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AQA A-Level Psychology > 03 Attachment > Flashcards

03 Attachment Flashcards

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1
Q

Define attachment.

A

An emotional bond between two people which is a two-way process and endures over time.

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2
Q

What are the caregiver-infant interactions?

A
  • Reciprocity
  • Interactional synchrony
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3
Q

Outline reciprocity as a caregiver-infant interaction.

A
  • Also referred to as turn-taking it is a two-way mutual process where each party responds to each other’s signals to sustain interaction
  • The regularity of an infant’s signals allows the caregiver to anticipate the needs of the infant
  • This sensitivity to infant behaviour lays the foundation for later attachment between the caregiver and infant
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4
Q

Outline interactional synchrony as a caregiver-infant interaction.

A
  • When adults and babies respond in time to each other to sustain interaction
  • They interact in a way such that they mirror each others emotions and actions
  • Found evidence of this in babies as young as two weeks old
  • An adult model displayed one of three facial expressions while the baby had a dummy to prevent response
  • Once the dummy was removed, they displayed similar facial expressions to the adult model
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5
Q

Evaluate caregiver-infant interactions.

A

ADV 1: Reciprocity research evidence

  • Got mothers to interact with their babies over a video monitor
  • Then a filmed was played where they were not responding to the baby
  • The infants kept trying to attract their mothers’ attention but when this failed they gave up responding
  • Shows that infants want their mothers to reciprocate

ADV 2: IS research evidence

  • Observation of infants interacting with a puppet that looked like a human mouth opening and closing
  • Infants made little response to this
  • SO they are not just imitating what they see
  • Interactional synchrony is a specific social response

DIS 1: Inferences

  • Babies cannot actually speak or communicate with psychologists about their intentions
  • Psychologists have to make inferences and assumptions about whether they seek attention or interaction

DIS 2: Lacks validity

  • The facial expressions that were tested (sticking tongue out, yawning and smiling) are expressions babies commonly make
  • It may not be a specific response to the adult model, it could be unintentional
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6
Q

What are the issues with studying caregiver-infant interactions?

A
  1. Lacks ecological validity: infants show attachment behaviour much stronger in laboratory settings compared to at home, so they should take place in a natural setting
  2. Observer bias: most studies are observational so there could be bias in the way the observer interprets the behaviour (counter with more than one observer for inter-rater reliability
  3. Practical issues: infants are usually asleep or feeding so researchers need to use more but shorter periods of observation
  4. Extra care with ethics: ensure the parent or child is not harmed in any way
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7
Q

Outline the four stages of attachment.

A

Longitudinal study of 60 infants and their mothers over a period of two years.

1. Pre-attachment:

  • 0-3 months
  • From 6 weeks on wards infants become attracted to other humans and prefer them over objects and events
  • This preference is shown by smiling

2. Indiscriminate attachment:

  • 4-7 months
  • Infants will begin to distinguish between familiar and unfamiliar people
  • But they will still allow a stranger to handle them

3. Discriminate attachment:

  • 7 months on wards
  • Infants develop a specific attachment with their primary attachment figure (usually mother)
  • They show separation protest and stranger anxiety
  • It is not the quantity of time spent with a caregiver to determine primary attachment figure but the quality of the bond

4. Multiple attachment:

  • 7 months on
  • Forming close emotional ties with other caregivers (e.g. father, grandparents) and non-caregivers e.g. siblings
  • These are called secondary attachments
  • Stranger anxiety weakens
  • But bond with primary attachment figure still remains the strongest
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8
Q

Give five drawbacks of stages of attachments.

A
  • Unreliable because it is self-report data from the mothers of the infants which can be influenced by social desirability bias or some may be less sensitive to their infants protests so they are less likely to report them
  • Biased sample as infants were all part of the working class so findings may not apply to other social groups
  • Only infants from individualistic cultures, infants in collectivist may form attachments differently
  • lacks temporal validity as study was done in 1960s and household dynamics and parental care have changed since - more women go out to work and more men stay at home
  • Do not account for individual differences - infants may form multiple attachments before a single attachment
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9
Q

Outline why fathers are typically not the primary attachment figure.

A
  • Are not psychologically equipped to form an intense attachment as they lack sensitivity that women have
  • Women also produce oxytocin which is essential for caregiver-infant bonding
  • Also societal norms - in some cultures it is considered feminine to care for others
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10
Q

Describe the role of the father in attachment.

A
  • Fathers provide play and stimulation to complement the role of the mother (providing emotional support)
  • Father’s role is considered to be just as crucial to the child’s wellbeing
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11
Q

Give four weaknesses for the role of the father.

A

DIS 1: Inconsistent research

  • Research was done to investigate the effects of growing up in single female parent or same-sex parents environment
  • There was no effect on development
  • So role of father is not important

DIS 2:

  • Early attachment to mother was a better predictor of teenage relationships than the early attachment of the father
  • However, if the father engaged in active play with the child when they were young, adolescent relationships with both parents was strengthened

DIS 3: No distinct role

  • Studies show that fathers in a single parent family are likely to adopt the role of traditional mothers and become the primary attachment figure

DIS 4: Research

  • Field (1978) conducted research which compared the behaviours of primary caregiver mothers with primary and secondary caregiver fathers.
  • Overall, it was observed that fathers engaged more in game playing and held infants less.
  • Primary caretaker fathers engaged in significantly more smiling, imitative grimaces and imitative vocalisations than secondary caregiver fathers.
  • The behaviour of primary caregiver fathers was comparable with that of mothers’ behaviour.
  • There is flexibility in the role of the father and how men can respond to the different needs of their children.
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12
Q

Outline the procedure of Ainsworth’s Strange Situation.

A
  • Controlled observation in room filled with toys
  • Investigators observed infants in a series of three minute episodes: mother and baby, stranger enters, mother leaves, mother returns
  • Observations made in categories: proximity seeking, stranger anxiety, separation protest and reunion joy
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13
Q

Describe Type A Insecure-Avoidant attachments.

A
  • 20% of babies have insecure-avoidant
  • Low proximity seeking: will explore the room and ignore caregiver
  • No separation anxiety: not upset by caregiver leaving
  • No reunion joy: continues to ignore caregiver when they return
  • No stranger anxiety: distressed when left completely alone but comforted by stranger just as well as caregiver
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14
Q

Outline a Type B Secure attachment.

A
  • 70% of babies
  • Play happily while caregiver is present and uses them as a safe base as they explore the room
  • Separation protest: distressed when the caregiver leaves
  • Reunion joy: seeks immediate contact with caregiver when they return
  • Stranger anxiety: baby is wary of strangers but accepts comfort when left alone
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15
Q

Describe a Type C Insecure-Resistant attachment.

A
  • 10% of babies are type C
  • Very fussy and cry more than others
  • Very clingy and refuse to explore room or play with toys
  • Shows extreme separation protest when mother leaves
  • Resists comfort on the mother’s return (no reunion joy)
  • Strongly resists stranger’s attempts to make contact showing extreme stranger anxiety
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16
Q

Give an advantage of the Strange Situation.

A

Replicable

  • High levels of control
  • Standardised procedures
  • Replicated in many different cultures
  • Easy to test for reliability
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17
Q

Give three drawbacks of Strange Situation.

A

Culturally biased

  • Attached behaviour seen as healthy in US may not be the same case in other cultures
  • In Germany, children are encouraged to be independent and self-reliant
  • They view securely attached behaviour as spoiled because of the separation protest and do not reward it
  • Leads children to show less anxiety when separated and are classed as avoidant

Gender biased

  • Only measured attachment with mothers not fathers
  • Children may be insecurely attached with their mothers but securely attached with their fathers
  • Therefore not measuring overall attachment style, just attachment to one individual
  • Research finds that children behave differently depending on which parent they are with

Lacks ecological validity

  • Laboratory environment
  • Babies’ attachment behaviours are stronger in a lab than at home
  • Findings may not accurately reflect attachment behaviour of infants in real life
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18
Q

Outline the cultural variations in attachment study.

A
  • Meta analysis of 32 studies into attachment
  • All studies involved the procedure of the Strange Situation looking at relationship between mothers and babies under 24 months
  • Studies across 8 countries both individualistic (UK, US, Holland, Sweden and Germany) and collectivist (Japan, Israel and China)
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19
Q

State the results of the cultural variations meta-analysis in attachment.

A
  1. The most common attachment style was secure
  2. The second most common attachment style was insecure-avoidant except for Japan and Israel where avoidant was rare but resistant was common
  3. Lowest percentage of secure infants was in China
  4. Highest percentage of secure infants was Great Britain
  5. West Germany had the largest percentage of insecure-avoidant
  6. There were 1.5 times more variation within the cultures than variation between the cultures
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20
Q

Describe and explain the findings of the cultural variations study.

A
  • Similarities between cultures suggests some caregiver-infant interactions are universal and are instinctive
  • Variations show that cultural differences in child-rearing have influence on attachment
  • Variations within cultures indicate that sub-cultural factors such as social class also have an influence in attachment
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21
Q

Give one advantage of the cultural variations attachment study.

A

Meta-analysis includes a large sample which increases the validity of the findings

22
Q

Describe four drawbacks of cultural variations in attachment study.

A

Methodology is culturally biased

  • Methodology was created in the US
  • Ainsworth suggested that a willingness to explore is a characteristic of a securely attached child
  • This may not be the case of securely attached children in other cultures

Ignores other factors

  • The children from Israel lived in a Kibbutz (a closed community) so didn’t often come into contact with strangers
  • Hence why they may feel more afraid of strangers than most
  • So stranger anxiety is classed as high and they are categorised as insecure-resistant

Not cultures but countries

  • Both US and Japan have many sub-cultures which have different child-rearing practices
  • A study found that there were similar distributions of attachment styles in Tokyo to the US
  • But more rural areas of Tokyo showed higher percentage of insecure-resistant

Gender bias

  • All of these studies only used mothers and not fathers
  • This means we aren’t testing overall attachment style, just attachment to one individual
  • An infant may be insecurely attached to mother but securely attached to father
  • Studies show that infants behave differently around each parent
23
Q

How can classical conditioning explain attachment?

A
  • Infants are born with certain reflex responses to certain stimuli
  • For example they have the reflex response of pleasure (unconditioned response) to food (unconditioned stimulus)
  • The caregiver is commonly associated with the UCS food and produce UCR of pleasure
  • Over time, caregiver becomes CS and pleasure is CR
  • Infant begins to associate caregiver with pleasure which forms emotional bond of attachment
24
Q

How does operant conditioning explain attachment?

A
  • Operant conditioning strengthens attachment
  • Baby receives positive reinforcement for crying as they are given food as a reward so they repeat behaviour of crying more often
  • Caregiver is negatively reinforced by feeding baby as the crying (something negative) is being removed so caregiver feeds baby more often
  • Leads to more associations between UCR pleasure and NS caregiver
25
Q

What is one benefit of learning approach to explaining attachment?

A

Learning theory is plausible and scientific as it is founded in established theory. It likely that association between the provision of needs and the person providing those needs can lead to strong attachments.

26
Q

Give three drawbacks of learning approach to explaining attachments.

A

Harlow (1959)

  • Separated a group of infant Rhesus monkeys from their mothers and put them in cages
  • Provided them with a wire-mesh surrogate mother that gives them milk and a soft-cloth mother that doesn’t
  • Found that in dangerous and aversive situations, they clung to soft-cloth mother even though it didn’t provide milk

Food not required

  • Schaffer and Emerson found that you don’t need food to form an attachment
  • Found that babies often form attachments with people who play with them over those you just feed them
  • 39% of babies were more attached to someone else even when the mother was feeding them

Environmentally reductionist and deterministic

  • Learning approach is reductionist as they reduce complex behaviours to over simplified stimulus-response associations
  • Many different attachment styles
  • Deterministic as it suggests early learning determines later attachment behaviour
27
Q

How do attachments form according to Bowlby’s Monotropic theory?

A
  • Infants have an innate biological drive to be attached to an adult
  • Innate behaviours have a critical period in which they must occur otherwise they never will
  • For attachment critical period is 2 years
  • Caregiver sensitivity determines strength of attachment - strongest attachments are where caregivers are cooperative, responsive and available
  • Social releasers such as crying or smiling help sustain and develop an attachment
  • Monotropy is where the infant has one special emotional bond with a caregiver (usually biological mother
  • Secondary attachments are required to provide an emotional safety net and are vital for healthy social and psychological development
28
Q

What are the consequences of attachment according to Bowlby’s Monotropic Theory?

A
  • Infant uses the monotropic bond to create a mental view of all relationships called the internal working model
  • Secure monotropic bond means positive internal working model so all current, future and romantic adult relationships will be secure and positive
  • Insecure monotropic bond leads to fear of intimacy and lack of commitment in adult relationships
  • According to continuity hypothesis individuals who are securely attached in infancy continue to be socially and emotionally competent
29
Q

Describe four disadvantages of Bowlby’s Monotropic theory.

A

Multiple attachments

  • Schaffer and Emerson suggest that multiple attachments are more common than monotropy.
  • They found that by 18 months only 13% of the infants had only one person they were attached to.

Socially sensitive to feminists

  • Places a burden of responsibility on mothers, setting them up to take the blame for anything that goes wrong in their child’s life.
  • Puts pressure on mothers to stay at home and give up their careers.
  • Underestimated the role of the father – he saw father’s role as primarily economic.
  • This is an outdated sexist view, many families view both parents as equally responsible for childcare

Adoption past critical stage

  • Tizard and Hodges (1989) found that many children who had previously never formed any attachments were able to form attachments with their new adopted parents even when they were adopted after 4
  • This is past the critical period and suggests that this period is insignificant in attachment

Innate temperaments, not caregiver sensitivity

  • Some infants are better suited to forming attachments then others due to their innate characteristics
  • Infants who had been judged to have signs of behavioural instability between one and three days old were later more likely to have an insecure attachment.
30
Q

Outline Bowlby’s Theory of maternal deprivation.

A

Bowlby states that if a child suffers from prolonged emotional deprivation due to absence of a primary attachment figure (usually mother) they are likely to suffer from:

  • intellectual issues (low IQ)
  • social issues (deliquency)
  • emotional issues (affectionless psychopath)
  • mental health issues e.g. depression

Continuity hypothesis suggests that these issues are IRREVERSIBLE and will follow them into adulthood due to lack of internal working model.

These negative effects will appear if the separation occurs in the critical period (up to 2 and a half years) and there is a risk of them if separated in the sensitive period (5 years)

31
Q

Describe Bowlby’s study and findings into maternal deprivation.

A
  • Studied 88 case studies of children who attended his clinic
  • All children were maladjusted
  • Half were thieves (44) and 14 of them were affectionless psychopaths
  • They lacked affection, shame and sympathy for their actions
  • 12 out of 14 of the affectionless psychopaths experienced frequent separations from their mother compared to 5 of the 30 thieves who weren’t affectionless psychopaths
  • Almost none of the control group (non-thieves) experienced early separations from their mother
32
Q

Give three benefits of Bowlby’s theory of maternal deprivation.

A

Practical applications

  • Prior to Bowlby’s theory, hospitals wouldn’t allow children to be visited in hospitals by their parents.
  • This was profoundly damaging to the child’s emotional and psychological wellbeing
  • Now parents are actively encouraged to stay in the hospital with the child

Depression in orphanages

  • Spitz (1945) examined children in a low quality orphanage in South America
  • Staff were underpaid, overworked and rarely gave the children attention or affection
  • This led to the children displaying anaclitic depression: sleeplessness, loss of appetite and sadness

IQ in institutions

  • Skodak and Skeeles (1949) found that children in institutions which only provided them with physical care showed extremely low IQ scores
  • However, when same children were transferred to institution which also provided emotional care, IQ scores went up by around 30 points
33
Q

Give two weaknesses of Bowlby’s Theory of maternal deprivation.

A

Not Irreversible

  • Tizard et al (1989)
  • Children who had never formed attachments and were adopted after the age of four were still able to form new attachments to their adopted parents

Deprivation and Privation

  • Bowlby did not distinguish between deprivation (forming attachment and being separated from them) and privation (never forming attachments in the first place
  • It may be the latter which causes the extreme negative effects found in studies
34
Q

Define institutional care.

A
  • When a child’s living arrangements is outside of their family such as in a children’s home, hospital or orphanage
  • The child could adopt the norms and rules of the institution leading to impaired functioning and loss of personal identity (deindividualisation)
35
Q

Describe the procedure of Rutter et al (2010) Study of Romanian Orphans.

A
  • 162 Romanian orphans who lived in Romanian orphanages for the majority of their life before adoption were tested for physical, social and cognitive development at 4, 6, 11 and 15
  • Progress compared to 52 British children adopted in the UK before 6 months
36
Q

What were the results and findings of of Rutter et al’s (2010) Study of Romanian Orphans.

A
  • At the time of adoption, the Romanian orphans lagged behind their British counterparts on all factors of physical, cognitive and social
  • However by the age of 4, four of the Romanian orphans adopted before age of 6 months were able to catch up to their British counterparts
  • Long-term consequences of institutionalisation are less severe than we once though BUT only if child is adopted before 6 months and receives sensitive parenting
  • If not adopted by age of 6 months, effects are likely to be severe
37
Q

What are the effects of institutionalisation?

A

1. Delayed Intellectual development:
Suffer from low IQ and poor concentration; makes it difficult to learn new behaviours and concepts in school; delayed language development
2. Disinhibited attachment:
May not know what appropriate behaviour to strangers is - may be overly affectionate and attention-seeking
3. Impaired Emotional Development:
Issues with controlling anger - tend to have more tantrums than most children
4. Lack of internal working model:
Difficulty interacting with peers and forming close relationships; continues into adulthood where they will have impaired relationships and struggle to parent their own children
5. Quasi-Autism:
Struggle to understand meaning of social contexts; can have obsessional behaviours; lower frequency of pretend play and reduced empathy
6. Delayed Physical development
Usually physically small; lack of emotional care leads to deprivation dwarfism

38
Q

What are two advantages of studies into effects of institutionalisation?

A

Real life Improvements

  • Enhanced our understanding of the potential negative consequences of institutional care
  • Led to the establishment of key workers in institutions to provide emotional care for children.

Changes of Adoption Process

  • In the past mothers were encouraged to nurse their children for as long as possible before giving them up for adoption.
  • Today most babies are adopted within their first week of life (certainly before six months)
39
Q

What are two drawbacks of studies of effects of institutionalisation?

A

Issues with generalisation

  • The Romanian orphans were faced with much more than emotional deprivation.
  • The physical conditions were appalling, and there was a lack of cognitive stimulation.
  • It is likely that long-term damage from institutional care only occurs when
    there are multiple risk factors.

Lacks validity

  • Adoption and control groups were not randomly allocated to conditions in studies of Romanian orphans.
  • Participant variables between the children could influence the findings in unanticipated ways.
  • The adopted children might have been adopted because of personal characteristics such as resilience or being more sociable.
  • These characteristics might explain why they were less affected by institutional care, which lowers the validity of the research.
40
Q

Describe the procedure of the Harlow (1959) study.

A
  • 8 infant Rhesus monkeys were separated from their mothers and put in a cage
  • Harlow created two wire mothers and one was wrapped in a soft cloth
  • 4 of the monkeys received milk from the exposed wire mother and the other 4 from the soft cloth mother
  • Observed time spent with each of two mothers and their responses when scared or exploring unfamiliar toys
41
Q

Outline the findings and long term effects in Harlow (1959)

A
  • All 8 spent most of the time with the soft cloth mother - the four fed by the exposed wire mother only stayed with it long enough to get milk then returned to soft cloth
  • When frightened, they would all cling to soft cloth and when exploring new toys, they kept one foot on the soft cloth
  • When in new environment, they were not confident enough to explore without presence of soft cloth mother

Long term effects:

  • Monkeys developed abnormally, they froze or fled when encountering other monkeys
  • Not showing normal mating behaviour, didn’t cradle babies
  • They could recover but only if this happened before they were three months old
42
Q

Evaluate Harlow (1959)

A

ADV 1: Implications for attachment theories

  • Harlow’s suggestion that comfort/sensitive responsiveness is more important than food contradicts learning theory

ADV 2: Implications of early neglect

  • Study highlights implications of early neglect and the long term consequences of poor attachment in childhood for future relationships
  • Aligns with Bowlby’s Maternal deprivation theory and critical period
  • Humans may have more of a sensitive period rather than critical as children have been shown to recover from lack of attachments (Tizard et al)

ADV 3: Comfort over food

  • Schaffer and Emerson found that you don’t need food to form an attachment
  • Found that babies often form attachments with people who play with them over those you just feed them
  • 39% of babies were more attached to someone else even when the mother was feeding them

DIS 1: Ethical issues

  • Monkeys were removed from their mothers, which would have been very traumatic
  • Also deliberately scared to see how they would react - led to long-term emotional harm, when these monkeys were older and encountered other monkeys they either froze or fled.
  • They also had difficulty caring for their own young as they had not been cared for themselves.
43
Q

Describe the Lorenz (1939) procedure.

A
  • He wanted to investigate imprinting - the instinct many species of animals have to attach to the first thing they see moving after they are born
  • Took a clutch of gosling eggs and split them into two groups
  • One group was left to hatch with their natural mother and the other group put in an incubator
  • When eggs in the incubator hatched the first moving thing they saw was Lorenz
  • He marked them and put them all back in one group
44
Q

Outline the findings and long-term effects of Lorenz (1939)

A
  • Group quickly divided into one following the mother and other following Lorenz
  • Goslings in incubator showed no recognition of their natural mother
  • If animal is not exposed to a moving object in the critical period, it will not imprint
  • Imprinting is similar to attachment in that it binds an animal to a caregiver in a special relationship.
  • Lorenz (1935) had to teach the goslings how to swim and they would always return when he called.

Long term effects:

  • Imprinting is irreversible and long-lasting
  • One of the geese who imprinted on him used to sleep on his bed every night
  • Early imprinting has an influence on later mate preferences called sexual imprinting
  • Animals will choose to mate with the same kind of object upon which they were imprinted
45
Q

Evaluate Lorenz (1939) study.

A

ADV 1: Support from Bowlby

  • The idea of imprinting has similarities to Bowlby’s theory of maternal deprivation
  • In that there is a window of opportunity - the critical period - to imprint otherwise it will never happen

ADV 2: Similar Studies Support

  • Gutton (1966) exposed chickens to yellow rubber gloves during feeding and found that they imprinted on the gloves within a few weeks of life
  • Supports idea that animals are born with the instinct to attach to the first moving object they see

DIS 1: Imprinting is not irreversible

  • Gutton (1966) could reverse the imprinting in chickens that initially tried to mate with the yellow rubber gloves
  • After spending more time with their own species, they began mating normally and engage in norma sexual behaviour

DIS 2: Cannot extrapolate to humans

  • Humans and geese are physiologically very different to each other
  • Humans have other factors like culture, society, peers and upbringing that affect attachment
  • Also attachment between human babies and attachment figures is more complex than that in monkeys or geese - for example, we have multiple attachment styles that vary between cultures and even subcultures
  • Harlow’s study can be more relevant to the human experience as he uses a mammilian species
46
Q

Describe the procedure of research into influence of early attachment on childhood relationships.

A
  • Sroufe et al (2005) The Minnesota Parent-Child Project
  • Longitudinal study started in 1975 up to 2005
  • Mothers’ and children’s behaviours were studied through questionnaires and observations
  • They would be video taped (intra-observer reliability) while playing for a period of 10-15 minutes and mother was aware of video taping (social desirability)
  • Two observers would analyse the recordings (inter-observer reliability)
47
Q

Outline the findings of the Minnesota Parent-Child Project (research into influence of early attachment on childhood relationships).

A
  • As children those who were securely attached as infants were found to be: more socially competent, less socially isolated, more popular amongst peers, more empathetic
  • An infant’s early attachment style will form their internal working model of relationships
  • Those who are more securely attached as infants form a positive internal working model and are better at forming and maintaining a relationship with others
  • If infants do not have early attachment during the critical period they will lack an internal working model
  • Leads to attachment disorder where child has no preferred attachment figure - inability to interact and relate to others
  • Usually caused by extreme neglect or frequent changes in caregivers
48
Q

Evaluate research into influence of early attachment on childhood relationships.

A

ADV 1: Reliable findings

  • Similar results found in Simpson et al (2007) where they assessed the attachment style of infants aged 1 year old
  • Found those securely attached at infants had higher social competence as children and were closer to their friends at 16

DIS 1: Deterministic findings

  • Study claims that early experiences have a fixed effect on later relationships
  • So childhood who were insecurely attached as infants are doomed to experience emotionally unsatisfactory relationships
  • Therefore deterministic as it doesn’t account for free will to make conscious decisions about behaviour

DIS 2: Tizard & Hodges (1989)

  • Found that many children who had previously never formed any attachments were able to form attachments with their new adopted parents even when they were adopted after 4
  • This contradicts the claim that early attachment determines affects later childhood relationships
49
Q

Outline the procedure of research into influence of early attachment on adult relationships.

A
  • Hazan & Shaver (1987)
  • Placed a ‘Love Quiz’ in a small American newspaper asking questions about relationship with parents (early attachment style), attitudes towards love (internal working model) and current relationships (adult attachment style)
  • Around 600 responses - 200 from men and 400 from women
50
Q

Outline the findings of research into influences of early attachment on adult relationships.

A
  • Prevalence of adult attachment styles was similar to infant attachment styles - secure being most common, then avoidant and then resistant
  • Relationship between internal working model and adult attachment style - positive IWM = securely attached adults
  • Positive correlation between adult attachment style and love experiences (trusting, happy and friendly)
  • Securely attached relationships were most enduring - 10 years, avoidant = 6 years and resistant = 5 years on average
51
Q

Give three weaknesses of the research into influences of early attachment on adult relationships.

A

Unreliable findings

  • Other studies have failed to find the correlation between infant and adult attachment styles
  • Fraley (2002) conducted review of 72 samples where infants were assessed for attachment style then assessed again later (up to 20 years later) and found correlations ranging from 0.5 to 0.1

Correlational

  • Not experimental but correlational so we cannot determine a cause and effect relationship
  • Cannot conclude that infant attachment style causes the adult attachment style
  • There could be a third intervening variable e.g. innate temperament

** Lacks validity**

  • Relies on participant’s memories about early lives to assess infant attachment styles
  • Recollections are likely to be flawed because our memories of the past aren’t always accurate lowering the validity of the study

AQA A-Level Psychology (21 decks)

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