Attachment Flashcards

Question

Evaluate the Learning Theory!

Answer 1

Strengths: - Some conditioning may be involved. This is rather than food being the uncontrolled stimulus e.g. a baby may process the feeling of warmth and happen is with there primary care giver. A real life example could be Little Albert who was conditioned to not like fluffy things, they did this through creating a loud scary noise whenever he saw or interacted with a fluffy thing Weaknesses: - Counter evidence from animal studies. Lorenz geese imprinted on the first moving object they saw, Harlow monkeys preferred comfort over food. This shows factors other than food are important for attachment -Counter evidence from human studies. Schaffer and Emerson found babies form an attachment with there mother even if not being fed, Isabel found that high levels of interactional synchrony predicted the quality of attachment . This shows factors other than food are important for attachment - Babies play a relative. They simply associate comfort with reward, conditioning may not be adequate explanation for attachment

Answer 2

He rejected the learning theory, as he believed attachment is inbuilt. To support his theory he said there were 5 points: Adaptive, Social releases, Monotropy, Internal Working Model, and Critical Period. Adaptive: attachment gives infants a adaptive advantage Social releases: they unlock a I ate tendency in adults to care for children Monotropy: One special attachment with the pig Internal Working Model: your first relationship forms a template for later relationships Critical Period: attachment behaviours need to occur in the first two years of infancy

Answer 3

Strengths: -Studies supporting. Berry Bazelton et al found that babies trigger reactions in adults and that babies are distressed without the pcg -Studies supporting. Heidi bailey et al found that if a mother had a poor attachment with there mother then they have a bad attachment with there child Weaknesses: -Lacks Validity. Schaffer and Emerson said babies attach to at least one person, so Bowlby would be incorrect about there unique quality and importance to the child’s primary attachment -Other Influences. Some psychologists believe that genetic differences in anxiety effect social behaviours

Answer 4

Ainsworth looked into the effects of stranger anxiety, separation anxiety, and reunion behaviour on a baby, their mother, and a stranger. 1) baby and mother enter and the baby explore 2) a stranger comes in to talk to the mother 3) the mother leaves 4) the mother returns and the stranger leaves 5) the caregiver leaves the baby alone 6) the stranger returns 7) the caregiver returns

Answer 5

They found three attachments: Secure attachment: 60-75% They regularly go back to their caregiver, and show moderate separation distress. I trust you Insecure resistant attachment: 3% They seek greater proximity and so explore less, then can also not be comforted by strangers only primary care givers. I don’t trust you. Insecure avoidant attachment: 20-25% They explore freely and don’t show proximity , and there’s no reaction when the caregiver leaves. I don’t care.

Answer 6

Strengths: -Replicability. It was a standardised procedure, so it is highly controlled and easy to replicate -High interater reliability. Brick te al found agreement on attachment types for 94% of babies, this means the observations are reliable -Validity. The attachment types are predictable for later development, this explains the sequenced outcomes Weaknesses: -Main and Solomon added a fourth category. This is called disorganised type and is for the minority of children that don’t fit into any category. -Temperament. Karon suggested that temperament is a more important influence on behaviour in the stranger situation -Cultural Bondage. The experiment was created to measure western parenting styles, however in other places the results could differ

Answer 7

They repeated the stranger situation in different countries around the world to see how the results may differ. They did 33 studies in 8 countries, this included 1990 children

Answer 8

Secure Attachment: -The UK had the highest with 75% secure attachments - China had the lowest with 50% secure attachments Insecure Avoidant Attachments: - Germany had the highest with 35% Insecure Avoidant Attachments - Japan had the lowest with 5% Insecure Avoidant Attachments: Insecure Resistant Attachments: - Israel had the highest with 29% Insecure Resistant Attachments - The UK had the lowest with 3% Insecure Resistant Attachments

Answer 9

This is that babies without a primary care give to attach to have the consequences as they are separated and deprived of any source of security. He says this deprivation of an attachment can make you have a low IQ, and be a affectionless psychopathy

Answer 10

Bowlby wanted to examine the link between affection less psychopathy and maternal deprivation. So he got 44 criminal teenagers accused of stealing something. He also had a control group of 44 young people who were emotionally disturbed but were not criminals. So Bowlby interview the criminals and their families, he looked for signs of psychopathy and separation from there mother at a early age

Answer 11

He found the 14 of the 44 thieves could be describe as affectionless psychopaths. From these 14, 12 had experienced prolonged separation from their mothers in the first 2 years of life. In contrast 5 of the remaining 30 thieves had prolonged separation from their mothers in the first 2 years of their lives

Answer 12

Strengths: ~> A new piece of research has provided support for the idea that maternal deprivation can have long-term effects.Levy et al. (2003) showed that separating baby rats from their mother for a day had a permanent effect on their development Weaknesses: ~> Poor quality of the evidence.This is because it was Bowlby himself who carried out both the family interviews This left him open to bias ~> Confusion between different types of early experience. Rutter (1981) drew a distinction between two types of early negative experience.Deprivation is the loss of a PCG. Privation is the failure to form any attachment in the first place. Rutter pointed out that the severe long-term damage Bowlby associated with deprivation is actually more likely to be the result of privation.

Answer 13

The long term effects/consequences of living in a institution e.g a orphanage, for a continuous amount of time.

Answer 14

The followed a group of 165 Romanian orphans for many years as part of the English and Romania (ERA) study. They wanted to look at the effects on there physical, cognitive, and emotional development throughout all there stages.

Answer 15

They found that children had: ~> Delayed Intellectual development ~> Twisted joints ~> Animalistic behaviours ~> Malnourishment ~> Rocking motions ~> Aggressive behaviour They also found the longer they are institutionalised there IQ goes down, and they are more Disinhibited attachments.

Answer 16

Strengths: ~> Real world application. It has improved psychologists understanding of the effects of early institutionalisation. This led to improvements in the condition experiences by looked after children. This caused more care workers to enter the roles. ~> Few Confounding variables. Many orphan were studied before this study, this means confounding studies have already been sorted out. This makes the experiment more true. Weaknesses: ~> Lack of adult data. We only saw them in the experiment as children but not adults, this means we have no current data to answer the questions of the long term effects of care. ~> Could introduce new confounding variables. These could change the care and experiments, thus harmful effects seen in studies of Romanian orphans may represent. ~> Socially sensitivity. Results show the late adopted children have poor developmental outcomes. Results may be that their parents, teachers and anyone else may lower their expectations- self fulfilling prophecy.

Answer 17

A type of attachment where children do no form close attachments. Such children will treat strangers inappropriate familiarity (over friendly ness) and may be attention seeking

Answer 18

~> Attachment type is associated with quality of poor relationships ~> Secondary attachments children form the best quality attachments, insecure have friendships difficulties

Answer 19

They assessed the attachment type and bullying involvement. They did this through having a self report questionnaire for 196 children aged 7-11 from London.

Answer 20

~> Secure attachments are less likely to be involved in bullying ~> Insecure avoidant attachment are more likely to be victims of bullying ~> Insecure resistant attachments are more likely to be bullies

Answer 21

As Children: ~> Are able to separate from parents ~> Seek comfort from parents when frightened ~> Greet return of parents with positive emotions ~>Prefer parents to strangers As Adults: ~> Have trusting, lasting relationships ~>Tend to have high self esteem ~> Are comfortable sharing feelings with friends and partners ~> Seek out social support

Answer 22

As Children: ~> May be wary of strangers ~> become greatly distressed when parents leave ~> Do not appear to be comforted when parents return As Adults: ~> Reluctant to become close to other ~> Worry that their parent/partner does not love them ~> Become very distraught when relationships end

Answer 23

As Children: ~> May avoid parents ~> Does not seek much contact of comfort from parents ~> Shows little to no preference for parents over strangers As Adults: ~> May have problems with intimacy ~> Invest little emotion in social and romantic relationships ~> Unwilling or unable to share thoughts and feelings with others