Attachment Flashcards
AO3 - Interactional synchrony and its application to adult relationships
One strength of the research into interactional synchrony is its application to later adult relationships.
Meltzoff (2005) developed a ‘like me’ hypothesis, where he believes that babies carrying out imitations in their childhood, is the fundamental basis for all social relationships.
This is a strength of the research as it can explain how children begin to understand what others think and feel and thus able to conduct relationships.
AO3 - Effect of individual differences on caregiver-infant interactions
One criticism of research investigating caregiver-infant interactions is the effect of individual differences.
For example, Heimann (1989) showed infants who demonstrate lots of imitation from birth onwards have had a better quality of relationship at three months.
What is this evidence is important as a basis of child development, it is not clear whether the imitation is a cause or effect of this early synchrony or the type of attachment.
AO3 - Research investigating intentional behaviour
One strength of examining infant behaviours comes from research investigating intentional behaviour.
Abravanel and DeYong (1991) observed infant behaviour when interacting with two objects. Infants between 5 to 12 weeks made little response to these objects.
This concluded that babies don’t imitate everything they see - it is a specific social response to humans only.
AO3 - High external validity
Schaffer and Emerson’s study was carried out in the families own homes and most of the observation (other than stranger anxiety) was actually done by parents during ordinary activities and reported to researchers later. This means the behaviour of the babies was unlikely to be affected by the presence of observers, there is an excellent chance that the participants behaved naturally while being observed. We can therefore say the study has good external validity.
AO3 - Limited sample characteristics
The sample size of 60 babies and their carers was good considering the large volume of data that was gathered on each participant.
However, the fact that all the families involved were from the same district and social class in the same city and at a time over 50 years ago is a limitation.
Child rearing practices vary from one culture to another and one historical period to another: these results do not necessarily generalise well to other social and historical contexts.
AO3 - Measuring multiple attachment
There may be a problem with how multiple attachment is assessed.
Just because a baby gets distressed when an individual leaves the room does not necessarily mean that the individual is a ‘true’ attachment figure. Bowlby
(1969) pointed out that children have playmates as well as attachment figures and may get distressed when the playmate leaves the room, but this does not signify attachment.
This is a problem for Schaffer and Emerson’s stages, because their observation does not leave us a way to distinguish between behaviour shown towards secondary attachment figures, and shown towards playmates.
AO3 - Inconsistent findings on fathers
Research into the role of fathers in attachment is confusing because different researchers are interested in different research questions.
On one hand, some psychologists are interested in understanding the role fathers have as secondary attachment figures whereas others are more soncerned with the father as primary tachment figure.
e former have tended to see fathers having differently from mothers and aving a distinct role. The latter have tended to find that fathers can take on a
‘maternal’ role.
This is a problem because it means psychologists cannot easily answer a simple question the layperson often asks: what is the role of the father?
AO3 - Fathers may not have a distinct role
The study by Grossman found that fathers as secondary attachment figures had an important role in their children’s development.
However, other studies (e.g. MacCallum and Golombok 2004) have found that children growing up in single or same-sex parent families do not develop any differently from those in two-parent heterosexual families.
This would seem to suggest that the father’s role as a secondary attachment figure is not important.
AO3 - Fathers don’t generally become primary attachment figures
The fact that fathers tend not to become the primary attachment figure could simply be the result of traditional gender roles, in which women are expected to be more caring and nurturing than men.
Therefore fathers simply don’t feel they should act like that.
On the other hand, it could be that female hormones (such as ostrogen) create higher levels of nurturing and therefore women are biologically predisposed to be the primary attachment figure (Taylor et al. 2000).
AO3 - Research support for Lorenz
P: One strength of Lorenz’s research comes from later research support.
E: Guiton (1966) replicated the findings of Lorenz with leghorn chickens. He found that these chickens, exposed to yellow rubber gloves for feeding, became imprinted on the gloves.
E: This shows that young animals are not born with a predisposition to imprint to a specific type of object, but develop their imprinting with any moving object within a critical window of development.
L: This supports the findings of Lorenz within a different species and suggests that behaviours aren’t innate, but learnt.
AO3 - Criticism of imprinting for Lorenz
P: One criticism of Lorenz’s research is his concept of ‘imprinting’.
E: The original concept of imprinting is that an image is stamped irreversibly on the nervous system. However, it is now believed that imprinting is more flexible.
E: Guiton (1966) found also that he could reverse the imprinting of rubber gloves on chickens. They had originally tried to mate with a rubber glove, but when placed back with their own specie that engaged in normal sexual activity.
L: This shows that imprinting is no different from other types of learning and the effects are irreversible, unlike Lorenz’s original proposal.
AO3: Important practical applications for Harlow
P: a strength is that Harlow’s research has important practical applications
E: it has helped social workers understand risk factors in child abuse, and so intervene to prevent it (Howe,
1988)
E: we also now understand the importance of attachment figures for baby monkeys in zoos and breeding programs in the wild
L: the usefulness of his research increases its validity
AO3: Harlows lack of control of surrogate mothers
P: one criticism of Harlows research is the lack of control of the two surrogate mothers
E: the two wire, monkeys varied in more ways than just being cloth-covered or not, and the two heads were very different. One possibility is that the cloth-covered monkey was more attractive than the bare wire monkey.
E: the two different hats might have acted as a confounding variable with infant monkeys spending more time with the cloth covered monkey, because it was more attractive
L: this suggests the Harlows conclusion lacks internal validity as the two surrogate mothers were not appropriately controlled.
AO3: Animal research support for learning theory
- Learning theory is based on research with non human animals (e.g pavlovs dogs or skinners rats)
- Behaviourists argue that humans are no different from animals in terms of learning
- However, others argue that attachments are too complex to extrapolate to animals
- This matters because behaviourist explanations may present an oversimplified version of human attachment
AO3: Lack of evidence for humans in learning theory
-Schaffer and Emerson (1964) found that babies tended to form their main attachment with their mother, regardless of whether she usually supplied food
- Furthermore, Isabella et al. (1989) found that high levels of interactional synchrony predicted quality of attachment
- This suggests that food is not the main factor is formation of human attachment, as the learning theory suggests
