parent inventory measure of attachment for young children. Observed child reunion behaviors, based on prior research, were transformed into a twenty item parent inventory format Maternal inventory responses for 233 low income, five year old children were factor analyzed and the obtained factors were compared with previous categories based upon direct observation. Factor analysis yielded a six factor solution. Sixteen of the twenty behaviors could be classified into previously established categories of attachment. The advantages of the use of the measure in naturalistic settings, for large sample and multiple attachment figure comparisons, and reduced data collection time were discussed. *This research was supported, in part, by a grant from the Administration for Children, Youth and Families, Head Start, 98600.91‐3 to the Head Start School Transition Demonstration Evaluation Project.

Mother-infant reengagement following the still-face: The role of maternal emotional availability an infant affect regulation

This study investigated how the early mother-infant relationship supports an infant's ability to regulate emotion following the disruption of normal interaction. The responses of 29 4-month-old infants and their economically disadvantaged, predominantly minority mothers were examined during the “still-face” paradigm. Mothers were asked to play with their infants for 5 min, maintain a still, affectless expression for 2 min, and resume play for 3 min. Specifically, the relation between dyadic emotional availability in play and the infant's behavior in the period following the still-face, when mothers reengaged with their infants, was explored. Dyadic interaction during play was coded with a scale measuring maternal sensitivity, intrusiveness, and hostility, as well as child responsiveness. The infant's affect and gaze were coded in real time across all three episodes. A new, global coding scheme, which incorporated aspects of reunion behavior codes from Ainsworth's Strange Situation paradigm, was used to measure infant behavior in the reengagement period. The major finding was that at age 4 months, infants of mothers who were more sensitive in play reengaged following the still-face using a more well-regulated, interpresonally oriented style, whereas infants of mothers who were less sensitive exhibited high amounts of avoidant and/or resistant behaviors in reengagement. In addition, exploratory longitudinal data revealed some predictive validity of the 4-month reengagement codes to 12-month Ainsworth attachment scales.