Attachement

Question 1

What is attachment according to bowlby and ainsworth?

Answer 1

A lasting psychological connectedness between two human beings (bowlby)

A affectionate tie that one person or animal forms between himself and another specific one - a tie that binds together in space and endures over time (ainsworth)

Question 2

What is the behavioural theory propose about attachment? (Dollars and miller)

Answer 2

Infants form an attachment with their primary caregiver by associating food with the mother.

Before: Neutral stimulus is mother
Unconditioned stimulus is food = unconditioned response is pleasure

During learning: UCS is food + CS is mother = UCR is pleasure

After learning: CS is mother = CS is pleasure

Question 3

What have orphanage studies shown ?

Answer 3

Developmentally delayed, unable to form relationships and inappropriately friendly (Bender and Yarnell, 1941)

Skoda and Skeels (1949)
Orphanage children who were moved to a mental institution were adopted by a resident and given attention were more likely to develop normally and contribute to society.

Question 4

Who was bowlby and what was his theory and explain it?

Answer 4

Psychiatrist working with emotionally disturbed children

Maternal deprivation hypothesis:
-It takes on an evolutionary approach, he suggested children have an innate need to form attachments for survival as they are adaptive. Warmth, food, attention etc.

• social releasers = babies have inborn physiological and behavioural tendencies to unlock an innate drive in adults to care for them (behavioural=cooing, smiling, Physiological= round face, big eyes, rolled arms)
• critical period= infant must form attachment during the ages of 3-6 months if not they will have difficulty forming future relationships

Monotropy = form only one single attachment with a primary caregiver.

Internal working model: template for future relationships which is based on monotropic attachment.

Question 5

What did lorenz find?

Answer 5

Half of batch of geese eggs were separated into an incubator to hatch in front of Lorenz or their biological mothers.

Geese whoever they hatched in front of showed preferential behaviour towards them following them around

This is known as imprinting( forming an attachment with the first large moving object you see from birth)

Question 6

What characterises phase 1 of bowlby development of attachment in infancy?

Answer 6

-pre attachment (birth to six weeks)
-crying orienting, cuddling, grasping and clinging directed towards any available adult
-Behaviours designed to attract attention of adult caregivers
-face like stimuli elicit more attention than abstract patterns
-Infants are best able to hear sounds in the range of the human voice
-adult humans are attractive to infants
(Social releasers)

Question 7

What characterises phase 2 of the development of attachment infancy (bowlby) ?

Answer 7

Attachment in the making (6 weeks to 6-8 months)

• Discriminates between familiar and unfamiliar faces and sounds (more smiling at primary caregiver)
• develops expectations about the effects of their behaviours and the reactions of caregivers (crying elicits comfort reaction, smiling elicits positive reactions.)
• They do not protest when they get separated from the caregiver ( no understanding of person permanence, cognitive concepts not yet developed enough for clear cut attachment)

Question 8

What characterises phase 3 of development of attachment in infancy

Answer 8

Clear cut attachment (6-8 months to 18 months- 2 years)

• person permanence established - the attachment to familiar caregiver becomes evident.
• infant becomes responsible for maintaining proximity- crawling, walking
• Infants show separation anxiety and get upset when an adult on whom they rely leaves them
• This anxiety increase b/w 6-15 months, depends on maternal responsiveness.

Question 9

What is ainsworth strange situation?

Answer 9

It is a controlled observation that assesses infants attachment type with their caregiver (mother)
Used on 12-24 month old infants

Question 10

What attachment styles did ainsworth identify?

Answer 10

1) Secure (70%) - Distress. Positive and Happy when mother returns.

2) Insecure attachment (30%): 
Avoidant attachment (15%) - No distress. Infant shows little interest/unconcerned when mother returns 
resistant attachment (15%)- intense distress. Child approaches mother, but resists contact, may even push her away. 
Disorganised attachment (this style was discovered later by main  (1990) Mix of avoidant and ambivalent- confused behaviours

Question 11

What is the strengths of strange situations?

Answer 11

Unique combination of experimental and clinical methods

Allows controlled opportunity for natural interactions

Highly reliable

Well validated
-repeatedly linked to maternal behaviour and developmental outcomes

Question 12

What are the limitations of strange situations?

Answer 12

Designed to only be used by 12-18 month old infants

Labour intensive and costly

Yields categorical data rather than developmental linear methods

Distribution across classifications is uneven
-limitations in data analysis techniques.

Question 13

What is the Attachment Q-sort?

Answer 13

It is an assessment for attachment types
-set of 100 items representing 7 constructs of attachment behaviour based on the attachment behaviour system

• mother observes infant at home fo a set period of time
• sorted into categories ranging from most characteristic to least characteristic of an infant
• compared to the ideal sorting for a typically “secure infant”
• infant can be scored from -1 to +1 for security

Question 14

What is the strength of attachment Q-Sort test?

Answer 14

Home observation method
-naturalistic
Linear scoring
-allows for more detailed quantitative analysis

Question 15

What is the limitations of attachment Q-sort?

Answer 15

• Labour intensive
• Training in observation and sorting
• Does not account for attachment styles
• -1 =insecure
• +1 = secure

Intended to complement rather than replace the strange situation.

Question 16

What predictors for maternal care/ sensitivity for attachment types is there?

Answer 16

Secure infants: sensitive and responsive to infant signals
-emotionally expressive, flexible, psychologically accessible, accepting and co operating

Avoidant infants: described as rejecting
-slow to respond, uncomfortable with contact, display anger and irritation rigid, interfering

Resistant infants: inconsistently responsive
-relatively insensitive, less rejecting, displayed little spontaneous affection.

Question 17

What is infant temperament and how does it affect attachment?

Answer 17

Temperament refers to a set of innate or inborn traits that organise a child’s approach to the world.

These temperament types can then affect how a caregiver approaches them which can then affect there attachment types.

Question 18

What are Thomas and Chess’s Temperament types?

Answer 18

Easy babies:
-40% of infants; adjust easily to a new situation, quickly establish routines, are generally cheerful and easy to calm.

Difficult/hard work babies:
-10% of infants; slow to adjust to new experiences , likely to react negatively and intensely to stimuli and events.

Slow to warm up babies:
-15% of infants; somewhat difficult at first but become easier over time.

Not all infants fell into these groups, thought to have nine dimensions.

Question 19

What evidence is there that behavioural dimensions of temperament contribute to attachment type formed?

Answer 19

Becky and Rovine found that irritability and anger of a child would influence the type of Subgroup of attachment type they formed.

Question 20

What did Sroufe (1985) suggest about how maternal care and temperament to influence attachment?

Answer 20

Maternal care determines major attachment type formed but infant temperament determines which subgroup of attachment they go into.

Attachment security is determined by maternal care but attachment security is determined by maternal care but temperament determines the particular from in which insecurity is expressed.

Temperament determines the behaviours with which the caregiver is confronted, but temperament can be transformed by the type of care provided.

Temperament determines the nature of appropriate care - what is responsive care for one infant would not necessarily be responsive for another

Question 21

What did Schaffer and Emerson find out about fathers?

Answer 21

First attachment is not always father.

By 18 months 80% of infants formed attachment with father alongside mothers

Attachments can form a lot more slowly
-Weakens bowlby‘s theory of monotropic attachment

-most fathers have limited opportunities to form an attachment compared to mothers

Question 22

What has happened to infant attachments as a result of increased maternal employment?

Answer 22

• Increasing number of families rely on two incomes for economic survival or comfort

Less opportunity for mothers to form attachment as there are fewer attachment relevant situations occurring in her care and they will occur in the care of someone else.

this can result in low availability and repeated situations=slower development of attachment, increase in insecure attachments and/ or choice of someone else as primary attachment

Or Repeated separations and reunions help infant to learn separation is temporary which increases confidence and promotes attachment security.

Question 23

How do infants with certain attachment types express their emotions and attachment needs? According to Ainsworth

Answer 23

Secure infants: express their emotions for comfort and protection freely and directly

Avoidant infants: Restrict their emotional expression of attachment needs

Resistant infants: exaggerate their emotional expression of attachment needs.

Question 24

What did Crittenden suggest about infants emotional regulation?

Answer 24

attachment strategies are best described in terms of the extent to which they rely on affective and cognitive information

Security: Marked by an appropriately balanced approach that intergrates booth affective and cognitive information

Avoidance: Characterised by reliance on cognitive information with the exclusion of affective information

Resistance: Characterised by reliance on affective information at the expense of excluding salient cognitive information

Question 25

How do cargeivers drive the expression of emotions according to Goldberg?

Answer 25

Attachment patterns are associated with experiences in which caregiver convey distinct messages about rules for emotional expression

Secure infants: All emotions are acceptable and emotions are a topic for conversation

Avoidant infants: emotions, especially negative ones, are ineffective in recruiting help, and are not a topic for discussion

Resistant: the effects of expressing emotions are unpredictable and not a topic for discussion, but intense negative emotions are most likely to provoke attention.

Question 26

What five ways did Sroufe, Engel and Carlberg suggest five ways in which attachment relationships with parents influence subsequent social competence?

Answer 26

By shaping the child’s expectations of relationships and their rewards or problems, early attachments provide the motivational base for other relationships

The extent to which a child feels effective in early attachment relationships provides an attitudinal base for later social experience

Attachment relationships provide the instrumental basis for other relationships by shaping broadly applicable behavioural skills

The pattern of emotion regulation in early attachment relationships establishes the emotional base for social competence because it is the prototype for the self regulation required in the wider world

The roles and rules of reciprocity learned in attachment relationships provide knowledge to form the relational base for other relationships

Question 27

How does attachment formation affect continuing relationships in the family ?

Answer 27

Young children with secure histories are more compliant, co operative and responsive with their mothers than those who are insecure.

Question 28

What study shows the effect of early attachment formation and future family relationships?

Answer 28

Bielefeld eat al. (1991) asked 6 year olds and their mothers to make building with blocks

• Children with secure histories showed more assertiveness, more confidence but were also more likely to engage in direct conflict
• Non compliance is a strong feature of autonomy which is found more in children with secure histories

Main, Caplan & Cassify (1985) also found stronger continuity for child-mother than for child father relationships - evidence for enduring monotropy.

Question 29

To what extent do early attachments influence success in the world of peers?

Answer 29

Minnesota longitudinal study

• Pre school age: Children with secure attachment histories were ranked as highest in competence by teachers, less isolated and more popular.
• Middle childhood: children with secure attachment histories were twice as likely to form friendships, more likely to engage in organised tasks, and more likely to maintain gender boundaries.

Adolescence: Teens with secure histories had higher global competence, and were higher in self confidence and leadership

Question 30

What type of attachment disorders occur and why?

Answer 30

They occur as a result of relational trauma or loss. Insecure attachments is not a diagnosable disorder as they are within a normal range of functioning.

Zeenah (1996):
-Non attachment : there is no evidence of a preferred caregiver and the child is either withdrawn or I discriminated friendly

Disordered attachment: the child clearly has preferred caregiver, but uses that caregiver in distorted ways by being either extremely clingy or engaging in reckless and dangerous behaviour (Lieberman and Pawl, 1988)

Disrupted attachment: Describes the grief response of children who have lost a caregiver.

Question 31

What is a reactive attachment disorder?

Answer 31

One of the few diagnosable mental health problems in children under 3

2 subtypes

Inhibited: characterised by a withdrawn unresponsive child who seeks comfort in deviant ways
-Often as result of neglect and maltreatment

Disinhibited: indiscriminately social
-often as a result of institutional care