A Study on Object Attachment in Infant and Early Childhood(I)

Original Article

Journal of the Korean Home Economics Association 1979;17(1):45-55.

논문편 - 아동학 및 가족관계편 : 유아의 대물애착현상에 관한 연구 (Ⅰ)

서영숙

A Study on Object Attachment in Infant and Early Childhood(I)

Young Sook Suh

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study is to investigate to what extent and how the infant's Object Attachment occurs. For this purpose, 28 mothers with their infants showing or having shown this phenomenon were interviewed. They were selected by the whole scale smpling method from 310 household -wives living at a delux Apt. in Seoul. The results are summarized as follows : 1. About 27% of the infants aged between 6 months and 6 years turned out to show this phenomenon. 2. Qulits, bed clothes, pillows and blankets, which infants have been closely contacted since their babyhood, were the major source of attachment objects. In general, these objects were proved to have soft, wasm, smooth, and glassy tactile sensation. 3.This phenomenon, in average, appeared since 13 months after birth, About 50% of the whole began to show this phenomenon between 9 and 14 month after birth. 4. Half of the infants didn't show a change of attachment strength, but as for the other half, the attachment strength increased after one year of age, and decreased after three years of age, as the social period commenced. 5. Infants needed attachment objects especially when they were driven by sleep, sense of emptiness, and monotonous or boring feeling. 6. There were little difference between Object Attachment behavior and motherinfant attachment behavior except "babbling", "using her as a base for exploration". Those behaviors did not appear in Object Attachment. 7. mothers said that their children's attachment objects played the role of substitute mother, pacificater, warmer, friend , etc. And they attributed this phenomenon's appearance to lack their physical contact with, ocnstant and warm care toward, their children or bottle feeding.