attachment

Question 1

what is an attachment?

Answer 1

a strong, long-lasting emotional bond to a particular individual

Question 2

what are the characteristics of an attachment?

Answer 2

-selective
-involve seeking proximity
-provide comfort and security
-involve a primary attachment figure, usually the mother/mother figure
-they protect the infant as infants are vulnerable

Question 3

what is reciprocity?

Answer 3

an interaction that is reciprocal as people respond to each other and one person provokes a reaction from another. e.g. a baby points at something, provoking a reaction from its mother.

Question 4

what is interactional synchrony?

Answer 4

when an infant and a mother interact in a way that their actions and emotions mirror each other. e.g. the mother smiles, the baby then smiles

Question 5

what is the name of the theorist that came up with reciprocity in caregiver-infant interactions?

Answer 5

Brazelton

Question 6

what is the names of the theorists that came up with interactional synchrony in caregiver-infant interactions?

Answer 6

Meltzoff and Moore

Question 7

What is the Brazelton ( reciprocity ) theory?

Answer 7

Babies have periodic alter phases where they signal they are ready for interaction and the mother will reciprocate and respond.

From about 3 months old, the interaction increases in frequency and the baby and mother pay close attention to each others verbal signs/facial expressions. The baby is not passive but active

• Reciprocity is the basis for communication development shown and that it lays the foundations for attachments to develop

Question 8

What study did Meltzoff and Moore ( interactional synchrony ) conduct?

Answer 8

-controlled observation on infants as young as 2 weeks.
- an adult displayed one of 3 facial expressions (tongue protrusion, mouth opening, termination of mouth opening)
-filmed the child’s response
-judged by independent observers who watched film twice and completed behavioural categories

Question 9

what did the meltzoff and moore study find?

Answer 9

-an association was found between the facial expression of the adult and the action of the baby.
-inter-observer reliability was greater than .92
- in a later study, they demonstrated the same synchrony with infants as young as 3 days, suggesting that such behaviour cannot be learnt but must be innate.

Question 10

what are the strengths/ limitations to these studies?
(I.S + R)

Answer 10

• testing behaviour of young infants can be difficult . How do we know that the behaviours being observed are not just general behaviour as opposed to imitation?
• however, babies do not know they are being filmed and so have no social desirability and do not change their actions to fit in with social expectations
• every baby is unique , and individual difference is not considered in this experiment .
• research has great value upon society - helps us to understand how relationships are conducted through interactional synchrony and reciprocity

Question 11

What are the 4 stages of attachments proposed by Schaffer and Emerson?

Answer 11

-1. Indiscriminate Attachments
- Birth - 8 weeks.
- infants respond the same to inanimate/animate objects
-start to show preference to social stimuli towards end of stage

-2. The beginnings of attachments
- 4 months
- infants become more social
- can distinguish between unfamiliar/familiar people but are still easily comforted by anyone
-do not yet show stranger anxiety

-3. Discriminate Attachment
- 7 months
- display separation anxiety
- believed to have formed a specific attachment to one person (primary attachment figure)
-display stranger anxiety
- showed that the quality of the relationship mattered not the quantity of time as some children were not specifically attached to their mothers

-4. Multiple attachments
-within 1 month of becoming attached, they found that 29% of infants had multiple attachments to other people
-by 18 months, 75% had attachments with their fathers

Question 12

What was the glasgow study used to come up with evidence for the stages of attachment?

Answer 12

-sample of 60 babies from Glasgow
- majority from skilled working class families
- during the 1st year, babies and mothers were visited at home every month
-then visited again at 18 months of age
- mothers asked questions about how the babies protested in 7 everyday separations
-stranger anxiety was also assessed
-mothers asked to rate on a 4 point scale the intensity of protest from their child
-the mother had to say at whom the protest was aimed

Question 13

What were the findings of the Glasgow study?

Answer 13

-25-32 weeks old, 50% of babies showed separation anxiety towards a particular adult, showing a specific attachment
-attachment tended to be towards caregiver who was the most interactive with the baby (reciprocity/interactional synchrony). This was not always the person they spent the most time with.
-40 weeks, 80% of infants had a specific attachment and 30% had multiple attachments

Question 14

evaluate the glasgow study (Schaffer and Emerson)

Answer 14

-data based on mother’s reporting. Therefore social desirability may effect the mum’s rating, creating a bias which questions the validity of the data
-sample bias: all from working class families in glasgow. Families have changed and so findings today may be very different. Can the findings be applied to other places and classes?
-Cultural Variation- Britain is an individualistic culture (focus on our own needs), this would affect attachments compared to a child raised in collectivist cultures (needs of the community are considered) as you would expect more multiple attachments. Sagi suggests that Stages of Attachments are applicable to individualistic cultures
- ‘Staging’ attachments can be problematic as it can lead to labelling people as abnormal if they don’t fit in with the stages. It assumes development has to follow a certain pattern and is inflexible when the reality may be very different.

Question 15

why may we be less likely to attach to our fathers than our mothers?

Answer 15

-fathers are less likely to be primary attachment figures (multiple attachments- schaffer)
-they spend less time with the infant (mum has maternity leave, dad works)
-may lack the emotional sensitivity of women due to biological and social factors:
- Biological> oestrogen is linked to the caring behaviour . Mothers grow the child and birth them.
-Social> Stereotypes of how men and women should behave . Happens in childhood e.g. girls play with dolls , boys play with cars.

Question 16

what is the research involving the role of the father?

Answer 16

-men can be the primary attachment figures if they are the primary carers.
-Field> It is the responsiveness of the parent, not the gender that effects who is the primary attachment figure
-Grossman> the quality of the infants attachments with the mother is crucial to the child’s attachments in adolescence. The quality of the fathers interactions (play) is crucial to the quality of the adolescent relationships
-Fathers provide challenge through play, mums tend to be more conventional
-Stages of attachment-Glasgow study: some mothers were not the primary attachment figures

Question 17

evaluate the research involving the role of the father

Answer 17

-Grossman’s research is hard to proof and there is not real evidence of this being the case (subjective)
-Glasgow study shows that the fathers can play an important role in attachment
-Men may not conform to the social stereotypes placed on them- not accounting for individual differences.
-Researchers may be biased, coming up with these explanations based on their own experiences
-Families are changing e.g. same sex families, single parents.

Question 18

what was the procedure for Harry Harlow’s study?

Answer 18

-Two wire monkeys with different heads
-One of the wire monkeys were wrapped in cloth (provided contact comfort for the monkeys)
-8 Rhesus monkeys were studied for 165 days
-For 4 monkeys, the cloth monkey had a milk bottle
-The other 4 had the milk bottle on the wire monkey.
-How long the infant spent with each monkey was measured
- Harlow scared the monkeys with various moving objects to see how they would respond.

Question 19

What did Harlow find?

Answer 19

-the cloth monkey was the most popular despite whether it had the feeding bottle or not
-the infants only spent a short time feeding from the wire monkey before returning to the cloth monkey.
-When frightened all monkeys clung to the cloth monkey - displaying proximity seeking (forming attachments to the cloth monkey)

Question 20

What were the long-lasting effects on the monkeys after the experiments?

Answer 20

-Affected their behaviour with their own young (maternal deprivation) , when they reproduced they didn’t cradle them, they killed them in some cases.
-Displayed abnormal mating behaviour
-Socially they were abnormal, they froze or fled when approached by other monkeys.
-There was a critical period where the monkeys could have recovered if interacted with peers before 3 months, if not, they appeared to never recover from the severe maternal deprivation.

Question 21

What are the strengths of the Harlow study (AO3)?

Answer 21

-Monkeys do not show social desirability and so they display the most natural behaviour.
-Longitudinal study - lots of data to come up with evidence
-Controlled environment
- Changed the way society viewed children

Question 22

What are the limitations to the Harlow study(AO3)?

Answer 22

-Many ethical issues for some variations of the study, brutally abusing innocent animals, psychologically damaging them for life(long-lasting effects)
- study not done on humans but applied to them (extrapolation) so might not be entirely accurate for humans
-small sample size of monkeys
- experiment monkeys had 2 different heads - monkeys may have preferred cloth monkey due to preferring of the head.

Question 23

What did Lorenz study?

Answer 23

-2 sets of eggs
- 1 set hatches naturally with mother
-1 set hatch in an incubator
-Goslings imprint on the first moving thing that they see. This must happen within the critical period (first 2 days of life)
-Goslings hatched with mother imprinted on her, goslings hatched in incubator imprinted on Lorenz, as he was the first moving thing they saw.
-Lorenz states that this behaviour is innate - biologically driven

Question 24

What did Lorenz find?

Answer 24

-Lorenz marked the geese: those imprinted on him would always follow him even if the mother goose was there.
- goslings that hatched with mother continued to follow her.
-Imprinting is similar to human attachment
-Imprinting was long-lasting and irreversible
-Also affects later mating preferences- they will try to mate with a similar object to which they are imprinted.

Question 25

Evaluate the Lorenz study.

Answer 25

-Guiton supports the findings on Lorenz.
- He exposed chickens to rubber gloves on which they imprinted onto, supporting the view that animals will imprint on what moves during the critical period.
-However he disagreed that it was irreversible. The chickens could, once exposed to females of their own species, successfully mate with them.
-Lorenz also found that some animals will not imprint on humans - some birds must be fed when born and will so imprint on mother who feeds them.

Question 26

Describe what is meant by the learning theory.

Answer 26

-Rooted in behaviourism, learning theory suggests all behaviour, including attachments, is learnt rather than being innate.
-Children are born as blank slates and what they become is explained in terms of their life experiences.
-Behaviour is learnt through Classical and Operant Conditioning.

Question 27

Explain classical conditioning and how an attachment is formed from this.

Answer 27

Before conditioning:
-Baby cries when it wants food (unconditioned stimulus)
-Food produces pleasure (unconditioned response)
-Baby makes no association between food and pleasure
-Mother (neutral stimuli) provides infant with food. Baby has no response to Mother.
During conditioning:
-Baby starts to make associations.
-Mother starts to be associated with food.
After conditioning:
-Associations firmly made between all exposures to baby
-NS becomes conditioned stimulus (CS)- an attachment has formed
-Baby associates mum. Pleasure from mum is a conditioned response (CR)
- Baby now gets pleasure from mum whether she has food or not.

Question 28

Explain operant conditioning.

Answer 28

-Learning occurs when we are rewarded for doing something
-If you do something and receive a pleasant reward, this behaviour is reinforced.
-Consequently you are more likely to repeat the behaviour and learn it.
-If you do something which results in an unpleasant consequence, then it is less likely you will repeat the behaviour due to punishment

Question 29

How did Dollard and Miller explain attachment using operant conditioning and drive reduction theory?

Answer 29

-A hungry baby feels uncomfortable, it is driven to reduce this discomfort.
-When the baby is fed this drive is reduced and produces a feeling of pleasure (this is rewarding, positive reinforcement) and so is likely to be repeated.
-Food becomes the primary reinforcer, it supplies the reward and reinforces the behaviour to avoid discomfort.
-The person who supplies the food is associated by the baby with avoiding discomfort
-The feeder becomes the secondary reinforcer
-Therefore an attachment develops with the same person who supplies the reward to the baby.

Question 30

How do Harlow, Schaffer and Lorenz contradict the learning theory?

Answer 30

-Harlow = monkeys didn’t become attached to wire monkey even though it fed them- contradicts learning theory where feeder = who we attach to.
-Schaffer = in glasgow study, babies attached to whom they interacted with the most, not necessarily who feeds the baby.
-Lorenz - states forming attachments is innate, whereas the learning theory states that we must learn to form attachments

Question 31

What is good about the learning theory?

Answer 31

-Attachments are universal - will definitely occur in a normal family situation anywhere.
-And every human must be fed in order to survive, so it makes sense that we form attachments through feeding.

Question 32

Why do attachments form according to Bowlby’s monotropic theory

Answer 32

-believed attachments to be innate.
-believed it was a way of protecting the infant from predators, therefore it was a behaviour that had adapted to promote survival.
-Attachments served to keep the infant and the caregiver close and is a 2 way process, so separation should lead to anxiety for both the infant and the parent
-proximity develops a strong emotional bond that we know as love, which he argued was essential for the child’s development.

Question 33

How do attachments form according to Bowlby’s monotropic theory?

Answer 33

-Critical period: if attachments are innate then they have a limited time to be formed, known as the critical or sensitive period.
-He suggested that from 3-6 months is when the baby is sensitive to forming attachments and as this time passes it becomes harder for attachments to form.
-Maternal sensitivity (how the mother responds to the child) was important for forming attachments
-believed that social releasers (smiling) are key to attachments forming during the critical period, social releasers are innate mechanisms.

Question 34

explain monotropy (bowlby)

Answer 34

Humans innately become attached to one person. Bowlby believed that this was essential to the healthy psychological development of the child. Other attachments could for, but the primary attachment figure would be the mother/mother substitute, and this would be a special emotional bond. For Bowlby this would develop during the first 12 months of the baby’s life.

Question 35

What are the consequences of attachment according to Bowlby? (internal working model, cognitive development)

Answer 35

Internal working model- refers to the mother/child relationship providing a model for all other relationships. A child with a close, positive primary attachment would expect the same thing from other similar relationships later in life, and vise versa the same with a negative relationship.

A strong primary attachment is essential for the development of thinking, reasoning and problem solving as it allows the secure exploration of new environments due to the child having a safe return.

Question 36

Evaluate Bowlby’s monotropic theory.

Answer 36

-Multiple Attachments - how far can it be judged that monotropy does exist? Schaffer and Emerson found evidence that multiple attachments can form between the infant and others. Thomas (1995) suggested that multiple attachments are more desirable because there’s evidence to suggest that cognitive development is more successful. Bowlby did recognise the need for multiple attachments but emphasises the importance of a primary attachment figure.

-Bowlby believed that the mother is the primary attachment figure with the father to provide support financially. This enables the mother to devote herself to the child. Studies have found that in stressful situations the
child will favour the mother. However Lamb found that between 15-24 months boys show a preference towards their father.

Question 37

What was Ainsworth’s aim?

Answer 37

She was interested in individual differences - the different attachment types that infants form with their caregivers. Her aim was to see how infants aged 9-18 months behave under conditions of mild stress and novelty.

Question 38

What was Ainsworth’s study?

Answer 38

-A controlled observation in a room (laboratory) with chairs and toys, and a camera that allowed the psychologists to observe the parent and the child’s relationship. The infant’s responses to 4 behaviours are observed and recorded every 15 seconds.

1. Separation from the caregiver (separation anxiety)
2. Reunion with the caregiver (reunion behaviour)
   3.Response to a stranger (stranger anxiety)
3. How confident the child is to explore: testing their ‘secure base’ (infants willingness to explore)

Question 39

What were Ainsworth’s findings? (attachment types)

Answer 39

Ainsworth combined the findings from several studies to have a sample of 106 middle class infants
3 main attachment types were identified.

Secure Attachment - Generally happy and interact well with caregiver
-Happily explore but regularly go back to the caregiver (proximity seeking and secure base)
-Show moderate stranger/separation anxiety
-At reunion - seek and accept comfort and are comfortable with social interaction
-65-70% British toddlers are classed as secure

Insecure Avoidant Attachment
-explore freely but don’s seek proximity/secure base, so will explore without caregiver
-little/no reaction shown on separation
-on reunion make little effort to contact caregiver and avoid social interaction
-show little stranger anxiety
-have high levels or anxiousness
-20-25% British toddlers are classed as insecure avoidant

Insecure Resistant Attachment
-seek greater proximity than other children
-Show huge stranger anxiety and are intensely distressed on separation
-will seek but resist comfort and social interaction
-Approx 3% of British toddlers classified as insecure resistant

Question 40

Evaluate Ainsworth’s theory.

Answer 40

-There is a potential of other types of attachments
-Main and Soloman analysed over 200 strange situation video tapes and identified a fourth attachment type - Insecure Disorganised
-characterised by the child not being consistent: show very strong attachment behaviour suddenly followed by avoidance of the caregiver.
- Van ljdoorn supported this Meta analysis of 80 studies in the US found: -Secure -62%
-Insecure avoidant- 15 %
-Insecure resistant - 9%
-Insecure disorganised - 15%
-Supports Ainsworth’s original findings - provides validity for the research and evidence for the 3 attachment types.

Question 41

Describe van ljzendoorn’s procedure into cultural variations of attachment.

Answer 41

-Conducted a study to look at proportions of secure, insecure-avoidant, and insecure-resistant attachment types across a range of countries. Also looked at differences within countries

-Conducted a meta-analysis of findings from 32 studies of attachment behaviour from 8 countries. The studies had used the Strange Situation to investigate infant’s attachment types. Gathered data from 2000 children

Question 42

Explain van ijzendoorn’s findings (cultural variations)

Answer 42

Secure attachments were the most common across all countries.
-Countries with collectivist cultures at the time (Israel and Japan) how low proportions of I.A attachments but high I.R attachments, but countries with individualistic cultures (e.g. Britain ) had higher porportions of I.A attachments but lower I.R attachments . Japan had 5.2% I.A but 25% I.R.
-Found Germany, an individualistic culture had the lowest secure attachments out of all countries except China and had the highest I.A out of all countries

Question 43

Explain findings for Japan and Germany (cultural variations) (AO3)

Answer 43

Japan, during the first year of the child’s life, a mother will rarely leave the child with anyone else, which promotes dependency over independency, which may explain why Japan had higher rates of insecure-resistant than insecure-avoidant attachments.

Germany- Grossman found German infants tend to be classed as insecure rather than secure due to different childrearing practices. Caregivers tend to keep an interpersonal distance between themselves and the child, therefore proximity seeking behaviour occurs less ins the Strange Situation, consequently they appear insecurely attached,

Question 44

Evaluate Van Ljzendoorn’s research into cultural variations in attachment

Answer 44

Imposed Etic- The Strange Situation was originally designed in America for use on American infants. Different cultures perceive behaviours differently, therefore a child exploring well may reflect a secure attachment in a western culture but wouldn’t in Japan where dependency over independency would be seen as a sign of an insecure attachment. This means by using the Strange Situation we are imposing a westernised belief on collectivist cultures, so research using the Strange Situation may lack some validity.

Question 45

Explain Bowlby’s theory of maternal deprivation

Answer 45

Bowlby proposed that prolonged emotional deprivation would have consequences upon an infant’s emotional development

-Believed a child not only needed physical care, but also a ‘warm, intimate and continuous’ relationship with their mother or mother substitute, and that is was essential for the infant’s mental health

-Believed prolonged separation may lead to a child becoming emotionally disturbed. States that if this occurs during the critical period (before 2.5 years) and there was no substitute primary attachment figure in place then emotional damage to the child can occur and that there was a risk of this until the age of 5

If a child suffered deprivation there can be a risk of long term problems such as emotional maladjustment and mental health issues. Could display affectionless psychopathy - experience no guilt or empathy
Also believed that children may have abnormally low IQ’s as cognitively they would not develop as well as children receiving the emotional care

Question 46

Outline Bowlby’s study - 44 juvenile thieves

Answer 46

88 patients in the Child Guidance Clinic in London
All children were emotionally maladjusted - half had been caught stealing (the 44 thieves) and the other half were a control group (non-criminal but emotionally disturbed)
Bowlby suggested some of the thieves were affectionless psychopaths - enabled them to become thieves as they felt no guilt or empathy

Findings
out of the people diagnosed as affectionless psychopaths, 86% had experienced frequent early separations, compared to 17% of the other thieves.
Almost none of the control group had experienced any early separation

Bowlby suggested that the lack of emotional care and separations were linked to affectionless psychopathy

Question 47

Evaluate Bowlby’s theory of maternal deprivation

Answer 47

-Argued that it is not just physical separation from the primary attachment figure that can cause problems. A researcher studied mothers who were severely depressed and found 55% of their children were insecurely attached compared to 29% in the non-depressed group. Therefore suggesting that you may be physically present with your child but if you are psychologically separated from them this could lead to them being deprived

-Has been found that depending on what kind of attachment a child has can affect how well they cope with deprivation. Securely attached children tend to adjust better than insecurely attached children - suggests Bowlby’s theory may not be entirely true for all children and therefore it does not account for individual differences.

Question 48

Describe the procedure researching the effects of institutionalisation done by Rutter

Answer 48

165 Romanian children all who spent their childhood in institutions and therefore experiences the effects of institutionalisation
111 adopted before 2, 54 before 4
were tested regularly at ages 4,6,11 and 15 on their physical, cognitive and social development
progress was compared to a control group of 52 British children adopted in the UK before the age of 6 months

Question 49

Outline the findings of Rutter’s procedure

Answer 49

time of adoption - romanian orphans lagged behind british children in their physical, cognitive and social development
they were smaller, weighed less and many were mentally under-developed
by 4 years some caught up with british children, this was the case for most children adopted before 6 months old
however children adopted over the age of 6 months often never recovered from the effects and suffered from disinhibited attachments

Question 50

Evaluate Rutter’s study

Answer 50

A researcher compared 136 romanian children who spent most of their lives in an institution to a control group of romanian children who had never been in an institution
aged 12-31 months and assessed in the Strange Situation, The institutionalised children showed signs of disinhibited attachments. - supports Rutter

Valid as its real-life research not artificial

socially sensitive

does not account for individual differences

longitudinal study so lots of data has been collected - increases validity of the research

Question 51

Explain the importance of the internal working model (infl of early atchm)

Answer 51

-Mother-child relationship creates a model for all future relationships in the child’s mind
-Operable - used to predict the behaviour of other people in future relationships
-Infants learn what relationships are and how people behave towards each other, whether that’s positive or negative
-Builds a schema - a template of what a child may except in the future

Question 52

Explain the importance of Hazan’s love quiz (infl of early atchm)

Answer 52

-Tests the internal working model
-Found insecure most common attachment, then I.A, and I.R the least common
-A relationship found between attachment history and current love experiences - supports the internal working model

Question 53

What behaviours are influenced by the internal working model?

Answer 53

Poor parenting, mental health, romantic relationships, childhood friendships

Question 54

Explain how the internal working model influences poor parenting

Answer 54

Harlow - showed infants that were maternally deprived did not know how to interact with their own infants and they often harmed them and sometimes even killed them - they had a poor internal working model

Quinton - showed mothers who were raised in institutions (maternally deprived) had poor internal working models and their own children often ended up in care

Question 55

Explain how the internal working model influences romantic relationships

Answer 55

Hazan’s love quiz - shows evidence that the child’s internal working model has a relationship with their current love experiences. E.g. if they have a good internal working model, they are likely to have positive romantic relationships

Question 56

Explain how the internal working model influences childhood friendships

Answer 56

-Minnesota parent-child study
-Studied development of children from infancy to late adolescence
-Continuity found between early attachment and later emotional/social relationships
-Securely attached children typically were more socially competent
-Insecurely attached may suffer from social isolation
-Supports continuity hypothesis

Question 57

Explain how the internal working model influences mental health

Answer 57

Bowlby - maternal deprivation can lead to depression, which can lead to affection less psychopathy (inability to feel empathy)
Poor mental health can affect all types of relationships
Attachment disorders are a type of mental health condition - disinhibited attachments mean children have no preferred attachment type and so attach to anyone easily - these children usually come from places of neglect

Question 58

Evaluate the influences of early attachment

Answer 58

-Individual differences- all children are unique e.g. not all children with secure early attachments will have good childhood friendships
-However, som children may have mental health illnesses which prevents them from making good friendships (cause+effect)

Kagan’s Temperament Hypothesis - not always the mother’s fault if the child has a poor internal working model - some children have bad temperaments which prevents the mother from attaching to them

Determinism - predicts a child’s outcome based on what they have already experienced, e.g. if a child had a negative early attachment then all their future relationships will be negative- not always the case

Retrospective Classification - using data from the past e.g. Hazan’s love quiz is based on retrospective data - not very reliable - participants may not remember everything from their childhoods and may only remember very good or very bad experiences and nothing else