Attachment

Question 1

What is attachment?

Answer 1

A strong, long lasting and close emotional bond to a particular individual.

Question 2

What is reciprocity?

Answer 2

The development of an emotional connection between an infant and their primary caregiver due to mutually responding to social releasers/signals. For example, a mother may pick a baby up if its crying and the baby is comforted.

Question 3

What is interactional synchrony?

Answer 3

The development of a behavioural connection between the infant and primary caregiver through the synchronisation of behaviours. Begins in the womb with biological rhythms, but progresses to behaviours after birth. For example, if the caregiver claps their hands, the baby will copy.

Question 4

What are Schaffer and Emerson’s 4 stages of attachment?

Answer 4

• Stage 1: (birth to 6 weeks): Asocial/Pre-Attachment stage
  Baby does not recognise individuals and does not discriminate between objects and people.
• Stage 2: (6 weeks to 7 months): Indiscriminate Attachments
  Shows a preference for people and will smile at them.
• Stage 3: (7 months to 1 year): Specific Attachment
  Shows a preference for the primary caregiver and experiences separation anxiety and fear of strangers
• Stage 4: (1 year +): Multiple Attachments

Question 5

Cernoch and Porter

Answer 5

Babies in ‘stage 1’ were presented with two breast pads. One contained their mother’s milk and the other one contained a strangers. Babies turned toward their mothers milk, showing a clear preference and recognition. This contradicts the suggestions of Schaffer and Emerson about the asocial stage.

Question 6

What is a Dyad?

Answer 6

Two individuals regarded as a pair.

Question 7

What is Bowlby’s view of Schaffer and Emerson’s second stage of attachment?

Answer 7

He disagrees that babies in this stage can be comforted by anyone. He argues that they show a clear preference for the primary caregiver.

Question 8

Single or Multiple Attachments?

Answer 8

Bowlby suggests that the single, primary caregiver is the most important attachment. This is his theory of monotropy. He emphasises the role of the mother.
Schaffer and Emerson argue that babies are capable of multiple attachments.

Question 9

Schaffer and Emerson’s study of attachment.

Answer 9

60 babies in a longitudinal study at monthly intervals for 18 months in Glasgow.
Children all studied in their own home. Interactions with carers were observed and carers were also interviewed.
Attachments most likely to form with those who responded most accurately to the babies signals not the one they spent the most time with. This is called sensitive responsiveness.
Many had several attachments by 10 months old. The mother was the main attachment figure for about half of the children at 18 months and the father for most of the others.

Question 10

Christensson

Answer 10

Fathers are more consistently involved in play than caretaking activities. The type of play they engaged in was more likely to be ‘rough and tumble’ while mothers engaged in more gentle styles of play.

Question 11

Paquette

Answer 11

Fathers engaged in riskier, physical play activities with their fathers. Fathers also talked more about active play while the more engaged in more emotional dialogue.

Question 12

Verissimo

Answer 12

Correlation between the quality of the relationship between child and father and the number of friends a child has in pre-school. Rough and tumble play may better equip the child for making friends. However, correlation doesn’t show cause.

Question 13

What are precocial animals?

Answer 13

Animals which are born late in their development which can move around and feed themselves shortly after birth. E.g. geese and horses

Question 14

What are Altricial animals?

Answer 14

Animals which continue with their development after birth. E.g. humans and primates

Question 15

Konrad Lorenz

Answer 15

He studied imprinting in geese.
Found that the goslings would imprint on whatever they saw first after hatching. This is an important survival mechanics, as they need to follow their mother for food and to keep safe.
The goslings imprinted on Lorenz and would follow him everywhere.

Question 16

What is cupboard love theory?

Answer 16

Suggests that the baby will attach to whoever feeds it.

Question 17

Harry Harlow.

Answer 17

He studied the attachment of rhesus monkeys.
He separated the babies form their mothers soon after birth and reared them in a cage with two surface monkey mother models. One was wrapped in soft towelling and had a less frightening face to provide comfort while the other had a bottle. He found that when the monkeys were scared they would cling to the towelled monkey model. This contrasts the cupboard love theory.

Question 18

How does an attachment form according to learning theories?

Answer 18

Cupboard love theory.
Classical conditioning suggests that learning takes place through association. The child associated the primary caregiver with pleasant experiences such as food and comfort.
Operant conditioning suggest that a behaviour which results in a positive outcome will be repeated. Both the parents and the child can be conditioned in this way. Parents are negatively reinforced and learn to attend to a child’s needs in order to stop them from crying. They are also positively reinforced when the child starts smiling at them.

Question 19

How do attachments form according to cognitive theories?

Answer 19

Schaffer suggests that infants form attachments once they can reliably distinguish one caregiver from another. They form stronger attachments with those who interacts with them the most. This suggests that the quality of care can influence attachment.

Question 20

What is Bowlby’s theory of attachment (including monotropy)?

Answer 20

He believed that attachment is innate. Both the parent and child have a biological need to seek proximity. Attachment has evolved as a way of keeping the infant safe and it ensures a greater likelihood that they will survive and pass on their genes. Attachment is a two way process.
Monotropy is the idea of one special relationship. Infants have an innate tendency to form a primary attachment to their mother. He argues that infants can form more than one attachment however these are hierarchical and the mother is the single most important attachment.
There is a critical time period for forming attachments. This is usually within the first 12 moths of a babies life. Failure to form an attachment within this time will result in implications for psychological health.

Question 21

What is Ainsworth’s strange situation?

Answer 21

The caregiver and child are taken to an unfamiliar room and observed while subjected to a series of increasing stressful scenarios. The important things to study were the reaction of the child when left alone, when with a stranger, and when reunited with the mother.

Question 22

What are Ainsworth’s attachment types?

Answer 22

Type A - Insecure Anxious-Avoidant/Detached - 20% of the original sample.
Infant ignores the mother and is not affected by their separation or her return. Is distressed when alone but can easily be comforted by a stranger. Low anxiety and weak attachment shown in the strange situation.

Type B - Secure Attachment - 70% of the original sample.
Infant plays contentedly when the mother is around and is distressed when she leaves. They are easily comforted by their mother when she returns but not completely adverse to the stranger. Clearly favour the mother. Moderate separation and stranger anxiety shown in the strange situation.

Type C - Insecure Anxious-Resistant/Ambivalent - 10% of the original sample.
Infant does not play contentedly in their mothers presence and is distressed when she leaves. Cannot be easily comforted when the mother returns. High levels of stranger and separation anxiety shown in the strange situation.

Question 23

What are Ainsworth’s 3 explanations for differing attachments?

Answer 23

Parental Sensitivity - A secure attachment is dependent upon an emotionally close, responsive mother. The mother is in tune with her baby’s needs and responds appropriately.
Infant Temperament - Kagan suggests that innate differences in temperament make some babies harder to bond with than others.
Family Circumstances - Social structure, culture and environmental factors will all play a part.

Question 24

What is a Type D attachment?

Answer 24

This is an insecure/disorganised attachment for children who show characteristics for more than one of Ainsworth’s attachment types.

Question 25

In Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg’s comparison of cross cultural studies of attachment, which country had the highest percentage of secure attachment?

Answer 25

Great Britain

Question 26

In Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg’s comparison of cross cultural studies of attachment, which country had the lowest percentage of secure attachment?

Answer 26

China

Question 27

In Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg’s comparison of cross cultural studies of attachment, which country had the highest percentage of insecure avoidant attachment?

Answer 27

West Germany

Question 28

In Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg’s comparison of cross cultural studies of attachment, which country had the lowest percentage of insecure avoidant attachment?

Answer 28

Japan

Question 29

In Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg’s comparison of cross cultural studies of attachment, which country had the highest percentage of insecure resistant attachment?

Answer 29

Israel

Question 30

In Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg’s comparison of cross cultural studies of attachment, which country had the lowest percentage of insecure resistant attachment?

Answer 30

Great Britain

Question 31

Why does Grossman suggest that German infants have a higher proportion of avoidant attachments?

Answer 31

There might be a cultural tendency to maintain a larger interpersonal distance, encourage independence and wean children off physical contact at an earlier age.

Question 32

Why does Sagi suggest that infants from Israel show higher levels of resistant attachments?

Answer 32

This may be because children are reared communally in a Kibbutz which means that they are less reliant on an attachment figure.

Question 33

Why might there be a high proportion of resistant attachments in Japan?

Answer 33

Japanese children are rarely left alone and often sleep with their mother until the age of 10. Therefore children find it very stressful when they are left alone.

Question 34

What is maternal deprivation?

Answer 34

The absence of the love and care of a mother or mother figure due to failure to form an attachment or the loss of an existing attachment.

Question 35

What is Bowlby’s maternal deprivation hypothesis?

Answer 35

This predicts that if an infant is deprived of a mother or mother figure during the critical period of attachment then there could be serious and permanent consequences. These include: mental abnormalities, delinquency, depression, affectionless psychopathy (lack of affection and concern for others) and even dwarfism.

Question 36

Explain Bowlby’s study of 44 Juvenile Thieves.

Answer 36

He selected a sample of 44 juvenile thieves and compared the to another 44 boys who had no criminal record. He classified 14 of the juvenile thieves as affectionless psychopaths.
Of the 14 ‘affectionless psychopaths’ he discovered that 12 of them had suffered early prolonged separations from their mothers. Out of the other 74, only a further 7 had suffered early separations.

Question 37

What external research can be given in support of Bowlby’s theory?

Answer 37

Harlow: Attachment deprived monkeys did not interact normally with their own kind and failed to form attachments to their own offspring.
Goldfarb: Compared children raised in institutions for the first 3 years of their lives to a control group who had been adopted or fostered earlier. He found that the control group had higher IQ’s than the institutionalised group.
Spitz and Wolf: High levels of severe depression were found in South American orphanages.

Question 38

How does Rutter criticise Bowlby’s theories?

Answer 38

He argues that Bowlby fails to distinguish between deprivation (loss of attachment) and privation (an attachment never formed). He also argued that the circumstances of the separation need to be taken into consideration as well as the individual characteristics of the child.

Question 39

What 3 factors can mitigate the negative effects of separation?

Answer 39

Familiarity of environment - Separation distress is minimised if the child can remain in a familiar environment with people that they know. If going to a hospital, less distress is caused if the child can take things from home and visit prior to admission.
Age - Separation is most likely to be distressing between the ages of 6/8 months to 3 years with a peak at 12-18 months.
Security of attachment - Children with a secure attachment are likely to feel less distress on separation than those who are insecurely attached.

Question 40

Outline Rutter’s Study of Romanian Orphans.

Answer 40

He studied 165 Romanian orphans who were adopted in Britain alongside 52 British children who were adopted at the same time. These children were assessed on physical, cognitive and emotional development at the ages of 4, 6, 11 and 15 years.
- Half of the Romanian adoptees showed sign of delayed intellectual development upon arrival in the UK.
- The majority were severely malnourished.
- The mean IQ of those adopted before 6 months was 102. For those, between 6 months and 2 years it was 86 and those adopted after 2 years had an average IQ of 77.
- Those adopted after 6 months were much more likely to show signs of disinhibited attachment (a particular pattern of abnormal social functioning that arises during the first 5 years of life and tends to persist despite environmental changes )
This shows that institutional care may have some long term negative affects on a child.

Question 41

What are some signs of a disinhibited attachment?

Answer 41

• Diffusion Of Responsibility
• Non-Selectively Focused Attachment Behaviour
• Attention-Seeking and Indiscriminately Friendly Behaviour
• Poorly Modulated Peer Interactions

Question 42

What was the Bucharest Early Intervention Project?

Answer 42

It’s aim was to assess the attachment types of children raised in an institution. There were 95 children in the study between the ages of 12-31 months who had on average spent 90% of their lives in care. Thy were compared to a control group of 50 children who had never been in care. The attachment types of the children were measured using Ainsworth’s Strange Situation and carers were also asked about any unusual behaviours.
- 74% of the control group were securely attached compared to 19% of the institutional group.
- 44% of the institutional group were found to have a disinhibited attachment compared to only 20% of the control group.

Question 43

What is Bowlby’s theory of the Internal working model?

Answer 43

This is the theory that the initial attachment and relationships a child has will provide a template for all later relationships. If a child has a warm and loving mother, they can expect similar relationships in later life whereas if their mother is cold and rejecting, that is how their future relationships will turn out.

Question 44

What was Hazan and Shaver’ study?

Answer 44

They tested Bowlby’s hypothesis using a ‘love quiz’ which consisted of nearly 100 questions published in the ‘Rocky Mountain News’. They received 620 replies to their questionnaire.
They reached the conclusion that securely attached adults held the belief that love is enduring and were less likely to have been divorced. Those who were judged to be insecurely attached held the belief that true love was rare and found relationships less easy.
56% of the sample were securely attached, 25% were avoidant and 19% were resistant.

Question 45

Give 3 other aspects of life which are influenced by the internal working model.

Answer 45

Childhood Friendships - Securely attached children find it much easier to make friends and are more socially competent.
Poor Parenting Skills - Harlow’s research on Rhesus Monkeys showed that those deprived of an attachment figure did not go on to make good parents. Quinton found a similar pattern in humans.
Mental Health - Attachment disorder is an officially classified disorder in the DSM V. Insecure attachment is also associated with depression and anxiety disorders.