Attachment Flashcards
What is an attachment?
A strong, emotional, reciprocated bond between an infant and a caregiver
Role of infant caregiver interactions
Help to develop and maintain attachments
Includes:
Sensitive responsiveness
Interactional synchrony
Imitation
Reciprocity
What is sensitive responsiveness?
Where the caregiver responds appropriately to the infants needs
Makes them more likely to attach (not just to who feeds them)
What is interactional synchrony?
‘Mirroring’
Where the infant responds to the caregivers actions at the same time
Simultaneous and coordinated
Meltzoff and Moore, 2/3 weeks old, mirrored actions and imitated facial expressions
What is reciprocity?
Where the infant copies caregivers actions and behaviour
Turn taking - 2 way interaction
Meltzoff and Moore, 2/3 weeks old, mirrored actions and imitated facial expressions
Research for infant-caregiver interactions
Meltzoff and Moore
- babies from 2/3 weeks imitated facial expressions
- mirrored actions
Feldman and Eidalmen
- observation where mothers responded to babies in reciprocal way 2/3 of time
+ controlled observations
- hard to know babies intentions
- social sensitive, mothers stay home, interaction important
Schaffers stages of attachment
Asocial stage - 0-3 months
No preference to people, objects similar
Indiscriminate stage - 2-6 months
Can distinguish familiar and unfamiliar people
No strong preference or stranger anxiety
Specific stage - 7/8 months
Stranger and separation anxiety
Strong attachment to specific individual (65% mother) comforted by them
Multiple attachments - 8-9 + months
Form multiple attachments
By 18 months 32% had at least 5
Outline Schaffer and Emerson
60 Glaswegian babies
Longitudinal study
Observed at home
Birth - 18 months
Babies attached in stages
Sensitive responsiveness
Mother is primary 65% of the time
Evaluation of Schaffer and Emerson
+ ecological validity, observations by parents at home, more natural
+ no demand characteristics from infants
- mothers are biased observers, lacks validity
- lacks population validity, Glaswegian working class, 60
- lacks temporal validity, 1964, dads more common?
Role of the father
Primary attachment 1/3 of the time
Good for economy, mothers can work
Grossman
Studied infants to 16 years
Assessed okay sensitivity
Found fathers have a different role to mothers, play not nurture
Quality of father attachment didn’t effect later relationships
Field
fathers can be PCG
economic impacts of research into role of fathers
fathers stay home - not contributing to economy
but more mothers can return to work
changing laws on paternity leave - government funded
Outline Lorenz
Randomly divided geese eggs
Half hatched with mother and half with him in incubation
Found that geese automatically attach and follow the first thing they see when hatched
Known as imprinting
Found it must happen in a critical period (13-16 hours)
Lorenz evaluation
+ support for imprinting from Guiton
Chicks and gloves, sexual preferences
- generalises from birds
- unethical animal studies
Outline Harlow
Lab experiment where monkeys were raised in isolation with 2 surrogate mothers
One was wire with food and one was cloth but no food
Found they spent most time of the cloth mother
Only used to other to feed
When given a fearful stimulus, they used the cloth mother for comfort
Grew up to be disturbed and violent mothers themselves
Shows they formed an attachment to the one who provided them comfort not food
Evaluate Harlow
+ lab experiment, good control of variables
- can’t generalise to humans
- lacks ecological validity
- unethical isolation, can’t be repeated
2 explanations for attachments
Learning theory
Bowlby’s monotropic theory
What is learning theory of attachment
Developed by Dollard and Miller
- attachment is learnt - based on food (rather than innate)
Classical conditioning
Baby learns associations between mother and pleasure from food
UCS food gives UCR of pleasure
Mother becomes CS, learn to associative mother with pleasure
Operant conditioning
Negative reinforcement
Discomfort from hunger is removed when mother is present
Creates attachment behaviours, separation anxiety
Evaluation of learning theory of attachment
+ evidence from scientific
- reductionist, simple stimulus response
- Lorenz, imprinting innate, attachment not learnt
- Harlow - attached to mother than provided comfort not food
- support for others (Bowlby)
What is Bowlby’s monotropic theory of attachment?
innate - biological need to attach, has evoutionary advantage
Monotropic - one main attachment to PCG, forms template for future relationships
Internal working model - primary attachment provides schema for future relationships
- leads to continuity hypothesis - attachment type affects later relationships
Critical period - first 2 years -> maternal deprivation hypothesis, long term consequences if primary attachment is broken or not formed in critical period
social releasers - innate characteristics that attract attention eg laughing and crying
what is the continuity hypothesis?
idea that attachment type in childhood affects future relationships
secure attachments = healthier relationships
Bowlby’s monotropic
+ Hazan and Shaver
what is an internal working model?
suggested by Bowlby
early attachment types provide schema for future relationships
Evaluation of Bowlby’s monotropic theory
+ Harlow support, MDH
+ Lorenz support, innate and critical period
+ Hazan and Shaver, continuity - IWM/ CH
- Schaffer and Emerson, multiple attachment stage (not monotropic)
- economic impact, mothers stay home (MDH)
- Rutter - children could attach above 3 (not in critical)
Types of attachment
Secure attachment (B)
Most common, comforted on reunion, has separation anxiety
Insecure avoidant (A)
No separation anxiety, can be comforted by strangers
Little reunion behaviour/ independant
Insecure resistant (C)
Resists comfort from all
high stranger/ seperation anxiety
clingy
Outline Ainsworth (the strange situation)
Controlled observation
12-18 months old
Observed under 8 situations - stranger, left alone and reunion with mother
in 3 minute episodes
Results -
15% resistant (couldn’t be comforted) and avoidant (ignored when left) insecure
70% secure (happy on reunion, avoided strangers)
Evaluation of Ainsworth
+ controlled observations, less variables, more reliable
- reduced ecological validity, artificial
- demand characteristics from mother
evaluation of strange situation procedure
+ controlled and standardised, replicable
- lacks validity of some measures, eg proximity seeking, may be insecurity no security
- cultural relativity, same method may not be appropriate in all cultures, eg Van Ijzendoorn, more A in Germany
- focus on mothers as primary attachment, not always case
Cross cultural variations of the strange situation
Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg
Some cultural differences
Results of Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg (cross culture)
Meta analysis of strange situations across world
Secure attachments always most common
Germany (western) had highest proportion of avoidant
Japan (non western) had highest proportion of resistant
Type of study may not be suitable in all cultures
Assumes different countries mean different cultures (may be differences between cultures)
disruption, deprivation and privation
disruption - separation from caregiver (not in presence)
- short term has no impact
deprivation - loss or permanent separation from PCG (broken)
- many long term effects
privation - never had attachment or PCG
- effects worse then deprivation
What is Bowlby’s maternal deprivation hypothesis?
Suggests prolonged separation or deprivation from caregiver has long term effects
- intellectual (lower IQ)
- emotional (affectionless psychopaths)
- social issues (delinquency)
What are the effects of deprivation?
Emotional effects - affectionless psychopaths (44 jt)
Intellectual effects - lower IQ
Physically underdeveloped (Genie)
Social issues
Outline 44 Juvenile Thieves (Bowlby)
Case study on thieves
Shows deprivations can have long term effects
17 (of 44) thieves had experienced separation before 2 years old
2 (of 44) in control had
12 (of 14) affectionless psychopaths were separated from caregiver
Evaluation of 44 Juvenile Thieves
+ case studies, in depth
- Bowlby carried out interviews - investigator bias
- correlation not causation?
- other factors such as poverty
- Lewis - studied 500, no association between separation and psychopathy
Evaluation of Bowlby’s MDH
+ Harlow support, long term effects on monkeys, bad mothers themselves
+ Goldfarb support, orphanage children lower IQ
- flawed evidence (44)
- could be sensitive not critical period
- Czech twins, recovered from deprivation
Abusive household, had lower intellectual and social development
Grew up to have above average IQ and normal relationships
Czech Twins
effects of deprivation
- abusive household
had lower intellectual and social development
but grew up to have normal relationships and above average IQs
recovered from deprivation
Genie
effects of deprivation
- abused
physically and socially underdevloped
learnt some language but never regained all lost abilities
What do Romanian orphanage studies show?
Effects of institutionalisation and privation
Outline Rutter et al
Showed you can recover from privation if adopted and form attachments earlier
Longitudinal study
Romanian orphans adopted by British families (control group of British adoptees)
Some adopted before and some after 6 months old
Assessed at 4, 6 and 11
Results -
Adopted BEFORE 6mo, - normal IQ (compared to UK) (102)
Adopted AFTER 6mo, - lower IQ (77), social issues, insecure attachments (disinhibited)
Evaluation of Rutter
+ real world application, better care in institutions
+ longitudinal, in depth and long term effects
- but no complete life
- issues may be due to abused not privation
- qualitative data, less useful, can’t be generalised
effects of institutionalisation
intellectual - lower IQ (Rutter, before 6 months mean IQ 102, after 2 years, mean 77)
disorgansied attachment type - attention seeking and clingy (Rutter)
social issues
disinhibited - inappropriate behaviour to stranger adults
What is Bowlby’s internal working model?
First attachments in childhood create a scheme for future relationships
Attachment type -> adult relationships
Supported by Hazan and Shaver
Shows effects of early attachment
Outline Hazan and Shaver
Studied influence of early attachments on future relationships
Quiz in newspaper
Asked questions about childhood (to find attachment type to parents)
and current views on relationships
Found a correlation between attachment and views
Secure - happy and trusting relationships
Avoidant - fear intimacy
Resistant - worried about no being lovable
Evaluation of Hazan and Shaver
+ repeated and got similar results, reliable
- volunteer sample, certain people participate
- may have lied to seem better
- relies of people’s memories
how do early attachments effect adult relationships?
Bowlby’s IWM - creates template for future relationships
Hazan and Shaver - attachment type influences relationships
Harlow - seperation, grew up to be violent mothers, effected own parenting success
however Czech twins - recovered from deprivation, above normal IQ and healthy relationships
Goldfarb
orphanage children have lower IQs
supports MDH
Lewis
studied 500 youths
no association between separation and psychopathy
against MDH and 44 thieves
