Attachment Flashcards

Question

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

Answer 1

Great Britain

Answer 2

West Germany

Answer 3

Great Britain

Answer 4

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

Answer 5

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

Answer 6

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.

Answer 7

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.

Answer 8

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.

Answer 9

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.

Answer 10

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.

Answer 11

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.

Answer 12

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.

Answer 13

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.

Answer 14

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

Answer 15

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.

Answer 16

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.

Answer 17

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.

Answer 18

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.