1) Attachment

Question 1

What was Lorenz’s animal study (1935) on imprinting?

Answer 1

Goose Experiment

• He divided gosling eggs into two groups, one group with their mother and the other in an incubator.
• When the incubator eggs hatched, the first moving thing they saw was Lorenz.
• He marked the two groups of goslings and placed them together.
• When Lorenz and the goose mother walked away, the group which was associated with them followed them.
• Lorenz identified a critical period which imprinting must take place or else they did not attach to the “Mother”.

Question 2

What was Harlow’s animal study (1958) about?

Answer 2

Monkeys

• Reared 16 baby monkeys
• Two conditions with a plain wire monkey and a cloth-covered mother monkey.
• In one condition milk was dispensed by the plain wire mother and in the second condition, milk was dispensed by the cloth-covered mother.
• The babies cuddled the cloth mother in preference to the wire mother and when it was frightened , regardless of who dispensed the milk.
• This showed that contact comfort was more important than food when it came to attachment.

Question 3

What did Harlow (1958) discover about maternal deprivation in monkeys?

Answer 3

• Most dysfunctional

- Highly aggressive, less sociable, bred less, unskilled parents, tended to neglect or kill their young.

Question 4

What does learning theory, as an explanation of attachment, involve?

Answer 4

Classical conditioning, operant conditioning, Drive reduction theory

Question 5

Learning Theory - What is classical conditioning as an explanation for attachment?

Answer 5

Food = UCS which produces a UCR of pleasure.

• During the infant’s early weeks, certain things become associated with food as they are present when the infant is fed. Such as a mother, which would be the NS.
• If an NS is associated with the UCS, it will produce the same response.
• NS becomes CS that produces a CR.
• Meaning a mother would be associated with pleasure.

Question 6

Learning Theory - What is operant conditioning in terms of explaining attachment?

Answer 6

• Two-way process: Caregiver receives negative reinforcement as the crying stops (escaping from something unpleasant) and the child receives what they want.
• This mutual reinforcement strengthens attachment.

Question 7

Learning Theory - What is Drive Reduction Theory?

Answer 7

• Hunger = primary drive, it is innate and biological. We eat to remove this drive.
• As caregivers give food, the primary drive of hunger becomes generalised to them.
• Attachment = a secondary drive learnt by associating the caregiver with a satisfication for the primary drive.

Question 8

What is Bowlby’s monotropic theory (1969)?

Answer 8

Monotropy - Infants form one special emotional bond, different than the rest, with their primary caregiver.
Why - Attachments serve as an important survival function as it aids in survival.
Infants have an innate drive to become attached
How - Babies are born with features that show caring behaviours ( smiling. baby face etc) called “social releases” which activates the adults attachment system.

Question 9

How is the internal working model formed?

Answer 9

A monotropic relationship provides infants with a mental representation of relationships.

Question 10

What purpose does the Internal working model provide?

Answer 10

1) Allows the child to influence their caregiver’s behvaiour.
2) Provides a template for all future relationships.

Question 11

What is the continuity hypothesis?

Answer 11

An infants IWM will influence their later adult relationships - infants who are strongly attached are more likely to have socially and emotionsally competant relationships later.

Question 12

What was Ainsworth’s Strange Situation (1969) study?

Answer 12

• Designed to see how infants behave under mild stress
• Procedure consists of eight episodes: Proximity seeking, exploration and secure base, behaviour, stranger anxiety, depression on anxiety, and response to reunion.
• Observed using a video-recorder or one-way mirror, with behaviour being recorded every 15 seconds

Question 13

What are the types of attachment that were developed by the SS?

Answer 13

Insecure-avoidant (Type A)
Secure attached (Type B)
Insecure-resistant (Type C)

Question 14

What are the features of the secure attached infant type?

Answer 14

(Type B)

• Not likely to cry when seperated from their caregiver
• Slight distress when left with a stranger
• Easily soothed when anxious by their caregivers
• 60% - 75% of british toddlers

Question 15

What are the features of the insecure-avoidant infant attachment type?

Answer 15

(Type A)

• Little response to seperation
• Little/No social interaction and intimacy with others
• 20% - 25% of British Toddlers

Question 16

What are the features of the insecure-resistant infant attachment type?

Answer 16

(Type C)

• High levels of seperation anxiety and stranger anxiety.
• When reuinted with caregivers, they show conflicting behaviours ad resist being picked up.
• 3% of British Toddlers

Question 17

What was involved in Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg’s study about the cultural variations in attachment (1988)?

Answer 17

• Conducted a meta analysis of the findings of 32 studies of attachment behaviour from eight different countries.

Question 18

What was the Italian study on cultural differences conducted by Simonella et al (2014)?

Answer 18

• Assessed 76 12-month olds in Italy using the SS.
• Found that: 50% were secure, 36% were insecure-avoident.
• Suggested that the lower rate of secure attached is because there are more mothers working long hours and hiring professional childcare.
• Showing that cultural changes may change patterns of secure and insecure attachment.

Question 19

What is the Korean study of cultural differences conducted by Jim et al (2012)?

Answer 19

Found more Insecure resistant children were than avoidant, similarly to Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg’s study conducted in Japan.
Possibly due to the fact that both countries have a very similar child-rearing style.

Question 20

What is Bowlby’s Theory of Maternal Deprivation?

Answer 20

Seperation will have an affect if it takes place in the critical period of development (first 30 months).

Question 21

What are the impacts of maternal deprivation on intellectual development?

Answer 21

• (Goldfarb)Found lower IQ in children who had remained in institutions than those with emotional care and emotional development.
• Due to lack of maternal care in the crit period

Question 22

What was Bowlby’s 44 Thieves Study about?

Answer 22

• Study 88 children who were patients at the Chil Guidance Clinic in London - were all emotionally maladjusted.
• 44 Were acused of being thieves and tested for affectionless psychopathy and the rest were used as a control group as they were classed as emotonally distrubed.
• 14 thieves were affectionless psychopaths, 12/14 of them experienced long seperation from their mothers in the first 2 years of their lives. Whereas, only 2 children from the control group experienced long seperation.
• Therefore showing that childhood seperation is linked to affectionless psychopathy.

Question 23

What was Rutter’s English and Romanian Adoptee Study (2011) about?

Answer 23

• (Rutter and Colleagues) examined 165 romanian children who spent their early lives in a romanian institute. 111 were adopted before 2yrs and 54 by 4yrs.
• Physical, cognitive and social development was examined using interviews with parents at the ages of 4,6,11 and 15 and their progress was compared with 52 british children who were adopted before 6 months old.
• By the age of 4 some, some romanian children caught up with the British children but those adopted after six months showed deficits and signs of disinhibited attachment.
• This highlights the long-term consequences of institutionalisation.

Question 24

What was Zeanah et al’s study on the Bucharest Early Intervention Project (2005) about?

Answer 24

• Attachment was assessed in 95 children (12-31 months) who had spent most their lives in institutional care and were compared to a control group of 50 children who had never lived in an instution.
• Attachment type was measured using the SS and carers were asked about ay unusal social behaviour (e.g attention seeking).
• 19% of the Institutionalised group were securely attached compared to 74% of the control group.
• 65% of the institutionalised groupwere classified with disorganised attachment.
• 44% of institutionalised children were applied with disinhibited attachment but only 20% of the control.

Question 25

What are the 4 effects of Institutionalisation?

Answer 25

Physical underdevelopment - Lack of nourishment and emotional care , can lead to deprivation dwarfism.

Intellectual under functioning - emotional deprivation can affect cognitive development.

Disinhibited attachment - a form of attachment where children treat near-strangers with overfriendliness.

Poor parenting - Quinton et al (1984) Found out that women raised in instituations experienced difficulties acting as parents in later life in comparison to women raised at home.

Question 26

How does the Internal Working Model influence our attachments?

Answer 26

The mental representation we have of our attachment to our primary caregiver.
They are important in affecting our future relationships as they form our perception of what relationships are like.

Question 27

Which children form the best quality friendships?

Answer 27

Securely attached

Question 28

Which children have friendship difficulties?

Answer 28

Insecure children

Question 29

What did Rowan Myron-Wilson and Peter Smith (1988) find out about attachment types on later development?

Answer 29

Secure = Unlikely to be involved in bullying
Insecure avoident = Most likely to be victims of bullying
Insecure resistant = Most likely to bully

Question 30

How did Cindy Hazan and Phillip Saver test the internal working model (1987)?

Answer 30

• Placed the “Love Quiz” in an American Newspaper which examined current attachment history.
  Also asked about attitudes towards love to asses the IWM.
  620 ppl responded, 205 men and 415 women.
• There was a positive correlation between attachment type and love experiences
• Securely attached described love experiences as happy, friendly and trusting
• Avoident respondents tedned to reveal jealousy and fear of intimacy

Question 31

What happens if monotropy does not occur?

Answer 31

If they do not, it will be harder to form an attachment later on.

Question 32

When does the critical period occur?

Answer 32

0-2yrs

Question 33

When does the critical period occur?

Answer 33

Around 0-2yrs

Question 34

What were the findings to izjendoorn and kroonenburgs research?

Answer 34

Findings:

• Secure attachment was most common
• Insecure avoident was the next most common except in Israel and Japan (two collectivist cultures).
• Variation within cultures was 1.5 times higher than the variation between cultures.
• Suggest that secure attachment is the best for healthy social and emotional development, similar to the US.

Question 35

What are the impacts of maternal deprivation on emotional development?

Answer 35

Can also lead to affectionless psychopathy - the inability to experience guilt/strong emotion for others.