Attachment Flashcards
What procedure did Harlow use in his animal study?
IV(a) = Soft towelling cloth monkey with no food
IV(b) = Wire mother with food
DV = Time spent on each ‘mother’
Frightening event was the mechanical bear.
What were the findings of Harlow’s study?
Monkeys preferred ‘contact comfort’ over food. Monkeys spent 18 hours with soft cloth ‘mother’.
What was Lorenz’ procedure?
He studied imprinting.
Divided a clutch of gosling eggs - 6 of them hatched naturally with their mother and 6 of them hatched in the incubator and saw Lorenz as the first animate being.
He then placed all goslings together and found that none of the incubator goslings recognised their mother.
What were Lorenz’ findings?
Goslings imprint on the first persistently moving/living thing they see.
They imprint within the first 24 hours.
Goslings did not recognise their mother.
Imprinting is restricted to a very definite period called the critical period. If the animal doesn’t imprint within this period, it will never imprint.
Imprinting is irreversible.
Animal Studies AO3 = Limitation of Harlow’s Research?
Confounding / Extraneous variables. There was a different head used for both mothers. This was a problem because we can’t be sure whether the monkey chose the soft one because of the head or comfort. The soft towelling cloth mother looked more like a monkey than the wire mother.
MEAN WE CANNOT ESTABLISH CAUSE AND EFFECT.
Animal Studies AO3 = Limitation of Animal studies?
Extrapolation issues. Birds have a much shorter critical period. Mammals are more complex and attachment is a 2 way process in humans. Mammals also have emotion, which we cannot measure in animals.
The findings of both studies are not generalisable since attachment is much simpler in birds and monkeys.
Animal Studies AO3 = Other studies to support Lorenz’ research?
Number of other studies have demonstrated imprinting on animals - 1 psychologist demonstrated that chicks imprinted on yellow rubber gloves while being fed during their first few weeks. This supports the view that animals aren’t born with a predisposition to imprint on a specific object, however, animate objects are preferred during the critical period. When they grew up, the male chicks also tried to mate with the gloves, which suggests that early imprinting was linked to reproductive behaviour.
Classical conditioning theory of attachment?
UCS = Food (innate stimulus) UCR = Pleasure NS = Mother CS = Mother CR = Pleasure
Baby associates mother with food. Baby then anticipates food due to presence of the mother.
Operant conditioning theory of attachment?
Dollard and Miller.
Drive reduction theory - baby will get a drive to reduce discomfort of hunger.
Baby gets hungry. Baby cries. Mother comes to stop crying. Baby gets food. Baby no longer has drive for hunger. Mother feels at peace.
Positive reinforcement - Baby gets rewarded for their actions and so will repeat in the future.
Negative reinforcement - Mother gives baby food to stop the crying and to return to the pre aversive state.
Why would a baby form an attachment to someone according to the Learning theory?
Signal Responsiveness.
Learning Theory AO3 = Limitation - ‘Harlow’s support’?
Attachment is not based on food. Harlow argues that attachment occurs due to contact comfort. However, Harlow’s research faces extrapolation issues; though Schaffer and Emerson support Harlow. Limits the learning theory since other studies and research contradicts the suggestion that attachment may occur due to food.
Learning Theory AO3 = Limitation ‘not a complete explanation’
Bowlby’s explanation is a more complete explanation. The learning theory of attachment does not say why attachment forms, it only says how it forms. Bowlby on the other hand provides explanations for strengths of attachment (e.g to protect infant from harm) while learning theory doesn’t explain any strengths of attachment.
Learning Theory AO3 = Strength ‘signal responsiveness’?
Food may not be the main reinforcer. It may be that attention and responsiveness from caregiver provides more important rewards. This challenges Bowlby’s theory that attachment is adaptive since this suggests that attachment doesn’t occur due to an innate drive to survive, but because of the fact that the baby ensures they have a caregiver that will provide important rewards and will respond to their needs.
What was Bowlby’s Monotropic Theory.
Bowlby suggested that attachment was
A - Adaptive (we attach for survival)
S - Social Releasers (Babies are born with cute characteristics which encourage attachment)
C - Critical Period (it is the most sensitive in the first 6 months)
M - Monotropy (PAF had to be a woman)
I - Internal Working Model (Mental model of relationship with monotropy serves as a template for future relationships in life)
What happens if attachment doesn’t form during Critical period?
It will be detrimental to intellectual development, as can be seen with orphan studies.
Bowlby’s Monotropy AO3 - Limitation ETHICAL IMPLICATIONS
Bowlby’s theory is limited since the theory suggests that the monotropy should be a woman. This poses ethical implications and is a problem in the current world since women now want a career more than they did in the past. This theory cannot impose what women should do in order for the baby to form an attachment properly. This also raises the question of what would happen to the child should the mother decide to pursue a career, since according to the theory, there is a law of accumulated separation under the monotropy which will lead to intellectual underdevelopment.
Bowlby’s Monotropy AO3 - Law of Continuity Hypothesis support.
Bowlby’s theory that one outcome of attachment is the effect it has on subsequent relationships was tested through Minnesota parent-child study, which followed ppts from infancy to late adolescence and found that securely attached infants developed to have higher social competence, be more popular and less isolated. This supports Bowlby’s continuity hypothesis because there is a link between early and later attachments.
Procedure of Ainsworth’s SS?
Controlled observation
Lab experiment
Video Recorded through a 1 way mirror
8 episodes with each one being 3 mins long
106 US middle class babies
Recorded behaviour through behavioural categories / coding system
