Attachment

Question 1

reciprocity

Answer 1

responding to the action of another with a similar action

Question 2

interactional synchrony

Answer 2

a baby and a mother (or just two people) mirroring one another at the same time

Question 3

Strengths and weaknesses of caregiver infant interactions (interactional synchrony and reciprocity)

Answer 3

Strengths = Experiments filmed in a lab - other activity that could distract a baby is controlled , observations can be recorded and analysed later. - good reliability and validity
Isabela et al - interactional synchrony predicted the development of a good quality attachment

Weaknesses = Hard to interpret babys behaviour
Observing a babys behaviour does not tell us its developmental importance

Question 4

The 4 stages of attachment in order - Schaffer and Emerson

Answer 4

1. Asocial
2. Indiscriminate
3. Specific
4. Multiple

Question 5

Shaffer and Emersons research into the stages of attachment :

Answer 5

Procedure :
- 60 babies : 31 boys and 29 girls
- Glasgow - predominanetly working class families
- Researchers visited babies and their mothers in their own home every month for the first year and again at 18 months
- Researchers asked the mothers questions about the kind of protest their babies showed in 7 everyday situations

Question 6

2 strengths of Schaffer and Emersons stages of attachment

Answer 6

• Has good external validity : observations made by parents during ordinary activities - babies behaved naturally whilst being observed
• Stages have practical applications in day care - in asocial and indiscriminate stage day care is likely to be straightforward - parents use of daycare can be planned using the stages of attachment

Question 7

2 weaknesses of Shaffer and Emersons stages of attachment

Answer 7

• Validity of the measures they used to assess attachment in the asocial stage : young babies have poor co-ordination skills and are fairly immobile ; difficult to observe and judge
• Issues with asking mothers to be ‘observers’ - unlikely to be objective observers - behaviour maybe not accurately recorded

Question 8

two studies on the role of the father

Answer 8

• Tiffany Field - primary and secondary attachments
• Grossmann et al - longitudinal study - do fathers have the same value in attachment and if so does it play a role in development?

Question 9

what did Grossmann et al study and how did he do this (procedure) and findings

Answer 9

Procedure :
- longitudinal study (carried out over a long period of time)
- babies attachment studied until they were teens
- researcher looked at both parents attachment and the relationship with later attachment

Findings :
- quality of attachment with mothers but not fathers was related to attachments in adolescents
- attachment to father is less important than attachment to mother
- quality of fathers play related to quality of adolescents attachment
- fathers have different roles to mothers – fathers = play and stimulation , mothers = emotional development and nurturing

Question 10

by what age (how many months) did babies show attachment to their fathers

Answer 10

18 months

Question 11

what did Tiffany Field do and what were the findings

Answer 11

Procedure :
- filmed 4 month old babies face to face interaction with primary caregiver mothers , secondary caregiver fathers and primary caregiver mothers

Findings:
- primary caregiver mothers and fathers spent more time smiling, imitating and holding babies (reciprocity and interactional synchrony) than secondary caregivers
- fathers have the potential to be more emotion - focused primary attachment figure - they can provide the responsiveness required for a close emotional attachment but perhaps only express this when given the role of primary caregiver

Question 12

two strengths of the role of the father

Answer 12

• mothers may feel pressured to fit the stereotypical role of stay at home and fathers pressured to focus on work - this may not be economically feasible (or best solution) : research into the role of father can be used as reassuring advice to parenting
• single mothers and lesbian parent families can simply to adapt without having a father and this won’t effect child development

Question 13

two weaknesses of the role of the father

Answer 13

• lack of clarity of the question being asked - ‘what is the role of the father?’ - some researchers more concerned with fathers as primary attachment figures and some secondary
• findings vary based on methodology being used : longitudinal studies (Grossmann) suggests that fathers play a secondary role and involve with play and stimulation which would suggest that children in same sex couples or single mother families would develop differently which has been discovered not to be the case

Question 14

the two animal studies of attachment and their main theory

Answer 14

• Lorenz : imprinting
• Harlow : contact comfort / seeking proximity

Question 15

what was Lorenz procedure and findings :

Answer 15

Procedure:
- Classic experiment in which he randomly divided a large clutch of goose eggs
- Half the eggs were hatched with the mother goose
- Half of the eggs were hatched in an incubator when the first moving object they saw was Lorenz

Findings:
- The incubator group followed Lorenz everywheras whereas the control group continued to follow the mother
- When the two groups were mixed the control group continued to follow the mother and the experimental group continued to follow Lorenz
- Critical period in which imprinting needs to take place - dependent on species this can be as brief as a few hours after birth

Question 16

sexual imprinting - Lorenz

Answer 16

Case study :
- Peacock that had been reared (brought up) in the reptile house of a zoo where the first moving objects they saw after hatching were giant tortoises. As an adult the peacock would only direct courtship behaviour towards giant tortoises. The peacock has undergone sexual imprinting.

Question 17

one strength and one weakness of Lorenzs study

Answer 17

Strength :
Exisistence for suport for the concept of imprinting. A study by Regolin and Vallortigara - chicks exposed to simple shape combinations : young animals are born with an innate mechanism to imprint on a moving object present in the critical window of development as predicted by Lorenz

Weakness :
Lack of ability to generalise findings and conclusion from birds to humans (cannot extrapolate between the two species). The mammilian attachment system quite different and more complex than birds.

Question 18

Harlows procedure and findings

Answer 18

Procedure:
Tested the idea that a soft object serves some of the functions of a mother
- 16 baby monkeys with two wire model ‘mothers’
- one condition milk was dispensed by the plain wire mother
- second condition the milk was dispensed by cloth covered mother

Findings:
- Babies cuddled the cloth covered mother in preference to plain wire mother and sought comfort from the cloth covered mother when frightened (e.g by a noisy mechinal teddy bear) regardless of which mother dispensed milk
- contact comfort was more important to the monkeys than food

Question 19

maternally deprived monkeys as adults - Harlow

Answer 19

• Monkeys reared with plain wire mothers were the most dysfunctional
• Those reared with cloth covered monkeys did also not develop normal social behaviour
• Deprived monkeys more aggressive and less sociable than other monkeys
• When they became mothers some of them deprived neglected their young and others attacked their children (in some cases even killing them)

Question 20

What did Harlow and Lorenz agree upon

Answer 20

There is a critical period for attachment formation

Question 21

one strength and one weakness of Harlows research

Answer 21

Strength :
Real world applications - social workers and clinical psychologists : lack of bonding experience may be a risk factor in child development - theory is practical

Weakness :
Ability to generalise findings and conclusions from monkeys to humans (cannot extrapolate).

Question 22

what is the main idea Dollard and Miller suggested about the learning theory

Answer 22

Often referred as ‘cupboard love’ approach as it emphasises the importance of the attachment figure as a provider of food
- Children learn to love whoever feeds them

Question 23

Explanation of attachment - learning theory : name the two types of conditioning and how this might relate to attachment

Answer 23

Classical conditioning :
Neutral stimulus - Caregiver
Unconditioned stimulus - food
Unconditioned response - pleasure
Conditioned stimulus - caregiver
Conditioned response - pleasure of seeing caregiver

Operant conditioning :
- Babies crying for comfort - crying leads to a response from caregiver and as long as the caregiver continue to produce this response the crying is reinforced

Question 24

why might attachment be seen as a secondary drive in the learning theory

Answer 24

• Hunger = primary drive : its innate, biological motivator - motivated to eat in order to reduce hunger drive

Question 25

one strength of the learning theory of attachment

Answer 25

Elements of conditioning could be involved in some aspects of attachment - unlikely that food plays a central role in attachment - conditioning may still play a role - learning theory may still be useful in understanding the development of attachments

Question 26

three weaknesses of the learning theory in attachment

Answer 26

• Lack of support from studies conducted on animals -Lorenz (imprinting before seeing food) and Harlow (showed contact comfort to be more important)
• Lack of support from studies of human babies - Isabella et al : high levels of interactional synchrony predict the quality of attachment - food is not the main factor
• Classical and operant conditioning see babies playing a passive role in attachment development - research shows however babies play an active role in attachment

Question 27

What does Monotropy mean - Bowlby

Answer 27

Bowlby placed great emphasis on the childs attachment to one particular caregiver (mono = one)

Question 28

what two principles did Bowlby create to clarify the idea that the more amount a child spent with the primary caregiver the better

Answer 28

Law of continuity - the more consistent and predictable a childs care the better the quality of the attachment
Law of accumulated seperation - the effects of every seperation from the mother add up “the safest dose is zero dose”

Question 29

Within his monotropic theory what 3 other things did Bowlby suggest there are and what do they mean

Answer 29

• Social releasers : Purpose is to activate adult social interaction and so make an adult attach to the baby (e.g smiling, cooing and gripping)
• Critical period: A child is maximally sensitive from the age of 6 months up to 2 years
• Internal working model : A child forms a mental representation of their relationship with their primary attachment figure - this serves as a model for what future relationships are like

Question 30

what is one weakness of Bowlbys monotropic theory

Answer 30

• Lacks validity : Shaffer and Emerson : multiple attachment stage & first attachment does appear to have a strong influence on later behaviour this may simply mean it is stronger not different in quality from other attachments

Question 31

one strength for social releasers

Answer 31

• Supporting evidence : Brazelton et al : parents told to ignore social releasers - babies became increasingly distressed and some eventually curled up and lay motionless

Question 32

one strength and one weakness for the internal working model

Answer 32

strength :
- Supporting evidence : Bailey et al - 99 mothers and 1 year old babies : mothers with poor attachment to their own primary attachment figures were more likely to have poorly attached babies

Weakness :
Probably other important influences on social development. - some psychologists believe that genetic differences in anxiety and sociability affect social behaviour - Bowlby may have overstated the importance of the internal working model in social behaviour and parenting at the expense of other factors

Question 33

who conducted the strange situation experiment

Answer 33

Mary Ainsworth

Question 34

what was the procedure of the strange situation experiment

Answer 34

• Controlled observation
• Takes place in room with quite controlled conditions (i.e lab) with a two-way mirror and/or camera through which psychologists can observe babys behaviour

Measured using 5 behaviours:
- Proximity - seeking
- Exploration and secure-base behaviour
- Seperation anxiety
- Stranger anxiety
- Response upon reunion

• Experiment has 8 episodes each lasting 3 minutes
• Episodes included stranger entering room,mother leaving etc

Question 35

what 3 types of attachment did Ainsworth discover through this experiment

Answer 35

• Insecure avoidant
• Insecure resistant
• Secure

Question 36

what do each types of attachment styles mean

Answer 36

Secure : Explore happily but regularly go back to caregiver, moderate seperation and stranger anxiety, require and accept comfort on reunion

Insecure avoidant : Explore freely but do not seek proximity, little to no stranger or seperation anxiety and make no contact on reunion

Insecure resistant : Seek greater proximity and explore less, high levels of stranger and seperation anxiety and initially require comfort but then resist upon reunion

Question 37

2 strengths of the strange situation

Answer 37

• Outcome predicts a number of aspects of the baby’s later development - secure attachments tend to have better outcomes than others both in later childhoods and in adulthood : measures something real and meaningful in a baby’s development
• Good inter-rate reliability (the agreement between different observers) : agreement on attachment type in 94% of cases - can be confident that attachment type as assessed by the Strange Situation does not depend on subjective judgements

Question 38

2 weaknesses of the Strange situation

Answer 38

• Not all psychologists believe that the experiment measures attachment - genetically influenced anxiety levels could account for variations in attachment behaviour
• May not be a valid measure of attachment in different cultural contexts ; experiment developed in the US and Britain so may be culture bound - difficult to know what the strange situation is meausuring when outside of Europe or the US (experiment is ethnocentric)

Question 39

who studied the cultural variations in attachment

Answer 39

Van Ijzendoorn & Kroonenberg

Question 40

what was the procedure and findings of the cultural variations study

Answer 40

Procedure :
- located 32 studies of attachment where the Strange Situation had been used
- 8 countries - 15 studies done in US
- Overall study yielded 1,990 children
- Data for these 32 studies meta- analysed

Findings :
- In all countries secure attachment was the most common attachment type
- In indiviualistic cultures rates of insecure-resistant were similar to Ainsworth (under 14%) but in collectivist cultures such as Israel, Japan and China rates were above 25%
- Germany had the largest amount insecure avoidant - anomaly

Question 41

one strength of cultural variations in attachment studies

Answer 41

Most studies conducted by indigenous researchers (same cultural background as participants) - misunderstandings are avoided such as language misunderstandings or having difficulty communicating instructions to them or difficulties such as bias because of a nations stereotype
- enhancing validity of the data collected

Question 42

3 weaknesses of the cultural variations in attachment studies

Answer 42

• Not all studies used indigenous researchers - e.g Morelli and Tronick were outsiders from America - data collected from some studies affected by bias and cross-cultural communication
• Impact of confounding variables on findings : studies conducted not matched for methodology : e.g sample characteristics such as poverty, social class and urban make and age of participants can confound results - environmental variables may also differ (e.g size of room or availability of interesting toys)
• Trying to impose a test designed for one cultural context to another - Imposed etic (assumption that an idea or technique that works in one culture will work in another)

Question 43

seperation vs deprivation

Answer 43

Seperation : The child not being in the presence of a primary attachment figure
Deprivation : Extended periods of deprivation where a child is deprived of emotional care - this causes harm

Question 44

what two ways can maternal deprivation affect development

Answer 44

• Intellectual development : e.g abnormally low IQ
• Emotional development : e.g affectionless psychopathy (inability to feel guilt or strong emotions towards others)

Question 45

Bowlbys 44 thieves study - procedure and findings

Answer 45

Procedure :
- 44 delinquent (criminal) teenagers accused of stealing interviewed for signs of affectionless psychopathy
- families also interviewed to see if the ‘thieves’ had prolonged early seperation from their mothers
- sample compared to control group of 44 non-criminal but emotionally disturbed teenagers

Findings :
- 14 / 44 thieves = affectionless psychopaths
- 12 / 14 = experienced prolonged seperation
- 5 of the remaining 30 ‘thieves’ had experienced prolonged seperation

control group :
- 2 /44 = experienced prolonged seperation

Question 46

2 weaknesses of Bowlbys maternal deprivation theory

Answer 46

• Poor quality of the evidence it is based on : Bowlby carried out both family interviews and assessments for affectionless psychopathy (44 thieves) - open to bias
• Maternal deprivation has confusion between different types of early experience : Deprivation = loss of primary attachment figure after attachment has been formed & Privation = failure to form an attachment in the first place - Bowlby may have overestimated the seriousness of the effects of deprivaiton in childrens development
• Critical vs Sensitive period - good quality aftercare can prevent most if not all damage of first 2 years of life : the case of the Czech twins - experienced severe and emotional abuse up until the age of 7 , received excellent aftercare and recovered fully by their teenage years

Question 47

Rutter et al’s research on Romanian orphans

Answer 47

Procedure :
- Followed group of 165 Romanian orphans for many years as part of ERA (English and Romanian Adoptee) study
- Orphans adopted by families in the UK
- Physical , emotional and cognitive development assessed at ages 4,6,11,15,22-25
- control group = 52 children from the UK adopted around the same time

Question 48

what were the findings of Rutter et als research

Answer 48

• When the children first arrived in the UK - 1/2 of adoptees showed signs of delayed intellectual development and majority severly malnourished
• Age 11 = children showed differential rates of recovery that were related to age of adoption
• Mean IQ of children adopted before age of 6 months = 102
• Mean IQ of children adopted 6 months - 2 years = 86
• Mean IQ of children adopted 2 + years = 77
• ADHD more common in 15 and 22-25 year olds

Question 49

What type of attachment style did most have that were adopted after 6 months - Romanian Orphan studies

Answer 49

Disinhibited attachment

Question 50

What does it mean if a person has disinhibited attachment

Answer 50

• Often :
  Attention seeking
  Clinginess
  Social behaviour
  Little to no stranger anxiety

Question 51

Zeanah et al - Bucharest early intervention project - Procedure and findings

Answer 51

Procedure :
- 95 Romanian children aged 12-31 months who had spent most of their life in institutional care (90% on average)
- Control group = 50 children who had never lived in an institution
- Attachment type measured using the Strange situation
- Carers asked about unusual social behaviour

Findings :
- Control group = 74% classed as securely attachment , 20% disinhibitely attached
- Experiment group = 19% securely attached, 44% disinhibitely attached

Question 52

2 strengths of the Romanian Orphan studies

Answer 52

• Application to improve conditions for children growing up outside their family home : led to improvements in the conditions experienced by looked after children - one or two ‘key-workers’ for each child who play central role in emotional care
• Lack of confounding variables : children from Romanian orphanages had (mostly) been handed over by loving parents who could not afford to keep them - much less likely to be confounded by other negative early experiences (higher internal validity)

Question 53

2 weaknesses of the Romanian orphan studies

Answer 53

• Quality of care remarkably poor in these Romanian institutions - harmful effects seen in studies may represent the effects of poor institutional care rather than institutional care
• Lack of data on adult development - latest data from ERA is 22-25 : time-consuming because of longitudinal design, some time until we discover more about long term effects for Romanian orphans

Question 54

Relationships in childhood : Attachment types and how they’re likely to act and or be in friendships

Answer 54

Secure = form best quality childhood friendships , unlikely to bully
Insecurely attached = friendship difficulties
Insecure avoidant = most likely to be victims of bullying
Insecure resistant = most likely to bully

Question 55

Hazen and Shaver - Love quiz (Procedure and findings)

Answer 55

Procedure :
- analysed 620 replies to a ‘love quiz’ printed in American local newspaper
- Quiz had 3 sections : current or most important relationship , love experiences and number of partners , established attachment type

Findings:
- 56% of respondents = securely attached : most likely to have long-lasting romantic experiences
- 25% = insecure avoidant : reveal jealousy and fear of intimacy
- 19% = insecure resistant : most likely to be divorced and prone to obsession

Question 56

one strength on the studies of early attachments on later relationships

Answer 56

Supporting evidence - Secure attachment as a baby appears to convey advantages for future development whilst disorganised attachment appears to seriously disadvantage children.

Question 57

4 weaknesses of influence of early attachment on later relationships studies

Answer 57

• Most research into the influence of early attachment on later relationships is assessed retrospectively - most studies are not longitudinal - measures of early attachment used in most studies may be confounded with other factors making them meaningless
• Confounding variables - e.g parenting style or genetically influenced : can never be entirely sure that it is early attachment and not some other factors that is influencing later development
• Hazen and Shaver : Volunteers used - may not represent wider population + questionnaire used so people may give socially desirable responses
• Temperament hypothesis : Kagan - temperaments (personality) ignored as a factor when studying later relationships