Attachment

Question 1

What is attachment

Answer 1

An attachment is a close two-way emotional bond between two individuals where each individual sees the other as essential for their own emotional security

Question 2

What are the features of attachment

Answer 2

• infant seek proximity trying to stay near
  -both cargive and infant feel distressed when separated
  -both the infant and care giver feel pleasure when reunited

Question 3

What is reciprocity

Answer 3

A care giver infant interactions. It is a two way or mutual process where each individual responds to the others signals to sustain the interaction

Question 4

What is interactional synchrony

Answer 4

When a caregiver and infant reflect the actions and emotions of the other in a coordinated way. They mirror each other

Question 5

What is a study of infant caregiver interactions

Answer 5

Meltzoff and Moore

Question 6

Evaluation of care giver infant interactions

Answer 6

• hard to know what is happening when observing babies
  -controlled observations capture fine detail - no demand characteristics
• practical issues- babies are usually being fed or asleep

Question 7

A study to show fathers are not psychologically biologically and socially equipped

Answer 7

Hardy found fathers were less likely to be able to detect low levels of infant distress compared to mothers

Question 8

Study that supports fathers are not care givers they are playmates

Answer 8

Geiger found that a fathers play interactions were more exciting in comparisons to a mother

Question 9

Study that supports fathers can demonstrate sensitive responsiveness

Answer 9

Easterbrook and Goldberg provided evidence that infants who were securely attached to their fathers would demonstrate optimal behaviour in problem solving. Compared to insecure father attached infants.

Question 10

Who identified stages of attachment

Answer 10

Schaffer

Question 11

What did Schaffer and Emerson aim to investigate

Answer 11

The formation of early attachments, in particular the age they developed, their emotional intensity and to whom they were directed

Question 12

What was the sample size of their experiment

Answer 12

60 babies
31 boys and 29 girls

Question 13

What was their experiment

Answer 13

Went to houses and observed the mum and child. They gave their mother a questionnaire every month adding reliability
They looked at stranger and separation anxiety

Question 14

What were their finding

Answer 14

-Attachment tended to be the care giver which was most interactive and sensitive to signals and needs
- most infants started to show separation protest when parted from their attachment figure between 6-8 months with stranger anxiety being shown 1 month later
-by 40 weeks 80% babies had specific attachment and 30% multiple attachments. By 18 months 87% had at least 2 attachments

Question 15

What are the 4 stages of attachments

Answer 15

-asocial
-Indiscriminate attachment
-specific attachment
-multiple attachment

Question 16

Evaluation of schaffers study

Answer 16

Strengths:
-high external validity as carried out in own homes meaning high a chance the participants acted naturally.
-longitudinal study was conducted over a long period of time with the same babies. This reduces individual differences and researcher is able to see personal development

Limitations:
-generalisability of results as all the babies had the same culture same class and all from Scotland

Question 17

What does imprinting mean

Answer 17

Innate readiness to develop a strong bond with the mother, which takes place during a specific time in development. If it doesn’t happen it probs won’t happen at all

Question 18

What was lorenz’s study

Answer 18

Lab study
Divided sample into 2 different environments
One group of goose eggs were put in an incubator and carefully watched
One group of goose eggs put in natural environment with mother goose
When the goose eggs hatched in the incubator, they imprinted on the first living thing they saw which was lorenz
And the eggs with the mother attached to the mother goose.

Question 19

Evaluation of lorenz’s study

Answer 19

Strengths:
- no ethical issues

Limitations:
-generalisability to humans (EXTRAPOLATION)
- some of Lorenz observations have been questioned- guiton et al found that chickens imprinted on yellow washing up gloves would try to mate with them as adults but eventually learnt to prefer mating with other chickens

Question 20

What was the procedure of harlow’s monkey study

Answer 20

Tested the idea that a soft object serves some of the functions of a mother
He reared 16 baby monkeys with two wire model mothers. In one condition milk was dispensed by the plain mother whereas in a second condition the milk wasnt dispensed by the cloth-covered mother

Question 21

What were harlows findings

Answer 21

It was found that the baby monkeys cuddled the soft object in preference to the wire one and sought comfort from the cloth one when frightened regardless of food. This showed that comfort was more important to the monkey.
The baby monkey spent 22 hours a day on the cloth mother
In the future
The adults were more aggressive and less sociable with others
They bred less
One monkey chewed their own hand off

Question 22

Evaluation of the Harlow study

Answer 22

Strengths:
-Theoretical value findings have had a profound effect on psychologists understanding of human mothers
-showed us the importance of the quality of early relationships for later social development
Shows that attachments develop as a result of contact comfort not just food
- practical value helped social workers understand risk factors of child neglect and abuse

Limitations:
-ethical issues
The monkeys suffered greatly as a result of this study

Question 23

Who came up with the learning theory of attachment

Answer 23

Dollars and miller

Question 24

What are the key points of the learning theory

Answer 24

-sits on the side of nurture
-when children are born they are blank slates
-theory is known as cupboard love as care givers are seen as satisfying babies basic psychological needs- child learns to love whoever feeds them

Question 25

What is the ucs, UCR, NS is classical conditioning of learning to attach

Answer 25

UCS- food
UCR- pleasure
NS- mother

Question 26

How might operant conditioning explain why babies cry for comfort

Answer 26

Crying leads to a response from caregiver e.g feeding. As long as the caregiver provides a response, crying is reinforced. The baby then directs crying for comfort towards the caregiver who responds with comforting social suppressor behaviour ( positive reinforcement)

Question 27

Who’s is the monotropic theory

Answer 27

Bowlby

Question 28

Features of bowlby’s monotropic theory

Answer 28

-Concepts of a critical period
-Internal working model
-An evolutionary theory of attachment
-attachments r two way process
-attachment is a biological process

Question 29

What does ASCMI

Answer 29

Adaptive
Social releases
Critical period
Monotropic
Internal working model

Question 30

What does adaptive mean

Answer 30

They give our species an adaptive advantage making us more likely to survive

Question 31

What does monotropic

Answer 31

Most important attachment is one between infant and one particular primary care-giver

Constant contact means a good quality attachment

Bowlby called this person the mother but didn’t have to be biological

Question 32

What are social releases

Answer 32

Baby acting cute- social releases

Caregiver finds it cute activating adult attachment system so they love their infant. It is reciprocal and builds relationships

Question 33

What is the critical period

Answer 33

AGE 2
If no attachment by them then they find it hard to make attachments
A child is maximally sensitive at this age

Question 34

What is the interns working model

Answer 34

A child forms a mental representation of their relationship with the primary caregiver. Explains why children from functional families tend to have similar families themselves

Question 35

Evaluation of bowlby’s monotropic theory

Answer 35

Strengths
- support for social releases

-support for internal working model testable because patterns of attachment will be passed on from one generation to the next

Limitations
-temporal validity-relevant to todays society
- doesn’t consider cultural differences
- socially sensitive research- negative impacts on particular groups of people e’g working mothers can’t give constant contact