Attachment

Question 1

Attatchment

Answer 1

a strong, enduring, emotional and reciprical bond between two people especially an infant and caregiver, characterised by a desire to maintain proximity

the first attetchment we have is usually within our primary caregiver although we do continue to form attatments throught life

Question 2

Caregiver-infant interaction

Answer 2

According to research, the interactions between infants and their caregivers have important functions for the child’s social development
and for the development of the caregiver-infant attatchment

Question 3

Fathers role differ Caregiver

Answer 3

Reasearch has shown that when fathers take on the role of the main caregiver they adopt behaviours more typical of the mother

Question 4

two main elements of interaction

Answer 4

• reciprocity
• interactional synchrony

Question 5

Reciprocity

Answer 5

a description of how two people interact- both the infant and the caregiver respond to each other’s signals and each elicits a responce from the other
- from birth, babies have periodic ‘alert phases’ and signals that they are ready for interaction e.g. crying
- according to feldman and eidelman 2007 caregivers respond to these alerts around two thirds of the time
- from roughly 3 months, interactions become increasingly frequent this involves paying close attention to each other’s verbal signals and facial expressions- this is when reciprocity develops e.g. reaching arms up means they want to be picked up, mother calling babies name, responce

it was once believed the child plays a passive role, however both the child and caregiver take turns interacting

Question 6

Interactional synchrony

Answer 6

Caregiver and infant both the actions and emotions of the other and do this in a co-ordinated (synchronised) way
- when two people are ‘synchronised’ they carry out the same action simultaneously
- different to reciprocity as actions can be different

Question 8

Single/ same sex parenting

Answer 8

If role of father is that significant, why aren’t children without fathers different?

Question 9

Schaffer’s stages

Answer 9

in stages of attatchment, some characteristics of the infant’s behaviour towards others change as the infant gets older. We are concerened with Schaffer’s atages of attatchment, based on a key study dont in the 1960s

Question 10

Animal research on attatchment

Answer 10

psychological studies that are carried out on non human animals

Question 11

Why would we want to use animals when psychology is about human behaviour?

Answer 11

• ethical reasons, some things cannot be tested on humans due to human rights
• controlled enviroment
• animals dont have ppt reactivity
• breedeing (sample size) some animals breed much quicker than humans and in bigger groups, good for ongoing testing

Question 12

Imprinting

Answer 12

attatchment to the first moving object seen from birth

Question 13

Schaffer’s stages of attatchment

Answer 13

• asocial phase
• indiscriminate attatchemnt
• specific/ discriminate attatchment
• multiple attatchments

Question 14

Asocial phase

Answer 14

Although an infant can recognise and form bonds with carers behaviour does not differ around humans and non-human objects
- babies show some preference for familiar adults- those adults find it easier to calm them
- babies are happier when in the presence of other humans, compared to no humans

first few weeks

Question 15

Indiscriminate attachment

Answer 15

Babies display more observable socal behaviour
- they show a preference to humans than inaminate objects and recognise and prefer familiar faces
- they accept cuddles and comfort from any adult- they dont show separation or stranger anxiety
- their behaviour is described as indiscriminate because they don’t behave differently for any adult

2-7 months

Question 16

Specific/ discriminate attatchment

Answer 16

Babies start to display stranger anxiety when away from their main caregiver at around 7 months of age
- this adult is labled as the primary attatchment figure
- this is not necessarily the person the child spends the most time with but is the one who offers the most interaction and reciprocity

Question 17

Multiple attatchments

Answer 17

Once babies form an attatchment with the primary attatchment figure, they then extend their attatchment behaviour t multiple people. There attatchments are with other adults that they spend regular time with
- these are known as secondary attatchments
- majority of infants form mltiple attatchments by one year of age

Question 18

The monkeys as adults

Answer 18

Harlow found later that the monkeys who grew up being deprived of a real mother (maternal deprivation) had permenant effects and severe consequences
- monkeys reared with ‘wire only’ mothers were the most dysfunctional - however none developed normal social behaviour
- the monkeys were more agressive and less socaible than others and bred less than typical monkeys
- those who did breed often neglected their young, some even attacked their young, leading to some being killed

Question 19

monkeys

critical period for normal development

Answer 19

harlow concluded that a mother figure had to be introduced to an infant monkey within 90 days for an attatchment to form
- after this time an attatchment was impossible and damage done would be irreversable

Question 20

Explanations for attatchement learning theory

Answer 20

a set of theories from the behaviourist approach to psychology that emphasises the role of learning in the acqisition of behaviour
- classical/ opperant conditioning

Question 21

applying classical conditioning to attatchment

Answer 21

in attatchment, food serves as the unconditioned stimulus. Food leads to pleasure (natural response) The caregiver starts as a neurteral stimulus which initially produces no responce
- however when the same NS is paired with the same UCS the NS becomes associated with the response turning the response into a conditioned response
- the baby associates the caregiver with food, therefore the caregiver is the new conditioned stimulus that leads to pleasure
- in the end we have a conditioned stimulus( mother) that leads to a conditioned response (pleasure)

Question 23

Operant conditioning

positive reinforcment

Answer 23

• babies cry when in need of comfort- crying leads to a response from the caregiver (feeding and cuddling), as long as crying is responded to with the correct response the behaviour is reinforced, positive reinforcment

Question 24

Operant conditioning

negative reinforcment

Answer 24

crying is considered as an unpleasant response in itself- when a caregiver responds to this they are also removing something unplesant for the baby and themselves, negative reinforcment

implications: dont respond to baby every time they cry but its annoyong

Question 25

Attatchment as a secondary drive

Answer 25

• learning theory also includes the idea of drive redction
• it has been sggested that hunger is the primary drive for an infanant - an innate biological motivator
• we are motivated to eat to reduce hunger

Sears et al
Caregivers provide food so the primary drive for hunger becomes generalised to them attatchment then acts as just a secondary drive learned through the association between the caregiver and primary drive

Question 26

Monotropy

Answer 26

mono means ‘one’ and indicates that one particular attatchment is different from all the others and of centeral importance to the child’s development (always mention in essay)

Question 27

Bowlby’s monotropic theory

key features

Answer 27

• monotropy
• critical period
• internal wrking model
• socail releasers (not names on spec)

Question 28

Monotropy

Answer 28

Bowlby placed emphasis on attachment to one particular caregiver, he called this person the “mother”, now known as the primary attachment figure
He suggested two principles to clarify this:
- law or continity - the more constant and predictable a childcare, the better the quality of attachment
- law of accuumulated separation - the effects of every separation add up (the less the better)

Question 29

Social releasers

Answer 29

A social behaviour or characteristic that predicts cregiving and leads to attachment
- babies are born with a set of innate and cute behaviours like smiling and gripping that encourage attention from adults
- their purpose is to activate the adult attachment system - this then makes the adult feel love towards the baby
- bowlby believed that attachment is a reciprocal process both the mother and the baby have an innate predisposition to become attached, social releasers trigger this

Question 30

The critical period

Answer 30

the time within which an attachment must form if it’s to form at all
- following Lorenz and Harlow Bowlby extended the idea of the critical period to humans
- the animal studies showed that attachments gradally build during the early weeks of life
- however in humans bowlby sggestes that the critical period is a 2 year (where the infant’s attachment system is most active)
- Bowlby eventually viewed this as a sensitive period as infants are most sensitive at 2 years
- of an attachment isnt formed by then it will be very difficult to form one later on

Question 32

Ainsworth strange situattion

Answer 32

developed by mary ainsworth a controlled observation designed to test attatchment security
- ainsworth worked with bowlby to develop the attatchment theory she tested attatchment security by observing infants responses to playing in an unfamiliar room being left alone being left with a stranger and being reunited with caregiver
- she recorded data using a two way mirror

Question 33

attatchment behaviours

Answer 33

the behaviour to judge attatchment included
proximity seeking
exploration and secure base behaviour
stranger anxiety
separation anxiety
response to reunion

Question 34

proximity seeking

Answer 34

an infant with a good attatchment will stay fairly close to the caregiver

Question 35

explaration and secure base behaviour

Answer 35

good attatchment enables the child to feel confident to explore using the caregiver as a secure base

Question 36

stranger anxiety

Answer 36

a child will show anxiety when a stranger approaches

Question 37

separation anxiety

Answer 37

a child will protest when separated from the caregiver

Question 38

responce to reunion

Answer 38

response after a short period of separation from the caregiver

Question 39

secure attachment

Answer 39

children explored happily but regularly went back to their caregiver
showed moderate separation distress and moderate stranger anxiety
required and accepted confident from their caregiver in reunion stage

65-70% of british toddler

Question 40

Insecre-avoidant attachment

Answer 40

• they explore freely however dont seek proximity or show secure base behaviour
• they show little to no reaction when the caregiver leaves
• they show little anxiety when a stranger approaches
• they make little effort to make contact when their caregiver returns - they don’t require comfort to reunion stage

20-25% of british toddlers

Question 41

Insecure - resistant attachment

Answer 41

• they seek greater proximity than others and so explore less
• they show huge stranger anxiety and separation distress
• however they resist comfort when reunited with their carer
• suggests anger ad resentment (over the fact that mother left in the first place)
• what parenting could have led to this:
• mother not allowing other people to interact with their child