Attachment Flashcards
What is Bowlby’s key study involving maternal deprivation?
44 Thieves Study (1944)
What was the aim of the 44 thieves study?
Provide evidence to support the maternal deprivation hypothesis in a sample of children attending Tavistock child-guidance clinic.
What type of study was the 44 thieves study?
A retrospective study which compared experiences of prolonged separation from the mother (under the age of 5) between a group of 44 thieves and a group of 44 emotionally disturned children who had committed no crimes.
What was the procedure of Bowlby’s 44 thieves study?
- Unstructured interviews to provide detailed qualititative data about childhood.
- Boys completed IQ tests and had psychiatric assessments with a social worker.
- Bowlby interviewed the boys and their mothers to find out about childhood experiences etc.
- Checklist to diagnose affectionless psychopathy.
How many of Bowlby’s 44 thieves were affectionless psychopaths?
32% whereas 0% of the control group were diagnosed with this.
How many of Bowlby’s affectionless psychopaths had experienced early separation?
86%
What is the main conclusion of Bowlby’s 44 thieves study?
Maternal deprivation can have severe and potentially long term effects on emotional development including affectionless psychopathy.
Did Bowlby’s 44 thieves study have any real life application?
Research could be used to inform on issues concerning parents such as mothers going out to work.
Was the 44 thieves study generalisable?
No
- The study was not representative as Bowlby’s groups were accused of gender bias (more males than females).
- Bowlby’s research was primarily case studies and so the findings are unique to the case being studied.
Was Bowlby’s 44 thieves study valid?
No
- The data was collected retrospectively and so data may not be accurately remembered.
- Social desirability bias as the parents may not have wanted to share negative things about their parenting.
- Research bias may be an issues as Bowlby made the diagnoses of affectionless psychopathy.
Could causality be established in Bowlby’s 44 thieves study?
The research was correlational and so causation could not be established.
What did Rutter (1981) say about Bowlby’s 44 thieves study?
Some of the children never had chance to form an attachment relationship and so the issues may have been privation not deprivation.
What did Goldfarb (1943) find in terms of maternal deprivation?
He studied two groups of 15 children (aged 6 months- 3 years), one group was raised in an instituation and the other in foster care.
The instituation group lagged behind the foster group in terms of IQ, abstract thinking, social maturity and rule following.
What did Spitz (1945) find in terms of maternal deprivation?
1/3 of institutionalised children died before the age of 1.
The rest showed signs of ‘anaclitic depression’ howevere the symptoms were reversed if the period of maternal deprivation was less than three months.
What is a critisizm of Spitz (1945)?
The studies were carried out in poor quality instituations and so the findings are not representable of all instituations, and so cannot be generalised.
What was the Czech Twins (1972) study?
JM and PM were looked after by a Czechoslovakian social agency for a year and then fostered by their aunt (who abused them).
They showed no signs of psychological abnormality and had stable relationships later on in life.
Mary Ainsworth (1970)
Strange Situation
Where did the strange situation take place?
In a room with controlled condititions with a two way mirror and/or cameras so a psychologist can observe the baby’s behaviour.
What behaviours were used to judge attachment in the strange situation?
- Proximity-seeking
- Exploration and secure-base behaviour
- Stranger anxiety
- Separation anxiety
- Response to reunion
How long did each of the stages of the strange situation last?
Three minutes
What was the procedure for the strange situation and what did each of the stages test?
- Baby is encouraged to explore (Exploration and secure base)
- A stranger comes in, talks to the caregiver and approaches the baby (stranger anxiety)
- Caregiver leaves the baby and stranger together (separation and stranger anxiety)
- Caregiver returns and stranger leaves (reunion behaviour and exploration/secure base)
- Caregiver leaves the baby alone (separation anxiety)
- Stranger returns (stranger anxiety)
- Caregiver returns and is reunited with the baby (reunion behaviour)
What is type B of attachment?
Secure attachment
What are the behaviours of secure attachment?
They explore happily but regularly go back to their caregiver (proximity-seeking and secure-base behaviour).
Show moderate stranger and separation anxiety.
Require and accept comfort from the caregiver in the reunion stage.
How many british babies show type B attachment?
60-75%
What is type A of attachment?
Insecure-avoidant
What are the behaviours of insecure-avoidant attachments?
They explore freely but do not seek proximity and do not show secure-base behaviours.
Show little to no reaction when their caregiver leaves and little stranger anxiety.
Make little effort to make contact when the caregiver returns and may even avoid such contact.
How many british babies have type A attachment?
20-25%
What is type C attachment?
Insecure-resistant attachment
What are the behaviours of type C attachments?
Seek greater proximity than others and so explore less.
High levels of stranger and separation anxiety but resist comfort when reunited with their caregiver.
How many british babies are classified as type C attachment?
3%
Describe the good predictive validity of the strange situation.
- Babies and toddlers assessed as type B tend to have better outcomes than others in both childhood and adulthood.
- In childhood this includes better achievement in school and less bullying (McCormick et al 2016, Kokkinos 2007).
- Secure babies tend to have better mental health in adulthood (Ward et al 2006)
- Type C had the worst turnout.
What does Kagan (1982) suggest about the strange situation?
Genetically-influenced anxiety levels could account for variations in attachment behaviour in the Strange Situation and later development.
Therefore the strange situation may not measure attachment.
Describe the good inter-rate reliability of the strange situation.
Bick et al (2012) tested inter-rate reliability for the Strange Situation for a team of trained observers and found agreeement on attachment type in 94% of cases.
This may be because of the highly controlled condititons of the experiment and the behaviours are easy to observe.
This shows that the judgement of attachment type does not depend on subjective judgements.
Describe how the strange situation may be culture bound.
The strange situation was developed in Britain and the USA.
Takahashi (1986) found Japanese babies displayed very high levels of separation anxiety so a disproportionate amount of babies were classified as insecure-resistant.
Takahashi (1990) suggested this was because the babies were not used to mother-baby separation as this is quite rare in Japan.
(Strange Situation) Who developed the fourth type of attachment and what was it and its behaviours?
Main and Solomon (1986)
Disorganised attachment (type d) is a mix of avoidant and resistant behaviours
Type D is very rare and babies usually have experienced severe neglect and abuse.
Most go on to develop psychological disorders by adulthood.
Who conducted a meta-analysis to find out about cultural variations of attachment?
Van IJzendoorn and Kroonenberg (1988)
How many studies were in Van IJzendoorn and Kroonenberg’s meta-analysis?
32
How many children were involved in Van IJzendoorn and Kroonenberg’s meta-analysis?
1990
What were the overall results of Van IJzendoorn and Kroonenberg’s meta-analysis?
In individualist cultures, the rates on insecure-resistant attachments were similar to Ainsworth’s original study.
In collectivist cultures (e.g. China, Japan and Israel) rates of insecure-resistant attachments were above 25%.
Some countries had large variations within them for example in some areas of the USA, only 46% were secure but in other areas some were 90%.
Cross-cultural difference- Grossman and Grossman (1991)- Germany
High levels of avoidant and low levels of resistant
Interpersonal distance between mother and child
No proximity seeking behaviour so appeared insecurely attached
58% secure
35% insecure avoidant
8% insecure resistant
Cross-cultural difference- Takahashi (1990)- Japan
60 middle-class mother and children
68% secure
32% insecure resistant
0% insecure avoidant
Distressed on being alone- sometimes had to stop
Infants rarely separated from their mother
Cross-cultural similarity- Fox (1977)- Israel
Studied infants raised in an Israeli Kibbutz
Strange situation with either mother or nurse
Equally attached to both however closer to mother upon reunion
Mothers are still primary caregiver
Not used to strangers so distressed when alone with stranger
68% secure
7% insecure avoidant
29% insecure resistant
Cross-cultural similarity- Tronick et al (1992)- Zaire
Live in extended family groups
Infants looked after and breast fed by other women
Slept with own mother mother at night
After six months show one primary attachment
Cross-cultural similarity- Ainsworth (1967)- Uganda
Mothers used as a secure base
Mothers of securely attached infants show more sensitivity
Factors are same as findings for UK and US
Indigenous researchers and van IJzendoorn and Kroonenberg’s meta-analysis.
Most of the research was done by indigenous researchers for example Grossman et al are from Germany.
This reduces the chance of researchers’ misunderstandings of the language and avoids bias because of nation’s stereotypes.
This will increase the validity.
Morelli and Tronick (1991) were outsiders from America when they studied child-rearing and attachment patterns in Zaire. This data may have been affected by difficulties in gathering data from participants outside their own culture.
Some countries may have been affected by bias.
Confounding variables and cultural variations in attachment.
Studies in different countries usually have different methodology when they are compared. Confounding variables can include social class and poverty. Non-matched studies conducted in different countries may not tell us anything about cross cultural variation.
Imposed etic and cross cultural variations in attachment
Imposed etic occurs when we impose an idea or technique that works in one cultural context to another.
For example in Germany a lack of response on reunion would be interpreted as independence instead of insecure avoidance.
So the strange situation may not work in other countries and so comparing the results across cultures is meaningless.
What is deprivation?
Losing something in which a person once had
What is privation?
Never having something in the first place
What did Robertson and Bowlby (1952) propose?
The PDD model which shows the short term effects of deprivation
What does PDD stand for?
Protest
Despair
Detached
Robertson and Robertson (1971)-
Conducted a study to see effects of deprivation and to minimise the consequences of the separation the children made visits to the Robertson’s home beforehand and the mother spoke to the child regularly in the separation.
The results were compared to John who spent nine days in conventional residential care.
John’s behaviour followed the PDD model.
Evaluation of Robertson and Robertson (1971)-
+ John is real life evidence of the PDD model.
- Case study and so will be hard to generalise.
- Barrett (1997) suggested the behaviour of John was him tying to cope with separation instead of protesting.
What is institutionalisation?
The effects of growing up in an orphanage or children’s home.
What are four impacts of institutionalisation.
- Lack of attachment
- Lower IQ
- ‘Affectionless psychopathy’
- Poor emotional maturity
Who conducted the English Romanian Adoptee study?
Rutter et al (1998)
What was the procedure of the ERA?
165 Romanian orphans and 52 British children (control group)
Assessed at 4,6,11,15 and 22-25
What type of study was the ERA?
Longitudinal
Independent groups design
What were the findings of the ERA in terms of IQ?
IQ before 6 months= 102
IQ after 6 months= 86
IQ after 2 years= 77
What were the findings of the ERA in terms of attachment type?
If they were adopted after 6 months they were likely to show a disinhibited attachment.
What is disinhibited attachment?
Child shows equal affection to strangers as they do people they know well.