【Time】 Monday, May 13, 2024, 10:00
【Location】 Lecture Hall 537, Building 3, Hainayuan, Zijingang Campus, Zhejiang University

Speaker: Paul L. Harris

Professor, Harvard Graduate School of Education

Fellow, British Academy

Lecture Abstract:
Developmental theory has often portrayed separation from a caregiver as likely to provoke protest, despair and ultimately detachment in infants and young children. Indeed, the emotional challenge of separation from a primary caregiver is built into a key measurement tool of Attachment theory, the Strange Situation.

However, observational and experimental findings lend support an alternative proposal. Provided they are left with another familiar attachment figure, young children can keep the absent caregiver in mind. This ability raises questions about children's responses to the permanent absence of an attachment figure - as in the case of death. Research on grief shows that children and adults are prone to construe the death of a loved one not just as biological endpoint that terminates the possibility of any continuing relationship but instead as a departure that can be bridged by a continuation of the earlier bond in an altered form.