Attachment

Question 1

definition of attachment?

Answer 1

-two way reciprocal emotional bond between individuals where one sees the other as essential for their own emotional security.

Question 2

what is reciprocity?

Answer 2

-the infant and mother respond to each others signal and each elicits a response from the other involves turn taking.

Question 3

what did Feldman study?

Answer 3

-2007 found that the frequency of reciprocity increases from 3 months and is signalled by more verbal and facial signs

Question 4

what did Brazleton et al study?

Answer 4

• 1975 characterises reciprocity as a dance where the infant and caregiver respond to each others behaviour.

Question 5

what did Meltzoff and Moore study?

Answer 5

-1977 they found that infants from two to three weeks old would respond to adult models facial expressions.
-1983 went on to show this in infants 3 days old

Question 6

what is interactional synchrony?

Answer 6

-when an infant and caregiver reflect the actions and emotions and do this in a coordinated way

Question 7

first stage of attachment?

Answer 7

-Schaffer
-Pre-attachment, 0-6 weeks, infants become attracted to other humans preferring them to objects and is shown by them smiling at others.

Question 8

second stage of attachment?

Answer 8

-Indiscriminate attachments, 6 weeks to 6 months, infants begin to understand familiar and unfamiliar and smiles at more known people.

Question 9

third stage of attachment?

Answer 9

-Discriminate attachments, 7 to 12 months, infants begin to develop specific attachments stay close to specific people and distressed when separated.

Question 10

final attachment stage?

Answer 10

-multiple attachments, 1 onwards, infants form strong emotional ties with other major caregivers fear of strangers weakens but attachment to mother remains strongest.

Question 11

what did Schaffer and Emerson study?

Answer 11

-1964
-the age at which infants become attached and who they become attached to
-naturalistic observations with a survey.
-60 Glasgow babies and their mothers from a working class area.
-babies observed in their homes every four weeks until they reached 1 and then again at 18 months
-mothers were asked about their babys reactions to 7 everyday separations designed to measure Separation anxiety and questions about infants responses to others to measure stranger anxiety.
-found that the onset of attachment was 6-9 weeks, intensely attached had mothers who responded quickly and was seen through the separation anxiety with the mother.
-39% of cases the person who bathed, fed and changed was not the primary caregiver instead it was those who were most sensitive to the infants signals and gave reciprocity.
-by 40 weeks 80% of babies had a specific attachment and 30% had multiple.

Question 12

how quick attachment to father?

Answer 12

-by 18 months 75% of infants had formed an attachment with their father, shown by separation anxiety.

Question 13

what did Grossman find?

Answer 13

-2002
-longitudinal study looking at quality of children’s attachment in adolescence.
-showed that the quality of attachment with mothers was related to children’s attachments in adolescence but the fathers wasnt
-quality of Fathers play related to teenage attachments
-suggests that fathers have a different role in fostering skills through play and stimulations rather than the traditional nurturing role of mothers.

Question 14

what did Lorenz study?

Answer 14

-studied imprinting.
-classic experiment where he divided goose eggs in to 2 half were hatched with the mother in a natural experiment, the other half in an incubator and first moving object seen was Lorenz.
-the incubated group followed Lorenz as if he was their mother, even when the two groups were mixed up and they saw their mother
-identified that there was a critical period in which imprinting could occur, varied between species and sometimes was only a few hours and if not they never attached to a mother figure.

Question 15

what did Harlow study?

Answer 15

-1950s
-to discover wether monkeys attach for comfort or food.
-16 rhesus monkeys separated from mothers at birth and put in cage where they were provided with two surrogate mothers, one cloth and one wire with a feeding bottle.
-monkeys preferred the cloth and spent 16 hours on it
-maternal deprivation have a permanant effect with monkeys more aggressive and less sociable

Question 16

What does SLT believe babies attach for?

Answer 16

-food motivâtes the baby to form an attachment

Question 17

How does a baby form an attachment through classical conditioning?

Answer 17

-pleasure from food = unconditioned stimulus.
-person doing it= neutral stimulus
-becomes associated with pleasure from feeding and therefore becomes conditioned to feel pleasure from the sight of the primary caregiver.

Question 18

How does operant condition create an attachment?

Answer 18

-process of reinforcement
-the primary caregiver becomes a source of reward as they provide food security and love.

Question 19

How does SLT believe that babies learn to show affection?

Answer 19

-through observing and imitating people so they see the caregivers affection and then show it back

Question 20

What did Bowlby believe?

Answer 20

-convinced that evolution was a vital factor in explaining some aspects of behaviour including attachment.
-is an innate instinct which increases chances of survival.

Question 21

First letter for Bowlbys beliefs?

Answer 21

-A, helpless babies we are unable to look after ourselves we need careers to keep us safe. Therefore this innate attachment is ADAPTIVE simply means it’s usefully for us to become attached.

Question 22

Bowlby acronym?

Answer 22

Adaptive
Social releases
Critical period
Monotropy
Internal working model

Question 23

2nd letter for Bowlby?

Answer 23

Social releases- which make people want to care for them like crying big eyes and adults have innate drive to respond to them

Question 24

3rd letter for Bowlby?

Answer 24

-Critical period, first 2 years of life and if attachment doesn’t occur during that period it may never do so and serious long term effects follow
-Physical, Intellectual Emotional and Social damage

Question 25

4th letter for Bolwby?

Answer 25

-Montropy, babies select one special attachment figure who acts as a safe base for exploring the world.

Question 26

Last letter for Bowlby?

Answer 26

-internal working model, monotropic attachment acts as the future model for all future relationships and create our internal working model based on future relationships

Question 27

What did Ainsworth study?

Answer 27

-1974
-to study the strange situation to investigate individual differences in attachment styles.
-child observed playing for 20 mins while caregivers and strangers enter and leave the room,
1- parent and infant are introduced to the experimental room
2- parent and infant are alone. Child plays with toys
3- stranger enters, talks to parent and approaches infant and parent leaves
4-first separation episode, stranger tries to comfort or distract infant
5- first reunion episode, parent enters and stranger leaves
6- second separation episode where the child is alone
7-stranger enters and interacts with the infant
8- second reunion, parent enters greets infant and stranger leaves

Question 28

what behaviours of a child did ainsworth study?

Answer 28

-exploration, how much of the room the child explores
-separation anxiety, how the child reacts when the mother leaves.
-stranger anxiety, how the child responds to a stranger.
-reunion behaviour, how the child reacts when the mother returns.

Question 29

what are the three attachment types?

Answer 29

secure attachment, insecure resistant attachment and insecure avoidant attachment

Question 30

characteristics of the secure attachment?

Answer 30

-exploration: will use the mother as a safe base to explore the environment.
-separation anxiety: distressed when mother leaves.
-stranger anxiety- avoidant of stranger when alone but friendly when with mother.
-reunion behaviour- positive and happy when mother returns easily comforted.
-70% of infants

Question 31

Characteristics of insecure avoidant attachment?

Answer 31

-exploration: infant will explore the environment but will not actively try to interact with mother or engage her in play, doesn’t use her as a safe base.
-separation anxiety: infant shows no signs of distress when mother leaves.
-stranger anxiety: infant is ok with the stranger and plays normally when stranger is present.
-reunion behaviour: infant shows little interest when mother returns if infant is upset then mother and stranger can both comfort infant

Question 32

Definition of privation?

Answer 32

Never forming an attachment and occurs when children are completely deprived of emotional care or when care is so fragmented that the child cannot attach to any adult. It leads to serious permanent harm to emotional social and sometimes physical development.

Question 33

Institutional care definition?

Answer 33

• place dedicated to looking after children awaiting adoption, children live here for a period of time as opposed to day care where they would go home every day. In the past institutions had fairly strict regimes and offered little emotional care

Question 34

characteristics of the insecure resistant attachment?

Answer 34

-exploration: infant cries more and explores less than the other two.
-separation anxiety: infant shows signs of intense distress.
-stranger anxiety-: infant avoids the stranger and shows fear.
-reunion behaviour: infant approaches mother but resists contact, may even push her away.
-15% of infants.

Question 35

what did De wolff and Van Ijzendoorn study? sensitivity

Answer 35

-1997 meta analysis of 66 studies over 4000 families which assesed the relationship between parental sensitivity and security of babies attachments.
-found a correlation of 0.24 between attachment and sensitivity. weak positive relationship but still supports anisworths findings

Question 36

why did ainsworth suggest three different attachment types?

Answer 36

-due to the level of sensitivity the mother showed the baby

Question 37

what did Kagan argue against Ainsworth?

Answer 37

-1987
-argued that ainsworths explanation was too parent centric and ignored what the infant brings to the relationship.
-temperament hypothesis suggests that there are innate differences in babies and are visible from birth.
-Activity, how much time the baby is awake and alert.
-emotionality, how much they become upset or aroused by events.
-sociability, how much they seek human interaction
-suggests that the attachment type formed by a baby is reflective of their own innate temperament rather than caregiver sensitivity.

Question 38

what did Kroonenberg and Van Ijezdoorn study?

Answer 38

-1988
-to investigate cross-culture variations in attachment.
-conducted a meta-analysis of 32 studies of attachment in 8 different countries containing 1990 children.
-secure attachment is the most common attachment type. however, cultural variation in parenting style effect attachment.
-GB highest level of secure at 75% GER highest level of avoidant at 35% and Israel highest resistant at 29%

Question 39

what did Takahashi study?

Answer 39

-investigated cross cultural variations in Japan and using 60 mothers and children showed there were similar levels of secure attachments but showed no evidence of insecure avoidant but high rate of insecure resistant at 32%.
-infants had extreme distressed reactions to being left alone.
-cultural variation type can be explained by the way the parent is cared for as Japanese babies are rarely separated from their mothers.

Question 40

What does deprivation mean?

Answer 40

Loss of emotional care which results in breaking of emotional bonds between an infant and its caregiver

Question 41

What is the maternal deprivation hypothesis?

Answer 41

Bowlbys idea centred on the idea that too much time spent apart from the mother or mother substitute would have significant long term effects

Question 42

What are the effects of deprivation?

Answer 42

-intellectual or emotional

Question 43

What did Bowlby study?

Answer 43

-44 thieves 1944
-to explore the link between juvenile delinquency and maternal deprivation.
-interviewed 44 adolescents who were referred to a child protection program in London because of stealing. He selected another 44 to act as a control
-interviewed parents from both groups to find out whether their children had experienced separation during the critical period and for how long.
-interviews looked for signs of affection less psychopathy: lack of affection and guilt of their actions.
-more than 80% of the thieves had experienced early separation in the control group less than 20% had experienced it and 32% showed affection less psychopathy
-supported his maternal deprivation.

Question 44

What did Rutter study?

Answer 44

-investigate the long term effects of institutional privation for children in a Romanian orphanage.
-group of Romanian orphans who had experienced privation for different periods of time were compared with UK adoptees to test the extent to which good care caused and compensated for the effects of institutionalisation.
-3 groups: 58 babies adopted before 6 months, 59 babies who had been adopted 6 and 24 months and 52 UK infants adopted at around the same time.
-Rutter found evidence of disinhibited attachment in many of the orphans with Romanian adopted between 6-24 months showing marked disinhibition at 26%.
-and intellectual development had been stunted mean IQ was 86 before 6 months but IQ adopted later had a mean IQ of 77.

Question 45

What did La Mare and Audet study?

Answer 45

• 2006
  -reported on 36 orphans adopted in Canada they were found that infants were physically smaller and less healthy than a matched control group at 4 and a half
  -but this difference disappeared by 10

Question 46

What did Quinton et Al study?

Answer 46

-1984
-compared 50 women who had been in institutions with 50 women who hadn’t when they were in their 20s it was found that institutionalised women had more difficulty as parents. And had children who were more likely to spend time in care.

Question 47

What did Sroufe study?

Answer 47

2005
-conducted a study as part of the Minnesota parent-child student.
This longitudinal study followed participants from infancy to late adolescence and found a relationship between early attachment and later emotional social behaviour.
-individuals more securely attached in infancy were more socially competent later in life and were more popular

Question 48

What did Hazel and Shaver study?

Answer 48

-love quiz
-their study aimed to investigate whether there was a link between infant attachment style and their future behaviour in romantic relationships
-620 participants completed the love quiz printed in an American newspaper.
-they were asked about : current or most important relationship, asked about their experiences of love in general and attachment type was assessed by answering questions about their feelings.
-56% of participants identified as securely attached and were more likely to have long lasting relationships 25 insecure avoidant who feared love, and 19% insecure resistant and worried about their partners love.
-supports internal working model

Question 49

what did Lewis show?

Answer 49

-Lewis, replicated 44 thieves study on larger scale with 500 young people, early prolonged separation from mother didn’t predict criminality or difficulty forming intimate relationships and suggests that other factors may effect outcome of maternal deprivation.