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Question 1

What is attachment?

Answer 1

An affectional tie that one person forms between himself and another - tie that brings them together in space and endures over time
Attachment also observed in animals

Question 2

What are the properties of attachment?

Answer 2

Selective - there are specific individuals - infant and primary care giver

Involves physical proximity seeking

Provides comfort and security

Produces separation distress

Question 3

What are the theories of attachment?

Answer 3

Learning account: attachment develops bc baby gets fed by the mother

Psychoanalytic approach - mother as primary love object through association with oral need-gratification

Question 4

How has Harlow shown that feeding might not be as important?

Answer 4

Rhesus monkeys sough comfort from the wire mother that was more comfortable to them rather than the one that provided food.

Question 6

What are the stages of attachment development?

Answer 6

• Pre attachment (0-2m)
  Preference for faces
  Babies don’t discriminate
  Crying, smiling elicits caregiver behaviour
• Attachment in the making (2-7m)
  Visual recognition across a room
  More discrimination between carers and strangers
• Clear-cut attachment (7-24m)
  Separation protest and stranger anxiety
• Goal-corrected partnership (24+)
  Increasingly reciprocal
  Understanding self and others

Question 7

What is the strange situation?

Answer 7

Standardised assessment to see how infant uses caregiver as a secure base for exploration, and comfort after a mildly stressful event.

Question 8

What is type B: secure?

Answer 8

Base for exploration
Distressed or not by separation
On reunion actively approach carer and distress reduces

Question 9

What is type A: insecure avoidant?

Answer 9

Happy to explore
Not secure base
Usually not distressed by separation or on reunion
Avoidant behaviour shown in reunion episodes

Question 10

What is type C: insecure resistent?

Answer 10

Clingy
Distressed by separation
On reunion anger and resistance to comforting

Question 11

What is type D: disorganised?

Answer 11

Greatest amount of insecurity
On reunion show confused behaviours such as looking away while parent holding them

Question 12

What is an advantage of the strange situation?

Answer 12

Good inter-rater reliability

Question 13

What has secure attachment been shown to predict?

Answer 13

Curiosity and problem solving
Social confidence at nursery
Empathy and independence

Lack of behavioural problems at 6yo

Decreased risk of anxiety disorders at 16 yo

HOWEVER
All these studies are very old

Question 14

What are criticisms of strange situation?

Answer 14

Mother based bc mothers are typically primary caregiver

Attachment type seen with mother is not the same with fathers

Implications that mothers should stay at home and take care of children

If a mother is experiencing post natal depression it will have an impact on the reciprocity between mother and infant.

Different cultural norms lead to infants behaving differently - in Japan children are not used to being alone so they are really distressed when they are separated

Question 15

Is there continuity between early attachment and later atatchment?

Answer 15

Early attachment doe not predict attachment later in development.

Question 16

What are other assessments of attachment?

Answer 16

Attachment Q sort: children are observed for a set period by someone familiar
100 items sorted by observer according to child’s attachment related behaviours

Question 17

What are some overall criticisms?

Answer 17

Insecure attachment does not mean neglect.

Question 18

What is the role of the child?

Answer 18

Attachment theory suggests that carers’ caregiving predicts attachment style
It does not that child’s individual characteristics into consideration.

Question 19

Do children play a role in forming their social relationships?

Answer 19

Yes
They are not blank slates
Infants come into the world with reflexive, sensory, perceptual and affective capabilities

They play an important part in forming their social relationships, including relationships with carers.

Question 20

How do infants demonstrate that they are social early on?

Answer 20

Newborns orient towards social interactions.
They look more at faces that look at them.

Question 21

What are children’s early reciprocal abilities?

Answer 21

They have the ability to reciprocate early on
Infants as early as 3 days old imitated specific facial features

But this findings was failed to be replicated and meta-analysis didn’t support this as a real effect

Question 22

What is temperament?

Answer 22

It is heritable
Children elicit environmental experience due to their own genetically influenced traits.

Question 23

definition of temperament

Answer 23

innate traits that organise a child’s approach to the world.
help to shape how individuals react to their environment and regulate their emotions and behaviour.

Question 24

What are environmental influences in early attachment?

Answer 24

Maternal deprivation hypothesis: suggests that infants deprived of continuous relationship with mother are insecurely attached.
BUT used institutional children with complex developmental delays