Attachment Flashcards
Lorenz - Procedure
Experiment where he divided a clutch of goose eggs
Half were hatched with the mother goose in their natural environment
Other half were hatched in an incubator where the first moving object they saw was Lorenz
Lorenz - findings + conclusions
The incubator group followed lorenz everywhere
The control group followed their mother
When the two groups were mixed ip the control group continued to follow the mother and the experimental group followed lorenz
This phenomenon is called imprinted where bird species attach and follow the first moving object they see
Lorenz identified a critical period (few hours) in which imprinting takes place - if imprinting does not occur then chicks did not attach themselves to a mother figure
Lorenz - Sexual imprinting
Imprinting = animals form an attachment to the first large moving object that they meet which suggests that. attachment is innate and programmed genetically.
Lorenz observed that birds that imprinted on a human would show courtship towards humans
Case study: A peacock reared in the reptile house which first saw giant tortoises first after being hatched would show courtship towards them which meant he had undergone sexual imprinting
Lorenz - strength
Highly influential within the field of field of developmental psychology:
The fact that attachment formation is under biological control and that attachment formation happens within a specific time frame (as suggested in Lorenz’s study) has led developmental psychologists (such as Bowlby) to develop well recognised theories of attachment suggesting the attachment formation takes place during a critical period and is a biological process. Such theories have been highly influential in the way child care is administered today e.g. maternity leave consists of 52 weeks
Lorenz - generalisability to humans:
The mammalian attachment system is different from that in birds e.g. mammalian mothers show more emotional attachment to young than birds and mammals may be able to form attachments at any time, albeit less easily than in infancy. Therefore, this suggests that such findings have low ecological validity because they cannot be generalised beyond the research setting within which they were found
Guiton et al
found that chickens that imprinted on yellow washing up gloves would try to mate with them as adults (as Lorenz predicted) but with experience eventually learned to prefer mating with other chickens which suggests that the impact of mating behaviour is not permanent as Lorenz believed
Harlow - procedure
Harlow tested the idea that a soft object serves some of the functions of a mother
He reared 16 baby monkeys with a wire model ‘mothers’
which dispensed and a cloth-covered ‘mother’
when fightened the monkeys ran to the cloth
Harlow - findings + conclusions
Baby monkeys that cuddled the soft object in preference to the wire one
The monkeys sought comfort from the cloth one when frightened regardless of which dispensed milk
This showed that ‘contact comfort’ was more important to the monkeys than food when it came to attachment behaviour
Attachment does not develop as a result of being fed but as a result of contact comfort
Contact Comfort
physical and emotional comfort that an infant receives from being in physical contact with its mother
Maternally deprived monkeys as adults
The monkeys reared with wire moneys were the most dysfunctional but those reared with a soft toy did not develop normal social behaviour
They were more aggressive and less sociable than other monkeys and bred less often (unskilled at mating)
As mothers, the deprived monkeys neglected their young and others attacked their children (even killing them in some cases)
The critical period for normal development for monkeys
Harlow concluded that a mother figure had to be introduced to an infant monkey within for 90 days for an attachment to form
After this time attachment was impossible and the damage done by early deprivation became irreversible
Harlow - practical value
Practical value:
Harlow’s insight has important applications in a range of practical contexts e.g. it has helped social workers (such as Howe) understand risk factors in child neglect/abuse and how to intervene to prevent it
Harlow - Ethical issues
The monkeys suffered greatly facing long term irreversible effects as a form of the experiment. As the species is considered similar to humans, its presumed their suffering was quite human-like however Harlow’s research was sufficiently important to justify the effects
Harlow - Application
Psychologists disagree on the extent to which studies on non-human primates can be generalised to humans. Monkeys are similar in some ways to humans because they are primates but humans have much larger brains and are psychologically more complex. Humans can also make conscious decisions about social interactions to a much greater extent than monkeys. Some are against generalising the findings. Albeit animal studies have tight control over the conditions; in humans we can only study existing cases of deprivation, not create those conditions for an experiment.
Dollard and Miller
Proposed that the caregiver-infant attachment can be explained by learning theory. Their approach is sometimes called ‘cupboard love’ approach because it emphasis the importance of the caregiver as the provider of food
Classical conditioning - Learning theory
Food serves as an unconditioned stimulus (UCS) which gives us pleasure which is an unconditioned response (UCR)
The caregiver acts as a neutral stimulus (NS)
When the caregiver provides food they become ‘associated’ with the food and the caregiver now becomes a conditioned stimulus (CS) as there is an expectation of food with the caregiver
This association produces the conditioned response (CR) of pleasure at the sight of caregiver
Operant conditioning - Learning theory
1) It can explain why babies cry for comfort as it leads to a response by the caregiver e.g feeding then the baby is likely to repeat the act of crying as it leads to a pleasant consequence therefore the behaviour has been reinforced.
2) This reinforcement is a two-way process the caregiver receives negative reinforcement because the crying stops (an unpleasant outcome is stopped) after providing attention to the baby so the caregiver’s behaviour of giving a child attention is reinforced.
This interplay of mutual reinforcement strengthens an attachment
Learning theory - strength
The only main strength of learning theory is that it does provide an adequate explanation for attachment as we learn through reinforcement and association. However, food may not be the main reinforcement, other ‘rewards’ such as attention and responsiveness may create the bond – which is not accounted for in the learning theory.
Learning theory - counter evidence from animal research
a range of animal studies have shown that young animals do not necessarily attach to (or imprint) on those who feed them. Lorenz’s geese imprinted before they were fed and maintained these attachments regardless of who fed them. Harlow’s monkeys attached to a soft surrogate in preference to a wire one that dispensed milk. In both studies it is clear that attachment does not form as a result of feeding so it is possible that food does not create the attachment bond.
Learning theory - counter-evidence from human research
research with human infants also shows that feeding does not appear to be an important factor e.g in Shaffer and Emerson’s study many babies developed a primary attachment to their biological mother even though other carers did most of the feeding. This also shows that feeding is not the key element to attachment
Monotropy - Bowlby’s explanation of attachment
Close and important bond with a single primary caregiver - if this monotropic bond did not occur then negative consequences could occur
Social releasers and the critical period - Bowlby’s explanation of attachment
Bowlby suggested that babies are born with a set of innate behaviours like smiling/cooing that grip attention from adults which he refers to as social releasers as they ‘unlock’ the tendency of adults to care for children.
Bowlby proposed that there is a critical period of about two years where the child forms an attachment with the caregiver
Internal working model - Bowlby’s explanation of attachment
A child forms a mental representation of their relationship with their primary caregiver called an internal working model because it serves as a model for what future relationships are like.
Key features of Bowlby’s theory
ASCMI
1. Adaptive advantage: attachments are adaptive - make us more likely to survive: an infant with an attachment to a caregiver is kept safe, given food, and kept warm.
2. Social releasers: physical/behavioural releasers that ‘unlock’ the innate tendency of adults to care for children
3. Critical period: period of time that a baby has to form an attachment with their caregiver or they will face the consequence of maternal deprivation - cognitive/emotional difficulties such as reduced intelligence and increased aggression
4. Monotropy: One very special intense attachment with the mother or another ever-present adult
Formed through the monotropic attachment and is a mental representation of all future relationships
5. Internal working model: Formed through the monotropic attachment and is a mental representation of all future relationships
Brazleton et al
conducted an experiment where primary attachment figures were instructed to ignore their babies’ signals (their social releasers). The babies showed some distress but when the figures continued to ignore the baby, some responded by curling up and lying motionless. The fact that the responded so strongly so supports Bowlby’s ideas about the significance of infant social behaviour in eliciting caregiving
Strength - Bowlby’s explanation of attachment
Bailey et al
assesed mothers with one-year old babies: using interviews to test the quality of their attachment to their own mothers and then using observations to assess the attachment of these mothers with their own babies. They found that mothers who reported poor attachment to their own parents were classified as poor according to the observations. This supports the idea that an internal working model of attachment was being passed through families
Strength - Bowlby’s explanation of attachment
Monotropy is a socially sensitive idea
It has major implications for the lifestyle choices mothers make when their children are young. Feminists like Burman have pointed out this places a terrible burden of responsibility on mothers setting them to take the blame for anything that goes wrong in the childs life. It also pushes mothers into a particular lifestyle of not working when a child is born. - debate whether this is a limitation because an inconvenience of an idea does not make it wrong but researchers need to be careful promoting ideas that have negative social consequences
Limitation - Bowlby’s explanation of attachment
Mixed evidence for monotropy
Bowlby believed that babies formed one special attachment to their primary caregiver and only after this was formed then the child could form multiple attachments. Schaffer and Emerson found that most babies did attach to one person first but a significant minority were able to form multiple attachments.
Limitation - Bowlby’s explanation of attachment
