Attachment Flashcards
How did Schaffer and Emerson identify the stages of attachment?
60 newborns and mothers from Glasgow. Observations and interviews, measured separation protest (6-8 months) and stranger anxiety (1 month later).
Direct observations from mothers - bias
Mundane realism high
High validity
What is attachment?
Close emotional relationship between people.
What is interactional synchrony?
Coordinated rhythmic exchanges.
How are attachment bonds characterised and maintained?
Infant’s desire to be close to a certain person. Develop and maintain bond:
Interactional synchrony, reciprocity, contact, mimicking, caregiverese.
What are Schaffer and Emerson’s stages of attachment?
- Asocial - no preference
- Indiscriminate - can distinguish people, easy comfort
- Specific - protest if separated from PCG and stranger anxiety
- Multiple - attach to others - some stronger. For different purposes and no limit.
What is the role of the father?
Males = biologically unsuitable (not). Changes in society - single parents. Can develop sensitive responsiveness needed.
Marital intimacy, co-parenting, attachment to own parents affect their attachment with infant.
Geiger suggests mother’s relationship = nurturing and father is focused around play.
How did Lorenz study attachment?
Divided clutch of greylag goose eggs. 1 with mother, 1 in incubator - followed him like mother. When both in box and box removed, ran to respective ‘mothers’.
Imprinting = 13-16 hours after hatching. Occurs in critical period.
What are evaluation points for Lorenz?
- biological process
- after critical period, too late to imprint
- extrapolation issues to humans
- human attachments take longer
How did Harlow study attachment?
Wire mother with food and cloth mother without. Amount of time with each recorded. Monkeys frightened of loud noise - stress reactions.
Mostly with cloth mother - priorities comfort especially when scared.
What are evaluation points for Harlow?
- affected development
- social and emotional disturbance
- lab experiment
- not generalise
- unethical
- low ecological validity as isolated
- no consent
How can conditioning explain attachment?
CC - food = natural pleasure. Association formed with mother + food.
OC - Dollard and Miller - babies want to remove hunger discomfort so negative reinforcement with food. Learn attachment.
What are evaluation points for LT explanations for attachment?
- lots of scientific support but animals
- reductionist
- Schaffer and Emerson had 1/2 mothers as PAF
- other theories
What is Bowlby’s monotropic theory?
Idea that infants have inbuilt tendency to make initial attachment with 1 figure, usually mother.
What are the stages of Bowlby’s monotropic theory?
- Attachment explained by evolution - social releasers to increase survival chances.
- Critical period - time period attachment must form.
- Monotropy - form 1 main attachment.
- Internal working model - template for future relationships based on PAF. Continuity hypothesis.
What are evaluation points for Bowlby’s monotropic theory?
- support from Harlow
- need to attach - against monotropy
- mixed evidence for critical period
- low temporal validity
- multiple attachments form
- Bowlby says attachment = hierarchy
How did Ainsworth study her Strange situation?
Mother and infant enter, child can explore, stranger enters, mother leaves, then returns and stranger leaves. Mother leaves + infant is alone. Stranger returns, then mother.
What are evaluation points for Ainsworth?
- became a paradigm
- assumes attachment types are fixed
- controlled observation
- focuses too much on infant behaviour
- artificial
- mother may not be PAF
- not represent real behaviour
What are the 3 types of attachment?
Secure - strong bond, easy comfort, healthy cognitive + emotional development.
Insecure avoidant - no distress if separated, avoid contact, low stranger anxiety, avoid social interaction.
Insecure-resistant - separation distress, reject contact, ambivalent caregivers, high stranger anxiety, accept + reject interactions.
What are cultural variations of attachment?
Van ljzendoorn did a meta-analysis of 32 studies in 55 countries. The % of children as secure/insecure was similar across countries. Secure was most common, but significant variation.
- not suitable method?
- children brought up different ways in different cultures
- meta analysis can hide individual results
What is the difference between separation and deprivation?
Separation is short term disruption of the attachment bond, and deprivation is long term.
What is Bowlby’s maternal deprivation hypothesis?
Emotional/intellectual consequences of separation between child + PCG. During the critical period without a substitute = v bad damage.
- low IQ
- affectionless psychopathy
- affects future relationships
- separation anxiety
What did Bowlby do in his 44 thieves study?
44 criminal teenage thieves vs control group. Interviewed for affection less psychopathy. 14 diagnosed as vs 2 in control. 12 of 14 had separation from mothers vs 2 of 44 in control.
Deprivation in early life can be v harmful –> affection less psychopathy
What is evaluation for the 44 thieves?
- link between deprivation and criminals
- researcher bias
- retrospective data - unreliable
- other factors?
- great variation in separation time
- correlational
What is privation?
Never formed attachment bond to caregiver. Rare, so researched in case studies.
