Attachment

Question 1

Define attachment

Answer 1

A close, two way, emotional bond between two individuals in which each sees the other as essential for emotional security.

Question 2

What are the three attachment behaviours.

Answer 2

Proximity
Separation distress
Secure base behaviour

Question 3

What is proximity as an attachment behaviour

Answer 3

People try to stay physically close to those whom which they are attached

Question 4

What is separation distress as an attachment behaviour

Answer 4

People are distressed when an attachment figure leaves their presence

Question 5

What is secure base behaviour as an attachment behaviour

Answer 5

Even when we are independent of our attachment figures, we tend to make regular contact with them.

Question 6

Who did the two animal studies

Answer 6

Lorenz

Harlow (1958)

Question 7

What was lorenz’s procedure

Answer 7

Randomly divided a clutch of goose eggs.
Half of the eggs hatched with mother in natural environment.
Other half hatched in an incubator where the first moving object they saw was lorenz.

Question 8

What was lorenz’s findings

Answer 8

The incubator group followed Lorenz everywhere whereas the control group followed their mother.
When the two groups were mixed up, the control group followed mother and experimental group still followed Lorenz.

Question 9

What was lorenz’s conclusion

Answer 9

The geese imprinted (bird species that are mobile from birth attach and follow the first moving object they see for safety).
Lorenz identified a critical period in which imprinting needs to take place. (Depends on the species of bird but if imprinting doesn’t happen in this time, they won’t attach to mother).

Question 10

What else did Lorenz investigate

Answer 10

The relationship between imprinting and adult male preferences.
He observed that birds that imprinted on a human would often later display courtship behaviour towards the human. He called this ‘sexual imprinting’.

Question 11

What did Harlow study

Answer 11

He tested the idea that a soft object serves some of the functions of a mother and that comfort was more important than food. (A common theory at the time was that we attached to those that fed us).

Question 12

What was Harlows procedure

Answer 12

In one experiment he reared 16 baby monkeys with two wire model ‘mothers’. In one condition milk was dispensed by the plain wire monkey whereas in the other condition the milk was dispensed by the cloth covered monkey.
He then measured how long the baby monkeys would cling to each mother.
Harlow also frightened the monkeys and measured which mother they ran to for comfort

Question 13

What was harlows findings

Answer 13

The baby monkeys cuddled the soft mother in preference to the wire one. They also sought comfort from the cloth one when frightened, regardless of which mother dispensed milk.

Question 14

What was Harlows conclusion

Answer 14

Contact comfort was more important to the monkeys than food when it came to attachment behaviour.

Question 15

Harlow and his colleagues also followed the monkeys who had been deprived of a real mother into adulthood. Why?

Answer 15

To see if early maternal deprivation had a permanent effect.

Question 16

What did the researchers find when they followed the monkeys into adulthood. (Harlow)

Answer 16

Severe consequences.
Monkeys reared with wire monkeys were most dysfunctional; however the ones with the cloth mother did not develop normal social behaviour.
They were more aggressive and less sociable and bred less often.
Some of these monkeys became mothers and since they were neglected, they also neglected their children and sometimes attacked them.

Question 17

What was the conclusion when Harlow followed monkeys into adulthood

Answer 17

He concluded that there was a critical period for this behaviour- a mother figure had to be introduced to an infant monkey within 90 days for an attachment to form.
After this time, attachment was impossible and the damage done by early deprivation was irreversible.