Attachment Flashcards

Question

How is temporal validity an evaluation point for stages of attachment

Answer 1

- study lacks temporal validity - conducted in 1960 - parents care of children has considerably changed since - many women go out to work and more men stay at home

Answer 2

- stage theories are inflexible and do not account for individual differences - some infants might form multiple attachment first, rather than starting with a single attachment

Answer 3

- inconsistency in research into role of father and whether he plays a distinct role - some show fathers provide play and stimulation to complement role of mother and both are crucial to child’s wellbeing - however other research shows no such distinction - research investigating effects of growing up in a single female or same sex parent family shows no effect on development and suggests role of father is not important

Answer 4

- fathers less likely to be primary attachment figure - may be because less time spent with infant - men may not be as psychologically equipped to form intense attachment because they lack emotional sensitivity => biological factors => women have oxytocin underlying caring behaviour - could be due to societal norms - found 75% of infants studied formed attachment with father at 18 months

Answer 5

- fathers can be primary attachment figures - role of father in single parent family is more likely to adopt the traditional maternal role, to be the primary caregiver and a nursing attachment figure

Answer 6

- children without fathers often do worse at school and show high levels of risk taking and aggression => suggests fathers can help prevent negative developmental outcomes - fathers are important for mothers as well as children => fathers who help with childcare allow mothers to have time for themselves, reducing stress, increasing self esteem and enabling mothers to interact positively with their children

Answer 7

- inconsistency in findings => researchers are interested in finding out about different questions => some want to see role of father as secondary and some as primary attachment figure => difficult to answer what the role actually is - MacCallum and Golombok (2004) => found children growing up with only mothers or same sex couples do not develop different to children reared in two parent heterosexual families => findings suggest role of father is not important

Answer 8

- methodology used by Ainsworth et al. (1970) - investigated differences in attachments between infants and caregivers - controlled oberservation - took place in a room that had been furnished with toys

Answer 9

- mother and baby - stranger enters - mother leaves - mother returns

Answer 10

- proximity seeking - stranger anxiety - separation protest - reunion joy

Answer 11

- insecure avoidant - secure attachment - insecure resistant

Answer 12

- classified in 20% of babies - babies largely ignore caregiver and explore room - show no separation protest when caregiver is absent - continue to ignore caregiver when they return (no reunion joy) - distressed when complexly alone but comforted by stranger easily showing no stranger anxiety

Answer 13

- classified in 70% of babies - play happily when caregiver is there - use caregiver as a safe base while they explore - distressed when caregiver leaves => separation protest - seeks immediate contact when caregiver returns => reunion joy - wary of strangers showing stranger anxiety but accepts some comfort

Answer 14

- classified in 10% of babies - will not explore room as they are clingy - show extreme separation protest but show no reunion joy - show extreme stranger anxiety

Answer 15

- replicated - has been replicated many times - easy to replicate - high control and standardised procedures - been carried out in many different cultures showing no culture bias

Answer 16

- culture bias - proximity seeking - gender bias - ecological validity

Answer 17

- methodology developed in US - attachment behaviour seen as healthy in US may not be in all cultures - in Germany, very few mothers worked but children encouraged to be independent and self reliant - German parents view some behaviour exhibited by securely attached (separation anxiety) as being spoilt - explains why they showed less separation anxiety and been classed as avoidant

Answer 18

- validity of some measures has been questioned - e.g. it could be argued that proximity seeking could be a measure of insecurity rather than security

Answer 19

- only been carried out using mothers as caregivers - children may be insecurely attached to mothers but securely attached to fathers - therefore not a measuring of a child’s overall attachment style but instead attachment to one individual - Main and Weston (1981) found children behave differently depending on which parent they are with

Answer 20

- artificial - may not reflect infant’s real world behaviour - studies have found that babies’ attachment behaviours are much stronger in lab setting than home environment

Answer 21

- Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg (1988) - Ainsworth (1967) - Simonella (2014)

Answer 22

- all studies included strange situation to measure attachment - studies looked at relationship between mothers and babies - babies under 24 months - studies were conducted in eight countries - individualistic cultures => USA, UK, Germany - collectivist cultures => Japan, China, Israel

Answer 23

- secure attachment most common in all eight countries - second most common attachment was insecure avoidant, except in Israel and Japan where avoidant was rare but resistant was common - lowest percentage of secure attachment was in China - highest percentage of secure attachment was in UK - highest percentage of insecure avoidant was West Germany - overall variations within cultures were 1.5 times greater than the variation between cultures

Answer 24

- caregiver and infant interactions have universal characteristics, so may be partly instinctive - however variations between cultures show cultural differences in child rearing practices play a role - variations within cultures indicate sub cultural differences, such as social class - these factors are possibly more important than culture

Answer 25

- conducted a two year naturalistic observation of mother infant interaction in Uganda - participants were 26 mothers and infants living in 6 villages - observed some mothers were more sensitive to infants needs and these mothers tended to have securely attachment infants - secure attachment led the infant to have increasing competence and independence

Answer 26

- study in Italy - sample of 76 12 month olds using strange situation - 50% were securely attachment, 36% avoidant - lower rate of secure than other studies - researchers argue there is an increase in women in work who use professional childcare - findings suggest cultural changes can make a dramatic difference to patterns of secure and insecure attachment

Answer 27

- study is a meta analysis - includes large sample - increases validity of findings - findings can be generalised

Answer 28

- culture bias - Israel - subcultures - gender bias

Answer 29

- strange situation methodology developed in US - may not be valid in other countries - e.g. Ainsworth assumed willingness to explore means a child is securely attachment - not the case in other cultures - thus methodology culturally biased

Answer 30

- infants from Israel lived on a Kibbutz (closed community) - did not come into contact with strangers - could be the reason for showing severe distress when confronted with strangers and so were classed as resistant

Answer 31

- study was not comparing cultures but countries - e.g. USA and Japan both have different subcultures with different child rearing practices

Answer 32

- all studies in meta-analysis looked at infants’ attachments to mothers - children may have different attachment to both mother and father - therefore strange situation is not measuring child’s attachment style but attachment to one individual - Main and Weston (1981) found children behave differently depending on which parent they are with

Answer 33

- all behaviour is learned rather than innate or inherited - people learn through classical and operant conditioning

Answer 34

- infant born with certain reflexes - stimulus of food is unconditioned stimulus producing unconditioned response of pleasure - person providing food is neutral stimulus but become associated with pleasure gained from food over time - person becomes conditioned stimulus producing conditioned response of pleasure - according to classical conditioning, this is how attachment bond develops and reason children feel pleasure in caregiver’s presence

Answer 35

- strengthens attachment - baby receives positive reinforcement for crying when they are hungry as caregiver feeds them - caregiver receives negative reinforcement for feeding baby when they cry ad feeding baby makes crying stop

Answer 36

- plausible and scientific - founded in established theory - likely the association between provision of needs and person providing those needs can lead to strong attachments

Answer 37

- Harlow (1959) - Schaffer and Emerson (1964) - explanation - environmental

Answer 38

- separated infant Rhesus monkeys from mothers and put them in cages - milk was provided either by a wire mesh surrogate mother or one made of cloth - monkeys clung to soft cloth mother - especially when scared by aversive stimulus - even if it did not provide milk - suggests comfort is more important than food in determining whom a baby will attach to

Answer 39

- found food is not necessary for attachment to form - discovered that babies are often attached to people who play with them, rather than feed - in 39% of cases, even though mother was the one who fed the baby, the baby was more attached to someone else

Answer 40

- theory explains how attachments form but not why they form - according to Bowlby’s theory of attachment, infants form an attachment to their caregiver to ensure they are protected

Answer 41

- environmentally reductionist - explains complex behaviour in overly simplistic way - infant caregiver relationship is varied, sophisticated and complicated - many different types of attachment - therefore unlikely attachment is merely result of caregiver providing food - environmentally deterministic - states early learning determines later attachment behaviours

Answer 42

- fundamental principle of Bowlby’s theory is that attachment between infants and caregivers is an instinct that has evolved - increases chance of babies’ survival and parents’ passing genes => adaptive

Answer 43

- infants have innate drive to be attached to adult - Bowlby proposed attachment is determined by caregiver’s sensitivity => strongly attached infants have responsive, cooperative and accessible caregiver - social releasers ensure attachments develop between caregiver and infant - argued infants have one special emotional bond => monotropy => biological mother but not always - infants form secondary attachments providing important emotional safety net vital for healthy psychological and social development

Answer 44

- innate behaviours have critical period which they must occur => 2 years of age for attachment - if infants do not form attachment then they will have difficulty forming later attachments

Answer 45

- important during this time to ensure that attachments develop between caregivers and infants - include smiling and crying - behaviours that elicit care giving - babies display them to encourage caregivers to look after them

Answer 46

- infant uses this relationship to form mental view of relationships => internal working model - secure relationships in childhood ensure a positive working model => current and future relationships will be positive and secure - continuity hypothesis proposes that individuals who are securely attached in infancy continue to be socially and emotionally competent => secure childhood leads to positive internal working model

Answer 47

- law of continuity - law of accumulated separation

Answer 48

- the more constant and predictable a child’s care is, the better the quality of their attachment

Answer 49

- the effects of every separation from the mother add up - “the safest dose is zero dose” (Bowlby, 1975)

Answer 50

- Schaffer and Emerson (1964) - socially sensitive - Tizard and Hodges (1989) - unscientific - Kegan (1984)

Answer 51

- suggested that multiple attachments are more common in babies than monotropy - found by 18 months, only 13% of infants had only one person they were attached to

Answer 52

- feminists suggest monotropic theory is socially sensitive - places burden of responsibility on mothers => take blame if anything goes wrong in child’s life - also puts pressure on mothers to stay home and give up careers - Bowlby also underestimated role of father - saw role of father as primarily economic - outdated view as many families view both parents equally responsible for childcare and many families have father as primary caregiver

Answer 53

- found children who never had any attachments by 4 and were then adopted could still form attachments to new adopted parents - goes against idea of a critical period before 2 years during which an attachment must form or it never will

Answer 54

- impossible to test Bowlby’s argument that attachment has persisted in same form throughout our evolutionary history, making it unscientific

Answer 55

- disagreed with Bowlby about the quality of an infant’s attachment being determined by caregiver’s sensitivity - explained infant’s attachments to caregivers in terms of innate temperament - according to his theory, some infants are better suited to form attachments than others due to innate characteristics - Rovine (1987) found infants who had been judged to have signs of behavioural instability between one and three days were later more likely to have an insecure attachment

Answer 56

- children who suffer from prolonged emotional deprivation, caused by absence of primary attachment figure will have long term issues - intellectual (low IQ), social (delinquency) and emotional difficulties (affectionless psychopathy) and mental health (depression) - according to continuity hypothesis, effects are irreversible and continue into adulthood due to lack of internal working model => inability to be a good parent

Answer 57

- could occur before critical period => child is 2.5 years old - risk of occurring up to sensitive period if there is no substitute mother figure available to take over emotional care of child => 5 years old

Answer 58

- analysed case histories of patients in clinic where he worked - all children attending clinic were emotionally maladjusted - studied 88 => 44 thieves (caught stealing) and 44 control - Bowlby suggested 14 of the thieves were affectionless psychopaths => lacked affection, shame and responsibility for actions

Answer 59

- individuals diagnosed as affectionless psychopaths experienced frequent early separations from mothers - 12 of 14 affectionless psychopaths experienced frequent separation from mothers compared with only 5 of the 30 thieves who were not classed as affectionless psychopaths - almost none of control group experienced early separation from mothers

Answer 60

- practical applications - Spitz (1945) - Skodak and Skeeles (1949)

Answer 61

- Tizard et al. (1989) - privation

Answer 62

- before Bowlby’s (1953) theory, hospitals would not allow parents to visit children staying - often had profound and damaging effect on child - nowadays parents are actively encouraged to stay

Answer 63

- examined children raised in poor quality orphanage in South America - staff were overworked, under trained and rarely gave children attention/affection - children displayed anaclitic depression => loss of appetite, sleeplessness, sadness

Answer 64

- found children placed in institutions that only looked after them physically scored poorly on intelligence tests - however when same children transferred to different institution giving emotional care, IQ scores improved by almost 30 points

Answer 65

- effects of maternal deprivation have been shown to be reversible - children who had never formed attachments and were adopted after age of 4 were still able to form attachments to new parents

Answer 66

- Bowlby did not distinguish between deprivation and privation - deprivation => attachment figure is lost - privation => child never formed an attachment - could be privation causing extreme negative effects observed in some studies

Answer 67

- a child’s living arrangements are outside of the family - some children are raised in institutions => children’s homes, hostels, hospitals - children raised in institutions can adopt rules and norms of the institution - could impair functioning and lead to a loss of personal identity (deindividuation)

Answer 68

- Rutter et al. (2010) - studies of Romanian orphans

Answer 69

- involved 165 Romanian children who spent early lives in Romanian orphanages before being adopted - thus suffered from effects of institutionalisation - adoptees were tested at regular intervals (ages 4, 6, 11 and 15) - tested to assess physical, cognitive and social development - progress compared to control group of 52 British children adopted in UK before age of 6 months

Answer 70

- at time of adoption, Romanian orphans lagged behind British counterparts on all measures of physical, cognitive and social development - by age 4, Romanian children adopted before age of 6 months had caught up to British counterparts - however a significant number of individuals adopted after age of 6 months still had significant deficits at age 4

Answer 71

- study suggests that long term consequences of institutionalisation may be less severe than once thought if children are adopted before 6 months and receive sensitive parenting - however if children are adopted after 6 months, consequences of institutionalisation are likely to be severe

Answer 72

- delayed intellectual development - disinhibited attachment - emotional development - lack of internal working model - quasi autism - delayed physical development

Answer 73

- children raised in institutions can have a low IQ and concentration problems - means they may struggle at school as they cannot learn new behaviours and concepts as quickly - can also have delayed language development

Answer 74

- children raised in institutions may not know what appropriate behaviour towards strangers is - they can be overly affectionate and attention seeking

Answer 75

- children raised in institutions can have difficult managing their anger - e.g. they have more temper tantrums than other children

Answer 76

- children raised in institutions may have difficulty interacting with peers and forming close relationships - as adults they will have impaired adult relationships and can struggle to parents their own children

Answer 77

- children raised in institutions develop quasi autism as they struggle to understand the meaning of social contexts and can have obsessional behaviours - they can have a lower frequency of pretend play and reduced empathy

Answer 78

- children in institutional care are usually physically small - research shows lack of emotional care rather than poor nourishment is the cause of deprivation dwarfism

Answer 79

- practical applications - studies investigated effects of institutionalisation have enhanced understanding of potential negative consequences of institutional care and led to establishment of key workers in institutions to provide emotional care for children - additionally, studies led to changes in adoptions process => previously mothers encouraged to nurse children for as long as possible before giving up children but now most babies are adopted within first week of life

Answer 80

- generalisation - Le Mare and Audet (2006) - characteristics

Answer 81

- problems when generalising findings of studies of Romanian orphans as standard of care was particularly poor in Romanian orphanages - Romanian orphans faced with much more than emotional deprivation - physical conditions were appalling, and there was a lack of cognitive stimulation - likely that long term damage from institutional care only occurs when there are multiple risk factors

Answer 82

- possible that negative effects of institutional care can be reduced by sensitive parenting - Le Mare and Audet conducted longitudinal study of 36 Romanian orphans adopted to families in Canada - adopted orphans were physically smaller than a matched control group at age 4 - but this difference disappeared by 10 - same was true for physiological health

Answer 83

- adoptions and control groups not randomly allocated to conditions in studies of Romanian orphans - means participants variables between children could influence findingds - children may have been adopted due to personal characteristics (resilience/sociable) - may explain why they were less affect by institutional care, lowering validity of research

Answer 84

- conducted landmark study on attachment - Origins of Love - sought out to demonstrate mother love (attachment) was not based on the feeding bond between mother and infant as suggested by learning theory

Answer 85

- created two wire mothers with different heads => one wrapped in soft cloth - 8 infant rhesus monkeys separated from mothers at birth and studies for 165 days - placed in cage with two wire mothers - 4 received milk from cloth mother, 4 from wire - during 165 days, time spent with each mother measured - observations made of monkey’s responses to being frightened by mechanical teddy bear, and coping with exploring new room with unfamiliar toys

Answer 86

- all 8 monkeys spent more time with cloth mother even if it was not feeding milk - monkeys fed by exposed wire mother only stayed long enough to get milk then returned to cloth - when frightened by mechanical teddy bear, all monkeys clung to cloth mother - when playing with new objects, monkeys kept one foot on cloth - when placed in new environment, they were not confident enough to explore room unless cloth mother was with them

Answer 87

- Harlow continued to study monkeys as they grew up - monkeys developed abnormally => froze or fled when approached by other monkeys - did not show normal mating behaviour and did not cradle their own babies - if monkeys spent time with other monkeys they could recover but only if this happened before they were 3 months old - having more than 3 months with only a wire mother was not something they could recover from

Answer 88

- Schaffer and Emerson (1964) - found food is not necessary for attachment - found babies often attachment to people who play with them rather than feed them - in 39% of cases, even though mother was the one who fed the baby, they baby was more attachment to someone else

Answer 89

- ethical issues - extrapolation - complexity

Answer 90

- monkeys removed from mothers which could be traumatic - deliberately scared to see how they reacted - led to long term emotional harm - when older and encountered other monkeys, they froze or fled - had difficulty caring for their own young (did not cradle them) as they had not been cared for themselves

Answer 91

- problematic to extrapolate findings from this to attachment in human infants - what applies to non human species does not necessary apply to human infants - humans are physiologically very different from monkeys - several influences monkeys do not have - e.g. culture, society, peers, upbringing

Answer 92

- attachment bond between human infants and their attachment figures is far more complex than it is in monkeys - e.g. there are several different types of attachment styles human infants can have => secure, avoidant, resistant

Answer 93

- Lorenz was an ethologist => studied animal behaviour in their natural environment - investigated imprinting => instinct in several species of animals to attach to first moving thing they see after they are born

Answer 94

- took a clutch of gosling (geese) eggs - divided into two groups - one hatch with natural mother others played in incubate - eggs in incubator would attach to Lorenz as he was the first moving thing they saw - Lorenz marked two groups to distinguish between them and placed them all together

Answer 95

- goslings divided themselves up => followed mother or Lorenz - those in incubator showed no recognition of mother - found process of imprinting is restricted to a very definite period of a young animal’s life => critical period - if young animal not exposed to moving object during critical period then animal will not imprint - imprinting occurs in first 2 days - similar to attachment => binds to caregiver in special relationship - Lorenz had to teach goslings to swim and they would return to him when called

Answer 96

- noted several features of imprinting => irreversible and long lasting - one geese used to sleep on his bed every night (Martina) - discovered early imprinting had effect on mate preferences => sexual imprinting - animals choose to mate with same kind of object upon which they imprinted

Answer 97

- Gutton (1966) - other studies support idea that animals are born with an instinct to attach to the first moving object they see - Gutton demonstrated chickens exposed to yellow rubber gloves during feeding in first few weeks of life imprinted on the gloves

Answer 98

- Gutton (1966) - imprinting is more reversible than Lorenz thought - Gutton found he could reverse imprinting in chickens that had initially tried to mate with the yellow rubber gloves - after spending time with their own species, they were able to engage in normal sexual behaviour with other chickens

Answer 99

- investigated the influence of early attachment on childhood relationships - Minnesota Parent Child Project - began in 1975 and is still being studied

Answer 100

- since 1975, mothers’ and children’s behaviour has been assessed using questionnaires and observations - e.g. mothers and children were videotaped (intra observer reliability) while playing for a period of 10-15 minutes at home - mothers aware of videotaping (social desirability bias) - two observers analysing recordings (inter observer reliability)

Answer 101

- children classed as securely attached were => rated highest for social competence => less socially isolated => more popular with peers => more empathetic - infant’s early attachment creates internal working model of what relationships are, how partners behave towards each other and expectations of a relationship - those who are secularly attached have a positive internal working model for relationships => better at forming and maintaining relationships

Answer 102

- if infants do not have an early attachment during critical period, this would result in lack of an internal working model for attachment - could lead to attachment disorder => no preferred attachment figure and inability to interact/relate to others - becomes evident from age of 5 - usually caused by severe neglect or frequent change of caregiver

Answer 103

- reliable - Simpson et al. (2007) found similar results - assessed infants attachment styles at one year of age - several studies have found children who were secularly attached as infants were rated as having higher social competence as children and were closer to their friends aged 16

Answer 104

- deterministic - Tizard and Hodges (1989)

Answer 105

- study claims early experiences have a fixed effect on later childhood relationships - therefore children who are insecurely attached as infants are doomed to experience emotionally unsatisfactory relationships as children - there ignores role of free will and is deterministic

Answer 106

- lots of studies contradicting claim that early attachment affects later childhood relationships - Tizard and Hodges found children raised in care who had never formed any attachments by age of 4 and were then adopted could still form attachments to new adopted parents

Answer 107

- Bowlby’s monotropic theory - Hazan and Shaver (1987)

Answer 108

- infants have on special bond (monotropy) - infants uses this to form internal working model - secure relationships ensure positive working model - so current, future and romantic adult relationships will be positive and secure - continuity hypothesis proposes individuals who are sexually attached in infancy continue to be socially and emotionally competent => secure childhood leads to positive internal working model

Answer 109

- designed a study to test the connection between a person’s infant attachment style, internal working model and adult attachment style

Answer 110

- placed a Love Quiz in the newspaper - quiz asked question about relationship with parents (identify infant attachment style), attitudes towards love (assess internal working model) and current relationship experiences (determine adult attachment style) - analysed 620 responses => 205 men and 415 women

Answer 111

- when analysing adult attachment style, found prevalence of adult attachment styles was similar to infant attachment styles - 56% classified secure, 25% avoidant and 19% resistant - suggests most people’s infant attachment is same as adult - also found relationship between individual’s internal working model and adult attachment style => positive internal working model tended to be securely attached adults - found positive correlation between adult attachment and love experiences - securely attached adult described love experiences as happy/friendly/trusting - emphasised being able to accept and support partner despite faults - these relationships were most enduring => ten years on average compared 6 years for avoidant and 5 years for resistant

Answer 112

- reliability - correlational - validity

Answer 113

- study is unreliable - several other studies failed to find strong correlation between infant attachment style and adult attachment style - Farley (2002) conducted review of 27 samples where infants were assessed in infancy and later reassessed - ranging form 1 month to 20 years - found correlations ranging from 0.5 to 0.1

Answer 114

- study is correlational rather than experimental - cannot determine cause and effect - impossible to say infant attachment styles determine adult attachment styles - could be the presence of third variable affecting both - e.g. person’s innate temperament

Answer 115

- study relies on participants’ memories about their early lives in order to assess their infant attachment style - such recollections are likely to be flawed because memories of the past are not always accurate - making study invalid