Attachment Flashcards
What are ‘Alert Phases’?
- When an infant signals that they are ready for a spell of interaction
How often do mothers pick up and respond to their baby’s alert phases?
- 2/3rds of the time
What is reciprocity?
- When each person responds to the other and elicits a response from them
At what time do mother and baby pay close attention to each others verbal signals?
- 3 months
What does Brazleton suggest?
- That active involvement is like a ‘dance’.
- It is just like a couples dance where they respond to each others movements
What is interactional synchrony?
- Temporal coordination of micro-level social behaviours.
- Baby and Mother mirror each other
What did meltzoff and Moore do and find?
- Observed the beginnings of interactional synchrony in babies.
- Babies expressions and gestures more likely to mirror those of adults
What is interactional synchrony important for?
- Development of caregiver-infant attachment
What did Isabella et al. find?
- High levels of synchrony were associated with better quality mother-baby attachment
Evaluate interactional synchrony:
- Difficult to be certain what you are observing = Some movements may not be deliberate or on the behalf of the infant.
+ Controlled observations = procedures are well controlled enabling fine details of behaviour can be recorded
- We can’t work out what the purpose of these behaviours are = Can be easily observed but cannot tell us whey they are being displayed
What did Schaffer and Emerson find about attachment figures?
- Majority of babies become attached to mother first and then to other family members within a week to a few months
When do babies form secondary attachments?
- Within a week to a few months of being born
What % of infants were attached to their father by 18 months?
- 75%
What is a longitudinal study?
- The same study over a long period of time, studying same group
What did Field do and find?
- Filmed 4 month old babies to see their attachment type with primary and secondary caregivers
- Found fathers have the potential to be the primary caregiver
Evaluate attachment figures:
- Drawing conclusions from all research into fathers is difficult as studies are all looking at different things = Some look at fathers as primary figures but others look at fathers as secondary figures.
- Assumes children growing up without a father figure will be disadvantaged
- Doesn’t explain why fathers are less likely to be primary attachment figures than mothers
What are the 4 stages of attachment?
- By Schaffer
Stage 1: Asocial Stage
Stage 2: Indiscriminate attachment
Stage 3: Specific attachment
Stage 4: Multiple attachments
What age is stage 1: Asocial attachment and what happens?
- First few weeks of life
- Baby recognising faces and forming bonds. Behaviour between human + non-human objects is similar. Show some preference for certain people
What age is stage 2: Indiscriminate attachment and what happens?
- 2 - 7 Months old
- Show preference for people over objects.
- Recognise and prefer familiar adults
- Comfort and cuddles accepted from any adult + no separation or stranger anxiety shown
What age is stage 3: Specific attachment and what happens?
- 7 months old
- Stranger anxiety shown
- Anxious when away from particular adult which is usually mum who is also primary attachment figure
What age is stage 4: Multiple attachments and what happens?
- Shortly after 7 months old
- Attachments formed with adults who baby spends time with
- These are secondary attachments
- By 1 year of age most children a=have secondary attachments
What did Schaffer and Emerson find about Father attachment?
- 75% of babies form an attachment with their fathers by the age of 18 months
What is Groomsman’s Longitudinal study on the role of the father?
- Babies attachments studied into teens
- Researchers looked at both parents behaviour + its relationship to the quality of attachment with their child.
- Quality pf attachment with mothers but not fathers related to attachments in adolescence
- Suggests attachment with fathers is less important than attachment with mothers
What does research suggest about fathers as primary attachment figures?
- Able to adopt the emotional role more typically associated with mothers
Sum up Field’s study about father attachments?
- Filmed 4-month-old babies face to face interaction with primary mother + fathers and secondary fathers.
- Primary fathers more intimate than secondary fathers
Evaluate the role of the father:
- Heteronormativity -> Research is based upon idea that babies have two opposite sex parents = There is no evidence to suggest same sex or single parents have any negative impact on children’s development.
- Conflicting evidence -> Findings differ depending on which research method is used -> Difference in research question creates lack of clarity. Longitudinal studies suggest fathers have important role in child development = Would suggest children with single or lesbian mothers would not develop fully -> This Not the case
+ Real world application = Can be used to advise parents, Release stress on mothers - suggest fathers can be primary. Can reassure lesbian and single mothers that not having father does not affect child development.
- Bias = Stereotypical accounts + images of parenting roles create preconceptions about how fathers do or should behave -> May cause unintentional observer bias where observers ‘see’ what they expect to see rather than recording objective reality
What is Lorenz’s research and what did he find?
- Imprinting on ducks and how they imprint on the first moving thing they see.
- Split a group of eggs in half, one half to hatch with dick mother and the other to hatch with Lorenz.
- Ducks hatched with Lorenz followed him around
- Found birds show courtship behaviour t the species they imprinted on
Evaluate Lorenz’s research:
- Can’t generalise the results as carried out with geese
- Guiton = Chickens imprinted on yellow gloves and started trying to mate with them but after a while tried to mate with chickens again = Challenges idea that sexual imprinting is irreversible
What is Harlows research?
- Investigate whether attachment = food or comfort
- Infant monkeys separated at birth
- Raised on 2 mothers -> Wire with food, Cloth no food
- Scared monkeys + Put in new environments
- Monkeys spent up to 22 hours on cloth mother
- Contact Comfort = Key aspect of attachment
What was the result of Harlows research on the monkeys in later life?
- Neglected their children to the point where their children began being eaten by other monkeys
- if monkeys fail to develop an attachment within 90 days, attachment becomes impossible
What are the 6 things in Bowlby’s evolutionary theory of attachment?
- Attachment is Innate
- Monotropy
- Law of Continuity & Law of accumulated Separation
- Social Releasers
- Critical Period
- Internal Working Model
What does it mean if attachment is innate?
- It is pre-determined
- Born with the need to attach in order to survive
- We are incredibly early in development at birth
What is Monotropy?
- Mother is the strongest and most important attachment
- More time baby spends with primary caregiver the better
What is the Law of Continuity?
- More constant and predictable a Childs care, the better quality attachment they have
What is the law of Accumulated Separation?
- Every separation from mother adds up and can affect baby negatively
What are Social Releasers?
- Babies born with features such as: Crying, Reaching, Cute noises, Cute faces
- Pre-programmed behaviours that elicit caregiving
What is a Critical Period?
- If a child does not form an attachment before they are 2 years old, they will find it hard to form attachments later in life
What is the Internal Working Model?
- Child forms a mental representation of their relationship with primary caregiver
- Serves as a template for future relationships -> Romantic, friendship, parent/child
Evaluate Bowlby’s Evolutionary theory:
+ Bailey interviewed 99 mothers with 1 year old babies about quality of relationships with mothers and babies = Positive correlation between relationship with mother + their child = Supports internal working model
+ Brazleton = Asked mothers to ignore babies -> Babies initially stressed, some curled up + Layer motionless = Supports social releasers -> Way a caregiver supports child effects quality of attachment
+ Schaffer + Emerson study -> Most children formed primary attachment first but sig minority able to form multiple attachments at same time = Challenges monotropy -> Babies can form multiple attachments
+ Grossman -> Found quality of fathers play associated with quality of attachment in adolescence = Challenges monotropy -> Fathers can have a significant role in attachment
Outline the role of classical conditioning in attachment:
- Learning though association.
- Conditioned stimulus = food -> Makes baby happy
- Baby sees mother -> Neutral Stimulus
- Mother then gives baby food -> Baby is happy
- Mother becomes Conditioned stimulus -> Baby is happy when mother comes
What is an example of positive and negative reinforcement and punishment in Learning theory of attachment?
- PR = Token Economy System
- NR = Mother feeds baby to stop baby crying
- P = Child doing something wrong so is punished
Evaluate the Learning Theory of Attachment:
- Harlow = LT all about food however Harlow demonstrates monkeys prefer contact comfort = Lowered validity
- Schaffer and Emmerson = Found babies likely to attach to person who spent most time with them -> LT cannot explain why we attachment through anything but food = Suggests LT is reductionist + Quite simplistic
- LT ignores emotions
- A lot of research done on LT has been done on animals -> Therefore lacks validity
What are the 3 types of attachment identified in Mary Ainsworth’s ‘Strange Situation”?
- Type A = Insecure-Avoidant
- Type B = Secure
- Type C = Insecure-Resistant
What is Insecure-Avoidant attachment?
- Baby Explores freely without bothering where mum is
- Not bothered by strangers
- Is not upset when mum leaves
- Not bothered when mum comes back
- 20-25% of British Babies
What is Secure Attachment?
- Baby explores happily while keeping an eye on mum
- Moderately upset when mum goes
- A little wary of strangers
- Readily comforted by mum on return
- 60-75% of British babies
What is Insecure-Resistant attachment?
- Baby doesn’t explore much; Keeps very close to mum
- Extremely upset when mum leaves
- Does not like strangers at all
- Cross with mum on return + Not easily comforted
- 3% of British babies
What are the 7 situations in Mary Ainsworth’s ‘Strange situation’?
1) caregiver + Child enter play room + Left to explore
2) Stranger enters + attempts to interact
3) Mother leaves + Stranger left to interact
4) Mother returns + Stranger leaves
5) Mother leaves so baby is alone
6) Stranger returns + Attempts to interact
7) Mother returns + Interacts with child
What is Van Ijzendoorn + Kronberg’s research on Cultural variation in attachment?
- Large scale meta analysis of 2000 infants attachment
- Data from 32 studies -> Included 8 countries, each study using ‘Strange Situation’
- Secure attachment most common all + Insecure-resistant least common in all
- Type A = more common in Western cultures
- Type C = More common in non-western cultures
- General trend = Globally preferred attachment style
- Findings across countries suggest differences in parenting styles
What is Institutionalisation?
- When living away from family, such as children homes and hospitals
What happens when living in institutions?
- Long stays can alter normal functions such as adopting norms rules
- Loss of identity, de-individualisation and factors found by Bowlby
- Bowlby = Affectionless Psychopathy, Delinquency, Low IQ
What is Deprivation in Attachment?
- Not receiving suitable emotional care from primary caregiver - Can happen with both frequent or extended absenses
What is Privation in attachment?
- Total lack of ability to form attachments
What was Rutter’s Romanian Orphans Study:
- Researching the effects of institutional Privation
- Longitudinal study of 165 Romanian orphans adopted in British Families
- 4 Groups
1) 58 under age of 6 months
2) 59 between 6-24 months
3) 48 over age 24 months
4) Control group of 52 British adoptees - Start of observation, half the Romanian children were severely malnourished + Low IQ compared to other children of same age
- Each group assessed at 4,6,11,15
What were the results of Rutter’s Romanian Orphans study?
- Age 6 = Children adopted after 6 months showed disinhibited attachment -> Over-friendly behaviour to strange adults
- Age 11 = Just over half Romanian adopted who showed Disinhibited attachment at 6 still displayed this behaviour -> Children adopted after 6 months showed significantly delayed intellectual development -> Scored lower on IQ tests than 24 Month babies
- General = Quasi-autism tendencies identified with children having problems understanding meaning of social context - Intellectual problems continued at age 15
Conclusion:
- Adoption within 6 months is important as effects of deprivation and privation in institution is long lasting -> May be some recovery as children develop
Evaluate Rutter’s Study:
+ Changed how care is given in institutions. Higher levels of care, early age of adoption + Suitable care from new family
+ Goldfarb = Early fostering led to sig higher levels of IQ and social skills
- Hodges + Tizzard: Evidence that effects of institutionalisation can be overcome with adequate substitute care -> Children with effective families coped better on relationships
- Children not randomly assigned to adoption + Control group but selected by new parent -> Could be more sociable children picked by adoption
- Study still going = effects on orphans still found. Improvements seen at 11 and catch their peers in development
What was the Hazzan and Shaver ‘Love Quiz’?
- 620 responses from newspaper quiz examining feelings
- Categories =
1) Secure
2) Avoidant
3) Anxious
Findings:
- Correlation between adult + Childhood attachments
- Securely attached adults = feel love is long lasting, reported being happy in relationships + likely to not divorce
- Insecure reported more loneliness
- Link between type of attachments received as child + show as an adult
