Attachment

Question 1

attachment

Answer 1

the affectional bind between 2 people- endures over time

Question 2

purpose of attachment

Answer 2

as babies are immobile- they have to form an attachment in order to survive

Question 3

reciprocity

Answer 3

‘returning the gesture’- instigated by either caregiver of infant, one person leads the other follows

Question 4

interactional synchrony

Answer 4

doing the same thing/mirroring

Question 5

what strengthens attachment

Answer 5

reciprocacy and interactional synchrony

Question 6

Meltzoff and Moore (1977)

Answer 6

an adult displayed one of three facial expressions, in front of infants as young as two weeks old
child was filmed and observed by independent observers
association was found between expression/gesture and the actions of the babies

Question 7

analysis for Meltzoff and Moore (1977)

Answer 7

the two week olds could learn the behaviour in the two weeks, so they did it on 3 day olds- found they still mirror but again could have been learned in those three days, so they did on day olds- they still mirrored

Question 8

day old babies (Meltzoff and Moore) still mirroring suggests that….

Answer 8

it is innate- the babies are born with actions such as grasping and sucking and do it to maintain proximity

Question 9

the more interaction=

Answer 9

better bond

Question 10

Still Face Experiment

Answer 10

-mother and baby interact
-the mother turns away and does not interact/ has a still face
-babies instigate interaction and when they get no response they become distressed and then lie emotionless

Question 11

what does the still face experiment highlight?

Answer 11

the purpose of interactions

Question 12

AO3- attachment- it is hard to test infant behaviour

Answer 12

limitation it is difficult to be certain about what takes place in the infants mind, it is unknown if imitation is conscious and therefore a limitation as it decreases validity

Question 13

AO3- attachment- most experiments are done under high control

Answer 13

strength ensures fine details and behaviours can be recorded and later analysed, and babies do not know they are being observed so demand characteristics do not affect the experiment as behaviour will not change.

Question 14

AO3- attachment- these observations do not tell us the purpose of synchrony and reciprocity

Answer 14

limitation observations are what is seen and only describes the behaviours but tells us no purpose, a weakness as it potentially ignores mental processes and cannot explain the behaviour

Question 15

AO3- attachment- socially sensitive nature

Answer 15

weakness research between the mother and infant suggests some children are disadvantaged- e.g mothers who return to work soon after their child is born have less oppurtunities for achieving interactional synchrony which is important in the development of the attachment- suggests. mothers should not return to work and may make them feel guilty for doing so

Question 16

imprinting

Answer 16

when an animal forms an attachment to the first thing it sees upon hatching- has to happen in the critical period or they do not attach themselves to the mother figure

Question 17

Lorenz’s procedure

Answer 17

half a clutch of goose eggs hatched in their natural environment and the first thing they saw was their mother and the other half were hatched in an incubator and the first thing they saw was Lorenz

Question 18

what did Lorenz find?

Answer 18

the group that first saw him followed him around and the others who saw their mother followed her around- even when they were mixed

Question 19

sexual imprinting

Answer 19

Lorenz also studied sexual imprinting and adult mate prefernces, the first thing the peacock saw was a giant tortoise when born and only displayed courtship behaviour to giant tortoise, therefore the peacock had undergone sexual imprinting

Question 20

Lorenz’s work cannot be generalised to humans (AO3)

Answer 20

most of his research was on birds, mammalian attachment is different to birds, egg mammalian mothers show more emotional attachment- not appropriate to generalise

Question 21

Lorenz’s observations have been questioned due to opposing research

Answer 21

lorenz said imprinting has a permanent affect on mating behaviour- Guiton found that chickens imprinted on yellow washing up gloves and would try to mate but with experience learned they preferred to mate w other chickens

Question 22

what idea did Harlow test

Answer 22

that soft objects save some of the functions of mothers

Question 23

harlows procedure

Answer 23

16 baby monkeys with two wire model ‘mothers’ in one condition milk was dispensed by the plain wire mother and in the second dispensed by clothed mother

Question 24

harlow’s findings

Answer 24

baby monkeys cuddled the soft object over the wire one and sought comfort from the cloth one when scared regardless whether is dispensed milk

Question 25

what do harlows findings suggest

Answer 25

contact comfort was of more importance to the monkeys than food

Question 26

harlow deprived the monkeys of mothers as adults

Answer 26

he deprived the monkeys of a mother and wanted to see the consequences in adult life- the monkeys with wire mothers suffered the most and those with a soft toy mother did not develop normal social behaviour

Question 27

how did the mother-deprived monkeys act?

Answer 27

more aggressive- less sociable and bred less often, as mothers they also neglected their children and attacked them and sometimes killed them

Question 28

harlows critical period

Answer 28

a mother figure had to be introduced to the infant monkey within 90 days for an attachment to form

Question 29

harlows research has theoretical value (AO3)

Answer 29

helped psychologists understand human-mother attachment and attachment does not develop as a result of being fed by a mother figure but contact comfort instead, also the importance of early relationships for later social development

Question 30

harlows research has practical value (AO3)

Answer 30

helped social workers understand risk factors in child neglect and abuse and how to prevent it and important to monkeys and that we need proper attachment figures in zoos

Question 31

harlow ethical issues (AO3)

Answer 31

the monkeys suffered greatly as a result, their suffering was human-like as the species were similar to humans

Question 32

bowlbys theory

Answer 32

that attachment was an innate system that gave a survival advantage

Question 33

bowlby rejected…

Answer 33

learning theory

Question 34

bowlbys theory is described as..

Answer 34

monotropic- he placed great emphasis on a childs attachment to one particular caregiver

Question 35

bowlby believed..

Answer 35

the more time spent with the primary attachment figure, the better

Question 36

bowlbys two principles

Answer 36

-law of continuity
-law of accumulated separation

Question 37

law of continuity

Answer 37

the more constant and predictable child care, the better quality of their attachment

Question 38

law of accumulated separation

Answer 38

effects of everyday separation from the mother adds up

Question 39

social releasers

Answer 39

a set of innate ‘cute’ behaviours babies are born with like cooing and gripping because they encourage attention from adults

Question 40

bowlby recognises that attachment was a reciprocal process

Answer 40

both mother and baby have innate predisposition to become attached and social releases trigger response in caregivers

Question 41

bowlbys critical period

Answer 41

0-30 months - when infant attachment system is active

Question 42

internal working model

Answer 42

a childs mental representation of their relationship with their primary caregiver

Question 43

a child who’s first experience is of a loving relationship are…

Answer 43

more loving and reliable and bring those qualities to future relationships

Question 44

the internal working model affects…

Answer 44

the childs ability to become a parent later themselves- people base their behaviour on their own experiences of being parented

Question 45

mixed evidence for monotropy (Ao3)

Answer 45

❌ idea that there is on special attachment is not supported by Schaffer and Emerson, they found most babies did not attach to one person at first and can form multiple at one time

Question 46

support for social releasers (AO3)

Answer 46

✅ cute behaviours are intended to initiate social interaction and it is important for the baby- when mother turned away from their childs the babies had strong reactions(played motionless) having a reaction supports significance of infant social behaviour

Question 47

support for internal working models (AO3)

Answer 47

✅Bailey et al- tested 99 mothers with one year-olds, using interview and observation, idea is testable- predicts patterns of attachment will be passed through generations, mothers who reported poor attachment to their parents in interview had children classified as poor attachment in observation- supports bowlby

Question 48

monotrpy is socially sensitive idea (AO3)

Answer 48

❌ suggests having time apart risks poor quality attachment and will disadvantage the child- places burden on mother and lots of responsibility and pushes them not to return to work

Question 49

the strange situation

Answer 49

-Ainsworth
-designed to look at different attachment styles

Question 50

Ainsworth

Answer 50

a student of bowlby so had similar ideas, caregiver needs to repsond to the infant

Question 51

the strange situation was an…

Answer 51

OBSERVATION not an experiment, we are not changing/manipulating anything, measuring the security of attachment a child displays towards a caregiver

Question 52

what did the strange situation assess?

Answer 52

separation anxiety, stranger anxiety and reunion behaviour

Question 53

proximity seeking

Answer 53

looking at how a child seeks to be close to the mother- secure base behaviour, the mother is a secure base for exploration

Question 54

how many ‘episodes’ does the strange situation procedure have and how long do they last.

Answer 54

7 episodes and 3 minutes each

Question 55

overall overview of strange situation procedure

Answer 55

The child is encouraged to explore, a stranger comes in and tries to interact with the child, the caregiver leaves the child and stranger together, caregiver returns and stranger leaves, caregiver leaves child alone, stranger returns, caregivers returns and is reunited with child.

Question 56

ainsworths findings

Answer 56

children explored the room more when enthusiastically when mother was present and kept coming back to her

Question 57

3 types of attachment

Answer 57

A- insecure avoidant
B- securely attached
C- insecure resistant

Question 58

type A- insecure avoidant

Answer 58

20-25% of British infants
not bothered or stressed when mother leaves or when stranger enters

Question 59

type B- securely attached

Answer 59

60-75% of British infants
turns away from stranger, little bit distressed when mother leaves and when mother returns crying/distress stops

Question 60

type C- insecure resistant

Answer 60

3% of British infants
extreme distressed reaction to stranger entering and mother leaving, but when mother comes back they seek comfort but do not accept it as they are angry their mother left them

Question 61

type D

Answer 61

disorganised attachment- a mix of A and C

Question 62

the strange situation- support for validity (AO3)

Answer 62

✅ attachment type is strongly predictive of later development, babies assessed as secure typically have better outcomes in various areas such as romantic relationships and school, insecure attachment have worse outcomes e.g, getting bullied or bullying others + adult mental health problems - strength as can explain subsequent outcomes

Question 63

the strange situation- good reliability (AO3)

Answer 63

✅ good inter-rater reliability, there were multiple observers watching the same children and had to come to agreement to classify them
Bick et al-found agreement on attachment type for 94% of babies

Question 64

the strange situation-may be culture- bound (AO3)

Answer 64

❌ cultural differences mean children respond differently
-takashi (1990) test does not work in Japan because mothers are rarely separated from their mothers- high levels of anxiety

Question 65

the strange situation- may not be measuring effect of attachment (AO3)

Answer 65

❌anxiety may not be caused by attachment
Kagan suggested that is was temperament (genetically influenced personality the child) that had a more important influence- a confounding variable

Question 66

cultural variations van Uzendoorn, procedure

Answer 66

researchers located 32 studies of attachment where the strange situation was used, 15 were in the USA, in total the 32 studies was used in 8 countries. the 32 studies yielded results for 1990 children

Question 67

cultural variations van Uzendoorn, findings

Answer 67

there was wide variation between the attachment types in different studies, in all countries secure attachment was the most common classification, however proportion ranged from 75% in Britain to 50% in China, insecure resistant was overall the least common type although the proportions ranged from 3% in Britain to 30% in Israel. also in between the studies in the same countries there was in 150% greater variation than those between countries

Question 68

other studies cultural variations in attachment

Answer 68

italian study, conducted a study to see whether proportions of attachments matched previous studies, the found that 50% were secure and 36% were insecure avoidant, this is a lower rate of secure attachments then was found in other studies. the researchers suggest that this could be because young mothers return to work earlier and for longer hours and more mothers hire carers to look after their children
korean study, overall proportions of secure and insecure attachments were similar to those in most countries however more of those classified as insecure attached were resistant and only one child was avoidant, this distribution is similar to distributions found in japanese studies, since japan and korea have quite similar cultures this similarity can be explained by child rearing style

Question 69

A03 - cultural variations - large samples

Answer 69

strength of combining results of attachments studies carried out in different countries is that you can end up with a very large sample, for example in the meta-analysis there was nearly 2000 ppts, the overall sample size is a strength because large sample size increases internal validity by reducing the impact of anomalous results caused by bad methodology and unusual ppts

Question 70

A03 - cultural variations - samples tend to be unrepresentative of culture

Answer 70

the meta-analysis claims to study cultural variation whereas in fact the comparison was between countries and not cultures, within any country there are many different cultures and therefore many different child rearing practices, e.g. a study by Uzendoorn and Sagi found that distributions of attachments styles in Tokyo matched those of studies in the USA however the distributions in a more rural sample didn’t. this means that comparisons in between countries may have little meaning, the particular cultural characteristics of the sample need to be specified

Question 71

A03 - cultural variation - method of assessment is biased

Answer 71

the strange situations was designed by an American researcher Ainsworth who largely influenced by her British teacher Bowlby. there is a questions over whether Anglo-American theories and assessments can be applied to other cultures, applying a theory based on one culture onto another culture is know as imposed etic. an example of imposed etic may be that the idea that alack of separation anxiety and lack of pleasure on reunion indicates an insecure attachment in the strange situation, in Germany this behaviour might be seen more as independence than avoidance (individualist culture)

Question 72

A03 - cultural variations - the strange situations lacks validity

Answer 72

the strange situation may not be measuring attachments ta all, Kagan suggested that it might be measuring temperament rather the relationship with the primary caregiver

Question 73

Bowlbys theory of maternal deprivation

Answer 73

the continual presence of nurture from a mother or mother-substitute is essential for normal psychological development of babies and infants both emotionally and intellectually

Question 74

Separation vs deprivation

Answer 74

separation simply means the child not being in the presence of the primary attachment figure this only becomes an issue if the child is deprived i.e. they lose an element of care, brief separations particularly when there is a substitute caregiver are not significant however extended separations therefore deprivation are very significant

Question 75

critical period

Answer 75

bowlby saw the critical period as the first 2 1/2 years of a child’s life, if a child is separated from their mother without quality substitute care in place during the critical period then psychological damage was inevitable

Question 76

intellectual effects on development

Answer 76

maternal deprivation can effect intellectual development, bowlby believed that if children were deprived of maternal acre for too long during the critical period then they would suffer delayed intellectual development characterised by abnormally low IQ, which has been demonstrated in studies of adoption. for example Goldfab found lower IQ in children who had remained in institutions as opposed to those who ere fostered and therefore had a higher standard of emotional care

Question 77

emotional effects on development

Answer 77

bowlby identified affectionless psychopathy as the inability to experience guilt or strong emotions for others, this prevents the person developing normal relationships and is associated with criminality, affectionless psychopaths cannot appreciate the feeling of victims and so lack remorse for their actions

Question 78

Bowlby’s 44 thieves study

Answer 78

sample consisted of 44 criminal teenagers accused of stealing, all thieves were interviewed for signs of affectionless psychopathy, characterised as a lack of affection, lack of guilt about their actions and lack of empathy for their victims. families were also interviewed to establish whether there was prolonged separation, there was control group of non-criminal but emotionally disturbed young people to see how often deprivation occurred in the children who were not thieves.
they found that 14 of the 44 thieves could be described as affectionless psychopaths, of this 14 12 had experienced prolonged separation, of the control group only 2 out of 44 had experienced long separations

Question 79

A03 - MDH - evidence may be poor

Answer 79

bowlby drew on a number of sources of evidence for MDH including studies of children orphaned during WW2, those growing up in poor quality orphanages, 44 thieves study
however these are flawed as evidence, war-orphans were traumatised and had poor after care therefore these factors might affect later development difficulties rather than separation, similarly children growing up from birth in poor quality institutions were deprived of many aspects of care not just maternal acre. furthermore 44 thieves had many design flaws like the fact that Bowlby carried out the assessments himself, experimenter bias

Question 80

A03 - MDH - counter-evidence

Answer 80

not all research has supported Bowlbys findings, for example when the 44 thieves study was replicated on a larger scale of 500 young people, in this sample a history of prolonged separation from the mother did not predict criminality or difficulty forming close relationships, this is a limitation for the theory because it suggests that other factors may effect the outcome of early MDH

Question 81

A03 - MDH - critical period is more of a sensitive period

Answer 81

bowlby used the term critical period because he believed that damage was inevitable if prolonged separation took place within this period however later research has shown that it is no inevitable and severe deprivation can lead to good outcomes if the child has some social interaction and good aftercare. for example the Koluchova twins who were isolated from the age 18 months until they were seven years old subsequently they were looked after by two loving adults and appeared to recover fully showing that critical period might be a sensitive one

Question 82

A03 - MDH - failure to distinguish between deprivation and privation

Answer 82

Rutter claimed that when Bowlby talked of deprivation he was muddling 2 concepts together, Rutter drew a distinction between deprivation which really means the loss of the primary attachment figure after attachment has developed whereas privation is the failure to form any attachment in the first place, Rutter claimed that the severe long term damage Bowlby associated with deprivation is actually more likely to be the result of privation

Question 83

Romanian Orphan Studies

Answer 83

institutionalisation arose in Romania in the 1990s, president Ceaucescu required Romanian woman to have 5 children, however many parents could not afford to keep the children and the children ended up going to huge orphanages in very poor conditions

Question 84

Rutters ERA Study - procedure

Answer 84

Rutter et al followed a group of 165 romanian orphans adopted in Britain to test to what extent good care could make for poor early experiences in institutions, physical cognitive and emotional development has been assessed at ages 4,6,11,15 years, a group of 52 British children adopted at the same time have served as a control group

Question 85

Rutters ERA Study - findings

Answer 85

when they first arrive din the UK half the adoptees showed signs of delayed intellectual development and the majority were severly undernourished, at age 11 the the adopeted children showed different rates of recovery that were related to their age of adoption the mean IQ of children adopted >6 months = 102, 6 - 24 months = 86, <24 months = 77. these differences remained ta age 16
in terms of attachment there appeared to be a difference in outcome related to whether adoption took place before or after 6 months, the children adopted after 6 months showed a particular type of attachment disinhibited attachment, symptoms included attention seeking, clinginess, social behaviour directed towards all adults no matter if they were unfamiliar or familiar, in contrast children adopted before 6 months rarely displayed this attachment type

Question 86

Bucharest Early Intervention Project

Answer 86

Zeanah et al assessed attachment in 95 children aged 12-31 months who had spent most of their time in institutional care they were compared to a control group of 50 children who had never lived in an institution, their attachment type was measured using the strange situation in addition carers were asked about unusual social behaviours.
they found that 74% of the control group came out as securely attached however only 19% of the institutional group were securely attached, disinhibited attachment could be applied to 44%

Question 87

Effects of Institutionalisation - Disinhibited attachment

Answer 87

this attachment is a typical effect of spending time in an institution, they are equally friendly and affectionate towards people they know well and people they dont know at all, rutter explained this attachment as an adaptation to living with multiple caregivers during the sensitive period for attachment formation

Question 88

Effects of Institutionalisation - mental retardation

Answer 88

in rutters study children showed signs of retardation upon arriving in Britain, most of those adopted before they were 6 months caught up with the control group by age of 4, it appears that, like emotional development damage to intellectual development can be recovered provided adoption takes place before the age of 6 months

Question 89

A03 - Romanian orphan studies - real-life application

Answer 89

studying the Romanian orphan has enhanced our understanding of the effects of institutionalisation, such results have led to improvements in the way children are cared for in institutionalisations, for example orphanages now avoid having a large numbers of caregivers for each child perhaps only one or two people play a central role for the child. this person is called a key worker having this key worker means that children have the chance to develop normal attachments and helps avoid disinhibited attachments

Question 90

A03 - Romanian orphan studies - fewer extraneous variables than other orphan studies

Answer 90

there were many orphan studies before the Romanian orphans to study but often these studies involved children who had experienced loss or trauma before they were institutionalised e.g. they had experienced neglect or abuse. it was very hard to observe the effects of institutionalisation in isolation because the children were dealing with multiple factors which functioned as confounding ppt variables. in the case of the Romanian orphans it has been possible to study institutionalisation without these cofounding variables which means the findings have increased internal validity

Question 91

A03 - Romanian orphan studies - the romanian orphanages were not typical

Answer 91

although much useful data about institutionalisation has come out of the romanian orphan studies it is possible that the conditions were so bad that the results cannot be applied to understanding the impact of better quality institutional care or indeed any situation where children experience deprivation. for example romanian orphanages had particularly poor standards of care and extremely low levels of intellectual stimulation therefore this is limitation because of the unusual situational variables which mean that the studies lack generalisability

Question 92

A03 - Romanian orphan studies - ethical issues

Answer 92

methodological issues of rutters study is that the children were not randomly assigned to conditions, the researchers did not interfere with the adoption process, which means that those children adopted early may have been the more sociable ones this is a confounding variables, it would be methodologically better to randomly allocate where the orphans would go this would remove the confounding variable of which children are chosen by parents but it raises major ethical issues

Question 93

A03 - romanian orphan studies - long-term effects are not yet clear

Answer 93

the studies into these orphans have followed up these children to their mid-teens and found some lasting effect of early experience in particular for those adopted late, however it is too soon to say with certainty whether children suffered long term or short term effects, it may be that the children who spent longer in institutions and currently lag behind emotionally and intellectually to their peers catch up and the opposite could happen to those that spent less time institutions

Question 94

internal working model

Answer 94

bowlby suggested that a child having their first relationship with their primary attachment figure forms a mental representation of this relationship, this internal working model acts as a template for future relationships, the quality of the child’s first attachment is crucial. a child who first experience is of a loving relationship with a reliable caregiver will tend to assume that how relationships are meant to be, they will then seek out functional relationships and will act functional in them, a child with bad experiences of their first attachments will bring these bad experiences to bear on later relationships

Question 95

relationships in later childhood

Answer 95

attachment type is associated with the quality of peer relationships in childhood, secure attached infants tend to go on to form the best quality friendships while insecurely attached children have problems forming relationships, a study found that insecure avoidant children were most likely to be victims of bullying and insecure resistant children were most likely to be bullies

Question 96

relationships in adulthood with romantic partners - procedure

Answer 96

McCarthy and Shaver conducted a classic study of the association between attachment and adult relationships, they analysed 620 responses to a love quiz printed out in a local american newspaper, the quiz had three sections. the first one assessed respondents current or most important relationship, the second one assessed general love experiences, the third one assessed attachment type

Question 97

relationships in adulthood with romantic partners - findings

Answer 97

56% of respondents were identified as securely attached with 25% insecure avoidant and19% insecure resistant, those reporting secure attachments were the most likely to have good and longer lasting relationships, avoidant respondents tend to reveal jealousy and fear of intimacy, these findings suggest that patterns of attachments behaviour are reflected in romantic relationships

Question 98

relationships in adulthood as a parent

Answer 98

internal working models also affect the children’s ability to parent their own children, people tend to base parenting style on their own internal working model so attachment types tend to be passed down generations of a family, in bailey et al with the 99 mothers mother-baby and mother-own mother attachment was assessed and the majority of women had the same attachment classification both to their babies and their own mothers

Question 99

A03 - influence of early attachment on later relationships - evidence on continuity of attachment type is mixed

Answer 99

evidence for the continuity between infant attachment type and quality of later relationships is mixed, some studies like McCarthy do appear to support continuity and so provide evidence for the internal working model but not all studies do Zimmerman assessed infant attachment type and adolescent attachment to parents and found that there was very little relationship, this is a problem because it is not what we would expect if internal working models were important in development

Question 100

A03 - influence of early attachment on later relationships - most studies have issues of validity

Answer 100

most studies of attachments to primary caregivers do not use the strange situations and instead use interviews or questionnaires this raises issues of validity, assessment relies on self-report techniques like interviews or questionnaires to assess the quality of relationships , therefore validity decreases because they depend on respondents being honest and having a realistic view of their own relationships, also looking back in adulthood art ones early relationships to a attachment figure probably lacks validity because it relies on accurate recollections

Question 101

A03 - influence of early attachment on later relationships - association does not mean causality

Answer 101

in those studies where infant attachment type is associated with quality of later relationships the implication is that the infant attachment type causes the attachment, however there are other explanations for the continuity between infant attachments and later relationships a third environmental factor like parenting style might have a direct effect on the child’s ability to form relationships with others, alternatively could be the child’s temperament that may influence infant attachment and the quality of later relationships

Question 102

A03 - influence of early attachment on later relationships - influence of early attachment is probabilistic

Answer 102

likely that infant attachments influence later relationships, however some attachment researchers including Bowlby have probably exaggerated the significance of this influence. Ann Clarke and Alan Clarke describe the influence of infant attachment on later relationships as probabilistic, people are not doomed to always have bad relationships just because they had attachment problems, by emphasising the risk we become too pessimistic about peoples futures

Question 103

A03 - influence of early attachment on later relationships - self-report is conscious but internal working models are not

Answer 103

theoretical problem with most research related to internal working models, internal working models are unconscious, we are not directly aware of their influence on us, we would not really expect to get direct evidence about them by means of interview or questionnaires because people can only self report what they are aware of, when ppts self report they rely on their conscious understanding of those relationships, this is a limitation of the concept of the internal working model

Question 104

Schaffer and Emerson

Answer 104

they studied 60 babies all were from Glasgow and the majority were from skilled working class families, the babies and their mothers were visited at home every month for the first year and again at 18 months, researchers asked mothers questions about babies reactions to seven everyday separations, this was designed to measure an infants attachment type they also assessed stranger anxiety

Question 105

Schaffer and Emerson - Findings

Answer 105

between 25 and 32 weeks of age about 50% of the babies showed separation anxiety towards a particular adult, attachment tended to be to the caregiver who was most interactive and sensitive to infant signals and facial expressions (not necessarily the person they spent the most time with), by the age of 40 weeks the 80% of the babies had a specific attachment and almost 30% displayed multiple attachments

Question 106

What are the 4 stages of attachment

Answer 106

Stage 1: Asocial Stage
Stage 2: Indiscriminate Attachment
Stage 3: Specific Attachment
Stage 4: Multiple Attachments

Question 107

Stage 1: Asocial Stage (first few weeks)

Answer 107

not really an asocial stage since baby is recognising and forming bonds with its carers, however babies behaviour towards objects and humans is quite similar, babies have some preference for familiar adults, babies are also happier when in the presence of humans

Question 108

Stage 2: Indiscriminate Attachment

Answer 108

from 2-7 months babies display more observable social beahviour, they show a prefernce fro people rather than inanimate objects and recognise and prefer familiar adults

Question 109

Stage 3: Specific Attachment

Answer 109

from around 7 months the majority of babies start to display anxiety towards strangers and to become anxious when separated from one particular adult, at this point the baby is said to have formed a specific attachment, this adult is termed the primary attachment figure, this person isnt the one who spends the most time, but the most quality time

Question 110

Stage 4: Multiple Attachments

Answer 110

shortly after babies show attachment behaviour towards one adult they usually extend this attachment behaviour to multiple attachments with other adults with whom they regularly spend time with, these relationships are called secondary attachments, 29% of the children had secondary attachments within a month of forming a primary attachment, by the age of about one year the majority of infants had developed multiple attachments

Question 111

Schaffers stages of attachment - A03 - Good External Validity

Answer 111

study was carried out in families own home and most of the observations was actually done by parents during ordinary activities and reported to researchers later, this means that behaviour of babies was unlikely to be affected by the presence of others, ppts behaved naturally therefore study has good external validity

Question 112

Schaffers stages of attachment - A03 - Longitudinal Design

Answer 112

a strength of the study is that it is longitudinal this means that the same children were followed up and observed regularly, quicker alternative would have been to observe children at each age, this is called a cross-sectional design, longitudinal designs have better internal validity than cross-sectional designs because they do not have confounding variables of individual differences between ppts

Question 113

Schaffers stages of attachment - A03 - Limited Sample Characteristics

Answer 113

the sample size of 60 babies and their carers was good considering the large volume of data that was gathered on each ppt, however the fact that all the families involved were from the same district and social class in the same city and at a time over 50 years ago is a limitation, child rearing practices vary from one culture to another and one historical period to another, these results do not necessarily generalise well to other social and historical contexts.

Question 114

Schaffers stages of attachment - A03 - Conflicting Evidence on Multiple Attachments

Answer 114

not clear when children can form multiple attachments, some research shows that most if not all babies form attachments to a single main carer before they become capable of developing multiple attachments, other psychologists, in particular those who work in those cultural contexts where multiple caregivers are the norm believe babies form multiple attachments from the outset, such cultures are called collectivist because families work together jointly in everything

Question 115

traditional role of the father

Answer 115

The traditional role of the father was to be the breadwinner of the family, the protector and the person who was the sole provider of the family
The traditional role of the mother was to be the person who looked after the home and the children who raised the children, cleaned the house, prepared the food. They weren’t meant to work or study.

Question 116

the role of the father

Answer 116

from Schaffer and Emerson, the most common second attachment formed was with the father
this was the case in 27% of the initial sample and at 18 months 75% had formed an attachment with their father
the role of fathers has significantly developed since then and many men are more hands on with their children since the 1960s
in only 3% of the cases was the father the first sole object of attachment, therefore the role of the father in raising a child is less than the mothers.
biological differences between men and women can explain the differences in their roles. women produces oestrogen which is a hormone that helps creates and raise children therefore makes sense they are the primary caregiver the father has no impact on the creation of the child other than the sperm donation

Question 117

Geiger (1996) research into the fathers role

Answer 117

found that fathers had a different role from the mother. the mum is associated with care and nurturing the child. the dad is more about fun and playing with the child, from this we get the idea of the fathers role being the fun dad

Question 118

Grossman (2002) - research into the role of the father

Answer 118

conducted a longitudinal study looking at how the quality of relationships between parents and children changed from infancy to the teenage years.
it was found that the early attachment to the mother was a better predictor of what the teenage relationship was like, it seems that the father is less important to later development than the mother in terms of nurture, however if father does engage in active play with the child, the adolescent relationship with both parents is strengthened

Question 119

A03 for the role of the father

Answer 119

different research states different facts about fatherhood as they are looking for different things - there is a lack of consistency in research, the question should be what is the role of the secondary attachment figure rather than the role of the father
socially sensitive nature for single parent households with no father figure, which is now more common in society
If as Field suggested and men can take on the primary caregiver role and become more nurturing and caring why don’t they, due to the stereotype of their role in the family
the ideas of the role of the father are nomothetic however they should base more on the individual experience of each family

Question 120

Learning Theory

Answer 120

proposed by caregiver-infant attachment, their approach is sometimes called cupboard love approach because it emphasises the importance of the caregiver as a provider of food

Question 121

Classical Conditioning

Answer 121

this involves learning to associate 2 stimuli together so that we begin to respond to one in the same way as we already respond to the other, in the case of attachments food serves as unconditioned stimuli, being fed gives us pleasure - we dont have to learn that, it is an unconditioned response. a caregiver starts as a neutral stimulus, when the same person provides the food over time they become associated with food - when the baby sees this person there is an immediate expectation of food, the neutral stimulus has become a conditioned stimulus, once conditioning has taken place the sight of the caregiver produces a conditioned of pleasure, to a learning theorist this is love

Question 122

Operant Conditioning

Answer 122

involves learning to repeat behaviour or not, depending on consequences, if behaviour produces pleasant consequence, that behaviour is likely to be repeated again, the behaviour has been reinforced, if a behaviour produces an unpleasant consequence it is likely to be repeated
operant conditioning can explain why babies cry for comfort - an important behaviour in building attachment, crying leads to a response from the caregiver for example feeding, as long as the caregiver provides the correct response, crying is reinforced, the baby then directs crying for comfort towards the caregiver who responds with comforting social suppressor behaviour
reinforcement is a two-way process, at the same time as the baby is reinforced for crying, the caregiver receives negative reinforcement because the crying stops - escaping from something unpleasant is reinforcing, this interplay of mutual reinforcement strengthens an attachment

Question 123

Attachment as a Secondary Drive

Answer 123

learning theory draws on the concept of drive reduction, hunger can be thought of as a primary drive - its an innate biological motivator, we are motivated to eat in order to reduce the hunger drive

Question 124

Learning Theory - A03 - Counter-evidence from Animal Research

Answer 124

a range of animal studies has shown that young animals do not necessarily attach to those who feed them, Harlow + Lorenz. in both these animal studies it is clear that attachment does not develop as a result of feeding, same must be true for humans

Question 125

Learning Theory - A03 - Counter-evidence from human research

Answer 125

research with human infants also shows that feeding does not appear to be an important factor in humans, e.g. schaffer and emerson found that other carers developed a primary attachment to their biological even though carers did most of the feeding
these findings are a problem for the theory as they show that feeding is not the key element to attachment and so there is an unconditioned stimulus or primary drive involved

Question 126

Learning Theory - A03 - Learning Theory Ignores other factors associated with forming attachments

Answer 126

research suggest that early infant-caregiver interaction and the quality of this attachment relies on reciprocity and interactional synchrony, in addition studies have shown that the best quality attachments are due to attentive caregivers, hard to reconcile these findings with the idea of cupboard love, if attachment developed purely as result of feeding there would be not purpose for these complex interactions

Question 127

Learning Theory - A03 - some elements of conditioning could still be involved

Answer 127

not a good explanation but many aspects of human development are related to conditioning, the problem with the learning theory as an explanation for attachment is mostly the idea that feeding provides the unconditioned stimulus, reinforcement or primary drive, still credible that the association between the primary caregiver and the provision of comfort and social interaction is part of what builds attachment