Jacqueline Palacios
The content of this news item has been machine translated and may contain some inaccuracies with respect to the original content published in Spanish.
Dr. Magaly Nóblega, lecturer at the Faculty of Psychology, won the Bowly-Ainsworth 2021 award, granted by the New York Attachment Consortium. This award recognises her work and years of research dedicated to Attachment Theory, a postulate that describes our relationships based on the bond we develop in childhood with our caregivers.
The Bowly-Ainsworth 2021 recognises the researchers who provide input and tools around this theory. They seek to recognise the legacy of John Bowlby, the psychologist who pioneered Attachment Theory, and Mary Ainsworth, the psychologist who further developed its insights.
"It is the world prize for attachment theory," says Dr Nóblega. At the award ceremony, the work of the specialist and her team was recognised "for innovative intervention studies on maternal care and child safety, and for supporting the study of attachment in Latin America". It should be noted that our teacher is the fourth Latin American to be awarded this prize and is the first to carry out the research in her home country. "I think that gives the award a different connotation," she says.
Lecturer and coordinator of the Research Group on Relationships and Socio-emotional Development PUCP.
Her interest in this theory came after working on her doctoral thesis at our University in 2010. Throughout her work, she has been able to demonstrate some basic postulates of Attachment Theory that are applicable to our national reality, both rural and urban.
In this way, he and his team found that, in the urban environment, children are influenced by their mother's behaviour. That is to say, when it comes to relating and forming bonds, the mother plays a more important role as a figure who has marked the child's attachment patterns and relationships throughout childhood. Another important finding highlighted by Dr. Nóblega is the mothers' level of sensitivity. "Sensitivity has to do with how much the mother is willing to respond to the child's needs. It's a skill that is built in a relationship," she explains.
With that in mind, they found that there are lower levels of sensitivity on the part of the mother in the urban context. "That would mean that, although in theory we are talking about less sensitive mothers, if we analyse in more detail we find that it is more difficult for the mother to accompany the child in the expression of emotions that we would call negative, such as anger, frustration or fear. But they have a more developed capacity to accompany positive emotions," she explains.
Similarly, they have had the opportunity to work with the rural population, with whom they found that, despite the context of poverty and low socio-economic level that may be experienced, the sensitivity of mothers is a little higher compared to urban areas. "Rural mothers, even though they are not as verbal or affectionate, have another set of skills that allow them to respond to signals," she says.
Their goal is not to remain theoretical, but to have the opportunity to implement public policies and generate resources from the evidence they have found. For Nóblega, the aim of his work is to test theoretical postulates and corroborate or refute them empirically. "Then we can apply these concepts and make interventions," he concludes.