Attachment

Question 1

Harlow (1950s) (P&F)

Answer 1

• Infant-mother attachment
• Separated newborn monkeys from their mothers
• Each monkey had 2 surrogate mothers
• 1 made from wire which dispensed milk
• 1 made of cloth (softer) with no milk
• Monkeys preferred the cloth mother despite they didn’t provide nourishment.
• They only went to the wire mother if they needed to be fed
• The feelings of comfort and security are critical to maternal infant bonding subverting the belife nourishment was the reason for attachments to form.

Question 2

Harlow (1950s) Evaluation

Answer 2

• Unnecessarily cruel (unethical)
• Emotional harm experienced by monkeys
• Lack internal validity due to Confounding variables (heads of mothers)
• Animal behaviour can’t be generalised to human behaviour
• Valuable as attachment as a social behaviour
• More benefit than the cost
• Schaffer and Emerson research support

Question 3

Lorenz (1935) (P&F)

Answer 3

• Imprinting (geese)
• He hatched a group of Grey lay geese
• ½ were incubated while the others were left with their mother
• Once hatched the incubated geese followed Lorenz (imprinted on him)
• He tested this by placing all the geese in an upside-down box
• He walked away from it and the released geese that were previously incubated followed him.
• The critical period for geese was between 13-16 hours after hatching
• If hatchlings didn’t imprint in this time, they can’t imprint on anything else and is not reversable.
• Humans don’t Imprint

Question 4

Lorenz (1935) Evaluation

Answer 4

• Guiton (1966) supports this as chicks imprinted on his yellow glove
• Distress for geese (unethical)
• Ethical issues regarding irreversibility
• Hoffman (1976) challenges irreversibility when chicks are returned to their natural enviroment.
• Not directly generalised to humans

Question 5

Ainsworth and Bell (1971) (P&F)

Answer 5

• Types of attachment
• They conducted a controlled lab observation of a child and caregiver.
• The child was unaware that they were being observed through a one-way mirror
• The child was observed playing for 20 minutes
• There were 8 episodes that lasted about 3 minutes each
• Each episode changed something in the child’s enviroment such as the presence of their care giver or a stranger
• The observation helped develop 3 main attachment types for the infants
• This was based on measures of separation and stranger anxiety and reunion behaviour
• 70% were secure and the other 30% were evenly resistant or avoidant.

Question 6

Ainsworth and Bell (1971) Evaluation

Answer 6

• Low ecological validity
• Lack of population validity
• Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg (1988) discovered cultural differences (meta-analysis)
• Easily replicated
• Standardised procedure

Question 7

Bowlby (1930s-40s) 44 Thieves (P&F)

Answer 7

• Maternal deprivation
• Opportunity sample 88 children
• Group 1 Thief group 31(b) 13(g)
• Group 2 Control group 34(b) 10(g)
• Matched age and IQ
• Interviewed the children and parents about early life experiences.
• 14 in Group were affectionless psychopaths with 12 experiencing prolonged separation (over 6 months)
• Only 5 out of 30 not classified as affectionless psychopaths experienced separation
• Only 2 of the control group experienced separation and none were affectionless psychopaths

Question 8

Bowlby (1930s-40s) 44 Thieves Evaluation

Answer 8

• Harlow’s research supports the theory
• Real life application (orphanages)
• Not distinguishing of either depravation or privation
• Hodges and Tizard research on privation and institutional care shows social factors can reverse effects

Question 9

Rutter (1998) Romanian Orphan studies (P&F)

Answer 9

• Longitudinal and Natural
• 100 orphans who have been institutionalised from 1-2 weeks old
• 3 Conditions: 58 were adopted before 6 months, 59 between 6-24 months old and 48 babies between 2-4 years old.
• Assessed from ages 4, 6, 12 and 15
• Children who were adopted (by English families) before 6 months had normal emotional development and higher IQ’s (102-77).
• Those adopted after 6 months showed disinhibited attachments (attention seeking, lack of fear of strangers and inappropriate physical contact).
• Long term consequences of institutionalisation can be less severe if children have time to form attachments.

Question 10

Rutter (1998) Romanian Orphan studies Evaluation

Answer 10

• Ecological validity
• Research support (Chungani et al. 2001) Scans showed impairments in orphan brains in regions responsible for attention and social interaction.
  Orbital frontal gyrus, prefrontal cortex/hippocampus, amygdala, and brain stem had decrease activity.
• Detailed measures (interviews and observations)
• Bowlby and Harlow support for critical period for attachments.
• No significant ethical issues
• Lack of population validity as it’s hard to generalise due to extreme circumstances.
• Lack of representation as adopted children might not wish to take part.