Attachment

Question 1

What is attachment?

Answer 1

An emotional bond between two people. It is a two way process that endures over time. It leads to behaviours such as clinging and proximity-seeking.

Question 2

Who can be a care giver?

Answer 2

Anyone providing care for a child, including a parent, grandparent, sibling, other family member, childminder etc.

Question 3

What is interaction all synchrony?

Answer 3

When two people mirror each other in terms of their facial and body movements. It also includes imitating emotions and behaviours.

Question 4

What is reciprocity?

Answer 4

Responding to the action of another with a similar action, where the actions of one partner elicit a response from the other partner. The responses are not necessarily similar, unlike interactional synchrony.

Question 5

Who identified the stages of attachment and what are they?

There’s an acronym

Answer 5

Rudolf Schaffer identified the four stages of attachment

• Asocial attachment stage
• Indiscriminate attachment stage
• Specific attachment stage
• Multiple attachments stage

All
Infants
Say
Mum

Question 6

How do you describe a child’s primary attachment figure?

Answer 6

The person who has formed the closest bond with a child, demonstrated by the intensity of the relationship. This is usually w child’s biological mother but can be fulfilled by other people.

Question 7

Explain the role of the father in attachment.

Answer 7

Fathers are less likely to be a primary attachment figure than mothers, but do have an important role to play as a secondary attachment figure.

Research highlights that fathers are more playful, physically active and generally better at providing challenging situations for their children than mothers.

Question 8

Describe the form of learning that Konrad Lorenz’s 1935 study examined.

Answer 8

It examined imprinting, which is an innate readiness to develop a strong bond with the mother. It takes place during a specific time in development, probably the first few hours after birth/hatching. If it doesnt happen at this time it probably will not happen. Imprinting is irreversible.

Question 9

What did Harry Harlow demonstrate with his 1959?

Answer 9

He demonstrated that infants do not develop an attachment to the person who feeds the but to the person offering comfort. Being denied comfort for more than the critical period resulted in abnormal development that could not be recovered from.

Question 10

What animal did Lorenz and Harlow use in their studies?

Answer 10

Lorenz used goslings

Harlow used rhesus monkeys

Question 11

What is learning theory?

Answer 11

The name given to a group of explanations (classical conditioning and operant conditioning), which explain behaviour in terms of learning rather than innate tendencies or high order thinking.

Question 12

How would behaviourists use classical conditioning to explain attachment

Answer 12

Learning through association. If a neural stimulus (infants mother) is consistently paired with an unconditioned stimulus (food) it eventually becomes the conditioned stimulus and produces a conditioned response (just seeing the mother produces the pleasurable feeing of being fed)

Question 13

How would behaviourists use operant conditioning to explain attachment?

Answer 13

Learning through reinforcement or punishment. We are ‘driven’ to reduce that discomfort. Hunger leads to discomfort so a baby cries. When the baby is fed, the discomfort is reduced leading to feelings of pleasure. The behaviour id strengthened through negative reinforcement.

Question 14

Describe John Bowlby’s monotropic attachment theory.

Answer 14

Bowlby proposed that infants have an innate drive to become attached. They develop one special emotional bond and that is the primary attachment relationship, which develops during a critical period.

Question 15

What is the critical period?

Answer 15

It is a biologically determined period when characteristics develop. Outside this period, they cannot develop.

Question 16

What is a social releaser?

Answer 16

A social behaviour or characteristic, such as smiling or having a “babyface”, that elicits caregiving and leads to attachment.

Question 17

What is an internal working model?

Answer 17

A mental model enabling a person to predict and control their environment. With attachment it relates to expectations about relationships.

Question 18

What is the continuity hypothesis?

Answer 18

The idea that emotionally secure infants go on to be emotionally secure trusting and socially confident adults.

Question 19

What is the ‘Strange Situation’ and who devised it?

Answer 19

It is a controlled observation designed to test attachment security and it was designed by Mary Ainsworth.

Question 20

What are the three types of attachment?

Answer 20

• Secure attachment
• Insecure avoidant attachment
• Insecure resistant attachment

Question 21

Describe secure attachment.

Answer 21

A strong and contended attachment of infant to caregiver, which develops as a result of sensitive responding by the caregiver to the infants needs. It is related to healthy and cognitive and emotional development.

Question 22

Describe insecure avoidant attachment.

Answer 22

A type of attachment where children tend to avoid social interaction and intimacy with others.

Question 23

Describe insecure resistant attachment.

Answer 23

A type of attachment where infants both seek and reject intimacy and social interaction.

Question 24

What are cultural variations?

Answer 24

The ways different groups of people vary in terms of social practices and the effects these practices have on development and behaviour.

Question 25

What did Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg’s 1988 study of cultural variations in attachment find?

Answer 25

Secure attachment is the most common form of attachment in all count supporting the view that attachment is an innate biological process.

Question 26

Who developed the theory of maternal deprivation?

Answer 26

John Bowlby

Question 27

What does deprivation mean in the context of child development?

Answer 27

The loss of emotional care normally provided by a primary caregiver, which can lead to problems in attachment and later relationships.

Question 28

What is institutionalisation?

Answer 28

The effect of institutional care.

Question 29

How can the time spent in an institution, such as an orphanage, affect the development of children.

Answer 29

Possible effects include social, mental and physical underdevelopment. Some of these effects may be irreversible.

Question 30

Where were the effects of institutionalisation on child development studied?

Answer 30

In Romanian orphanages

Question 31

Briefly outline how the internal working model, which is developed during infancy, can influence relationship.

Answer 31

The internal working model acts like a schema, with the infant learning from experience about relationships and how partners behave towards each other. Future relationships are based on the schema, which is used to ‘predict’ other peoples behaviour.

Question 32

What does ‘All Infants Say Mum’ stand for?

Answer 32

Stages of attachment;

• Asocial stage
• Indiscriminate
• Specific
• Multiple

Question 33

Explain the Asocial attachment stage.

Answer 33

0-6 weeks

• similar responses to objects and people, no preference for human face.
• baby starts to recognise and become familiar with their caregivers
• starts to become aware of surroundings

Question 34

Explain the Indiscriminate attachment stage.

Answer 34

6 weeks - 6 months

• starts to show a social behaviour and preference for humans
• although they can differentiate/distinguish different people they do not mind who they are picked up by, fed by etc. (Do not discriminate)

Question 35

Explain the Specific attachment stage.

Answer 35

7 months+

• now clearly shows a preference to one specific person
• they will now show stranger anxiety, if someone at the infant does not know comes up to them and tries to pick them up they will become distressed
• they will also show separation anxiety if the preferred person is not within sight of the infant they will become distressed
• infant looks to be a preferred person for security, comfort and protection. If the infant is distressed they will look for their preferred person (primary attachment figure)

Question 36

Explain the Multiple attachments stage.

Answer 36

10/11month+
-Develops after they have made their specific attachment then multiple attachments can be formed with other people (secondary attachment)

Question 37

What is the infant attachment cycle?

Answer 37

Baby has a need 
\/
Baby cries 
\/
Need met by caregiver
\/
Trust develops
\/ 
Cycle continues