Attachment Flashcards
define attachment
a close 2-way connc=ection and emotional bond between 2 individuals where both rely on each other for emotional security.
State 3 signs to know if an attachment is formed.
- Close proximity
- separational distress
- secure-base behaviour.
define reciprocity
when a person responds to another and elicits a response from them- the base of conversation essentially.
What does research show about a baby’s alert phase?
- when a baby shows signs of interaction, the mother responds around 2/3 of the time depending on external factors such as stress.
How does one know if babies are passive or active when forming attachments?
They are active, even though it was previously thought that they were passive.
A caregiver and baby initiate interactions in turns- this was described as a dance by Brazelton.
define interactional synchrony.
when a caregiver’s movements and emotions are mirrored by a baby- the temporal coordination of micro-level coordination.
When is interactional synchrony first noticed?
as early as 2 weeks old. We can know once a baby starts interacting as they are more likely tomirror their caregiver at first.
give reasons as to why interactional synchrony is important.
How does the emotional intensity of the relationship link to interactional synchrony.
- important for the development of an infant-caregiver relationship.
Isabella et al. said that the deeper the emotional intensity of the relationship, the higher the level of interactional synchrony.
How were caregiver-infant interactions studied? who carried these out?
- by conducting lab studies and filming babies and their reactions to caregivers making one of 3 gestures.
- Meltzoff and Moore et al.
What are the pros and cons of carrying out lab studies of caregiver infant interaction?
Pros:
- lab evidence filmed
- controlled extraneous variables.
Cons:
- not in natural environment
- socially sensitive as it can be used to defend mother who want to go back to work- ‘risks baby’s development’
- difficult to film babies
Why is good that lab evidence is filmed?
- can allow researchers to come back if anything has been missed.
- reduces demand characteristics - babies don’t know that they’re being filmed.
Why is filming babies not that effective?
- cannot communicate effectively, can only give physical and verbal cues.
- inference is used instead.
- coordination is weak- can’t tell if it’s interactional synchrony or voluntary.
why might conducting lab studies not show reliable results and behaviour?
- might lack external validity
- emotions not taken into account- baby could be in distress or hungry.
- not longitudinal
In what ways can research from infant-caregiver interactions be used in a practical context?
- helps develop parenting techniques to help develop reciprocity.
What are the 4 attachment stages developed by Schaffer?
- Asocial
- Indiscriminate
- specific
- multiple
Outline 5 key points from the Glasgow study done by Schaffer and Emerson.
- done in the 1960s.
- babies of diff ages
- aim of the study was to find out attachment behaviour and how it varied from babies of different ages.
- parents were observers, visited once a month by psychologists.
- took stranger anxiety, secure-base behaviour into account.
What occurs in the Asocial stage?
Baby does not show a preference for anything but prefers being with humans rather than with intimate objects.
What occurs in the indiscriminate stage?
- start to display more observable behaviour.
- recognise and prefer the company of familiar people
- accept cuddles from anyone
- don’t show separation anxiety.
What occurs in the specific attachment stage?
- show obvious signs of attachment towards one particular person
- forms an attachment with a primary attachment figure.
What occurs in the multiple attachments stage?
- start to show attachment behaviour towards primary attachment figure and extend this out to other people who they spend the most time with.
- form secondary attachments.
What are the pros and cons of the stages of attachment and the method of studying them?
Pros:
- RWA: can be used by parents to put their children in daycare or the best time to do so.
- Good external validity- done in their natural environment, so behaved naturally.
Cons:
- not a representative sample- only working class families taken for the glasgow study.
- Asocial stage not really a stage since babies have poor coordination and mothers may have missed sings of social behaviour.
- not observed by scientists- so subjectivity, misremembering and misinterpreting it was possible.
How is attachment to fathers seen as?
don’t attach as fast to fathers as mothers.
grosman et al studied what?
the role of the father.
Briefly outline Grossman’s study for the role of the father.
- Carried out a longitudinal study that followed children into their teens.
Found that the quality of attachment to the mother was important in establishing adolescent relationships.
But found that the father’s role was important as a ‘play’ figure, showing that they have a more stimulating role in a child rather than emotional development.
Explain how the father still could be the primary attachment figure in a child’s life. (refer to Field)
- 4 moth old babies were filmed, recording their interactions with primary attachment fathers, and secondary attachment fathers.
Found that primary fathers spent more time smiling- a sign of reciprocity and interactional synchrony. \
Shows that it is still possible for the father to take on the primary attachment figure role, when put in that role.
What is the role of the father? Evaluate.
Pros:
RWA: can help families decide who will be the breadwinner when kids need taking care of.
Adaptation of a family can determine the role of the father.
Cons:
Conflicting research and evidence due to different methodology and bias.
Confusing and conflicting questions, meaning no definitive conclusion can be drawn.
define imprinting
A learning process that takes place early in life of a social animal and establishes a behaviour pattern.
Define critical period
The period of time in a animal’s life when a attachment is formed. Any time after this, an attachment cannot be formed.
Define sexual imprinting
The form of a learned mate preference for an individual that has been observed in a population
Outline Lorenz’s study involving baby geese
- took 2 groups of geese eggs- half in their natural environment, and half in an incubator.
The incubator group first saw Lorenz when they hatched, and therefore followed him around- but the natural group followed around the mother goose.
Displayed imprinting, through which the critical period is identified.
What were the 2 pros and cons of the Lorenz Goose study?
Pros:
- Helped encourage research into imprinting- eg: Baby duck syndrome where a human refuses to accept change.
Cons:
- Cannot be generalised to humans since more complex attachment behaviour.
- Possible ethical issues with taking geese out of natural environment
Outline Harlow’s work with baby rhesus monkeys
- Reared 16 baby monkeys.
- with some in a cage with a plain-wire mother
- and some in a cage with a cloth covered mother.
- some monkeys were left in cages alone.
- where both dispensed milk.
What conclusions were made from Harlow’s study with baby monkeys?
- those who had the cloth-covered mother were given preference to cuddle with compared to plain wire mothers.
- Shows that contact comfort was more important that the fact of who gave food.
What were the long term effects of monkeys who were in Harlow’s study?
Became more aggressive and less social than monkeys who grew up with their mother.
What were the pros and cons of Harlow’s study?
Pros:
- RWA: helped Psychologists intervene in development to prevent poor outcomes.
Cons:
- More generalised to humans as both are mammals, but still not as advanced as humans.
- Ethical issues as caused severe long term effects on monkeys.
Explain why a baby might be classically conditioned into being attached to a parent.
- UCS–> Food=happy
- NS—> Parent= no reaction
- repetition of parent and food together=happy
- CS—> parent= happy
food used as innate drive.
Explain why operant conditioning might be used to explain attachment.
- crying is positively reinforced with food or love, so crying continues.
- for the parent, negative reinforcement is used. To avoid crying, they give the food/love etc.
Support and argue for the argument that attachment is a secondary drive.
- can be suggested that food is a primary drive.
- Sears suggested that attachment is learned through association and satisfaction of the primary drive.
what are the pros of the learning theory for attachment?
Pros:
- evidence of some conditioning- Child may associate feelings of comfort with one adult.
- but in this case, babies seem to to play a passive role going against research that suggests that babies play an active role.
What are the cons of using the learning theory for attachment?
- Conflicting evidence from animal studies:
Harlow: attached to comforting figure
Lorenz: Attachment to first figure that is seen. - Schaffer and Emerson Glasgow study also conflicts this: No matter how often food was given, mother was still the primary attachment figure, while Isabella found that interactional synchrony creates attachment.
- SLT also plays a role, where it could be suggested that parents teach their children attachment behaviour like hugging and imitating.
Explain Bowlby’s theory of attachment.
suggested that attachment is innate and evolutionary where it helps the young survive by remaining in close proximity to their caregivers.
What are the 5 aspects of Bowlby’s theory?
Adaptive
Social releasers
Critical period
Monotropy
Internal working model
What are social releasers?
- behaviours that encourage reciprocal, pre-disposed attachment such as cooing and smiling.
What is a critical period in Bowlby’s theory?
- Instead of a critical period, bowlby suggested a time where attachments are more likely to form. After that period, forming attachments becomes harder.
Define monotropy
attachment to one specific person or caregiver instead of multiples.
What is the law of continuity?
What is the law of accumulated separation?
- states that the quality of attachment earlier in life will have an impact on relationships later in life.
- states that the safest ‘dose’ is a 0 dose, meaning the further the caregiver stays away from the child, the worse the quality of attachment gets.
What is the internal working model?
forms an expectation of how parent-child relationships are meant to be like.
also affects the ability of a child to become a parent themselves- usually show a similar pattern than what they had growing up.
What supports Bowlby’s theory?
- Brazelton’s study:
- primary caregivers were told to ignore social releasers , and babies became increasingly distressed as the time they were ignored increased.
- Bailey et al: Found mothers with poor childhood attachments tended to have the same pattern with their children- their internal working model influences it.
What evidence counteracts Bowlby’s theory?
- Schaffer and Emerson: found that a significant minority formed attachments at the same time.
- showed that primary attachment figures may have stronger attachments, but not necessarily better in quality than multiple attachments.
Feminist views suggest that the law of accumulated separation and law of continuity see that mothers who want to go back to work harm their quality of attachment with their child- blaming them and restricting them from activities
What study did Bell and Ainsworth carry out?
The strange situation
Describe the strange situation method
- Parent and child in room alone
- stranger enters
- Parent leaves
- Stranger tries to connect with child.
- Parent re-enters, Stranger leaves.
- Parent and child play together.
- Parent leaves
- child alone
- parent returns.
What 3 main types of attachments were discovered through the strange situation?
- Secure
- Insecure avoidant
- insecure resistant
Describe the behaviour of a securely attached child.
- explores freely while keeping an eye on mum
- shows stranger anxiety
- distressed when mum leaves and secure-base behaviour.
- readily comforted by mum when she returns.
Describe the behaviour of an insecure avoidant child
- explores freely
- doesn’t show stranger anxiety.
- no secure base behaviour shown - no distress when mum leaves
- little effort to accept comfort when caregiver returns.
Describe the behaviour of an insecure-resistant child.
- Explores very little, stays very close
- extreme secure-base behaviour
- high levels of stranger anxiety.
- resist comfort when mum returns.
What are the pros of the strange situation?
- good predictive validity: can predict child’s future behaviour and relationships. so secure=good insecure=bad
- reliable: controlled EVs, easy to observe behaviours and agreement between observers.
What are the cons of the strange situation?
- not all children fit into the 3 categories- so Main and Solomon created a 4th category.
- might be culture bound: Levels of mother-baby separation is more common in western countries.
Define a pilot study
A small-scale study carried out before the main one in order to test out methodology.
Who was interested in cultural variation within and between countries?
Kroonenburg and Izendoorn.
Define meta-analysis
- results of studies being combined and analysed together weighing each study for its sample size.
What style of attachment did most countries show dominantly?
Secure
What style of attachment did the UK show the least of?
- Insecure resistant
What style of attachment did Japan show the most of in comparison to?
insecure resistant.
What style of attachment did Germany show the most of in comparison to?
insecure avoidant.
State key points from Simonelli’s research.
- carried out in Italy
- 76 babies
- 50% were secure
- 36% were insecure avoidant.
- because of more children in daycare.
State some key points from Jin’s study
- Korea
- around 87 babies
- most were securely attached
- one was avoidant
- the rest= insecure.
Taking into account all the cultural studies of attachment, suggest what they conclude about Bowlby’s theory.
- agrees with it, shows that attachment was innate and universal
- secure attachment is the majority
- there still are cultural variations in the styles of attachment shown
What are the pros of cultural variations in attachment?
- Indigenous researchers: less bias and less communication barriers, more valid results.
- expands on Bowlby’s theory and shows variations on it, bring larger conclusions to it that are universally applicable, helping reduce culture bias.
Define imposed etics
What are the cons of the cultural variations in attachment?
- sometimes, cross-cultural studies are carried out, so data could be affected with bias.
- confounding variables: eg: social class or size of room . So studies cannot be matched exactly, which may come out inconclusive.
- imposed etics:behaviours may be interpreted differently in diff contexts eg avoidant behaviour might be read as independance.
What does Bowlby’s theory of maternal deprivation state?
States that the presence of a mother if crucial to normal cognitive development- or else will have serious consequences.
what is the difference between deprivation and separation?
Deprivation does not really equal separation. A mother can deprive a child from an attachment even though they might be close in proximity.
What were the effects of development if there was maternal deprivation?
Intellectual: abnormally low IQ
Emotional: eg: emotionless psychopathy
describe the 44 thieves study done by Bowlby
- sample of 44 criminal teens was taken and interviewed, along with their families and compared to non-criminal, but emotionally disturbed children.
Outline the findings in the 44 thieves study
14/44 were identified as emotionless psychopaths, and 12 of them have had prolonged separation from their mother.
what were the pros and cons of the 44 thieves study?
Cons:
confounding variables and bias- Bowlby himself had done it.
Deprivation vs privation- it was treated as the same thing when it isn’t. most of the damage associated with deprivation may actually be because of privation.
Critical period vs sensitive period- bowbly suggested that after 2.5 years, damage was inevitable- but research has proved that quality aftercare can reduce the impact of maternal deprivation.
Pros:
mild evidence supports the study- Levy et al showed that baby rats can have significant mental development issues when seperated from their mother for just a day.
Conflicting evidence also shows that poor maternal care was associated with emotionless psychopathy.
outline the effects of institutionalisation
Low IQ and EQ
hinderments in development.
disinhibited attachment
State some studies that show evidence for the effect of poor attachment in childhood later in life
Bailey: poorly attached mother likely to have poorly attached children
Hazan et al: Love quiz showed most were secure, but avoidant and resistant showed fear of intimacy and jealousy.
Wilson and Smith: showed resistant and avoidant children were most likely to be involved in bullying- showing poor childhood friendships.
What are the pros and cons of studies done to show attachment earlier affects later attachment?
Pros:
strong evidence which has been supportive- eg good scientifics trials strange situation, findings of disinhibited attachment etc.
(expand on this point)
Cons:
Not many studies are longitudinal
makes it seem inevitable even though it’s not.
confounding variables such as genetics.
