Attachment

Question 1

What is reciprocity?

Answer 1

When the caregiver and baby respond to each other’s signals and elicit a response from one another.

Question 2

Define the key term interactional synchrony

Answer 2

The caregiver and the baby reflect both the actions and emotions of the other and do this in a co-ordinated way.

Question 3

What is attachment?

Answer 3

A close two-way emotional bond between two individuals in which each individual sees the other as essential for their own emotional security.

Question 4

What are alert phases?

Answer 4

They are signals made to the caregiver by the baby that they are ready for interaction.
Mothers typically pick up on and respond to their babie’s alertness around 2/3 of the
time.

Question 5

Why is it difficult to observe babies?

Answer 5

Movements being observed are just small hand movements or subtle changes in expression so it hard to interpret a baby’s behaviour.

Question 6

What are the four stages of attachment as proposed by Schaffer and Emerson?

Answer 6

Asocial, indiscriminate, specific, multiple

Question 7

What is the key term used to describe the person that the baby makes their first attachment to?

Answer 7

Primary attachment figure.

Question 8

Why does Schaffer’s stages of attachment have good external validity?

Answer 8

Instead of researchers being present to make observations (which may have distracted babies or made
them more anxious), observations were carried out by their own mothers whilst they were doing ordinary activities.

Question 9

Is a father necessary in a child’s life?

Answer 9

• Yes – play and stimulation as proposed by Grossman
• Yes – can fulfil emotional needs as proposed by Field
• No – single mothers and lesbian parents prove a father is not needed as they can fulfil their role.

Question 10

What were the results of Harlow’s and Lorenz’s study?

Answer 10

• Harlow: Baby monkeys sought comfort from the cloth mother and went for food from the wire mother.
• Lorenz: the geese that were hatched in the incubator followed Lorenz everyone as he was the first moving
  object they saw

Question 11

Why is there an issue with generalisation when studying animals?

Answer 11

It is hard to generalise findings/conclusions from birds/moneys to humans. With birds, this is because the
mammalian attachment system is quite difficulty and more complex in humans.

Question 12

What is the difference between a primary caregiver and a primary attachment figure?

Answer 12

PCG is the person who spends the most time with a baby, caring for its needed whilst the PAF is the person
who the baby has the strongest attachment too.

Question 13

How is a caregiver negatively reinforced to strengthen an attachment?

Answer 13

When the crying stops, the caregiver wants to repeat the behaviour of feeding/providing comfort.

Question 14

Provide 1 piece of counter-evidence for the learning theory.

Answer 14

• Animals: Lorenz’s geese did not need to associated a moving object with food to imprint on it.
  Harlow’s monkeys preferred soft surrogate mother with no food over wire mother with food.
• Humans: Schaffer and Emerson found babies attached to mothers regardless of whether who
  provided the most food. Isabella et al found interactional synchrony was more important than
  food.

Question 15

Brazleton describes what as a dance?

Answer 15

Babies as well as caregivers take an active role in attachment. They can both initial interactions and take turns doing so.

Question 16

Provide three features of an attachment.

Answer 16

Proximity seeking, separation distress, Secure based behaviour.

Question 17

What are the 8 key terms associated with Bowlby’s monotropic theory?

Answer 17

Evolutionary, monotropic/monotropy, critical period, internal working model, social releasers, primary attachment figure,
law of continuity, law of separation

Question 18

Give an example of interactional synchrony between a father and a child

Answer 18

Father moves head in time with baby in a co-ordinated way.

Question 19

What support is there for social releasers in Bowlby’s theory?

Answer 19

Brazelton: babies became increasingly distressed when their primary attachment figures ignored their social releasers. Some eventually curled up and lay motionless.

Question 20

What happens in stage 3 (specific attachment) in Schaffer’s stages of attachment?

Answer 20

Babies start to show classic signs of attachment towards one person including stranger anxiety and separation anxiety. This person is called their primary attachment figure.

Question 21

What are the three attachment types proposed by Ainsworth?

Answer 21

Secure, insecure avoidant and insecure resistant.

Question 22

Why has the validity of monotrophy been challenged?

Answer 22

Schaffer and Emerson found a significant minority formed multiple attachments at the same time. Also, the first attachment may have a significant impact on later behaviour because it is stronger, not different to other attachments.

Question 23

Define the key term ‘imprinting’

Answer 23

Mobile bird species attaching to the first moving thing they see.

Question 24

How many episodes are there in the Strange Situation?

Answer 24

7

Question 25

What were the 5 behaviours used to judge attachment in the SS?

Answer 25

Proximity-seeking, exploration/secure-based behaviour, stranger anxiety, separation anxiety, response to reunion

Question 26

How many children, studies and countries were included in Van Ijzendoorn’s research?

Answer 26

1990, 32 and 8

Question 27

Which country displayed the most Type A and Type C attachments?

Answer 27

Type A – IA – Germany

Type C – IR – Israel

Question 28

What is an imposed etic and why is this a limitation of cultural variations in attachment?

Answer 28

Imposed etic occurs when we impose an idea or technique that works in one cultural context to another. This is a weakness because because the behaviours of the SS may
not have the same meanings in different cultural contexts so comparing them across cultures may be meaningless.

Question 29

What is the key word used by Bowlby to describe the one special attachment?

Answer 29

Monotropic

Question 30

Most studies on cultural variations in attachment were done by indigenous researchers. Why is this a strength?

Answer 30

Indigenous psychologists are from the same cultural background as the participants. This means that
many of the potential problems in cross-cultural research can be avoided such as communication issues
or bias from one nation’s stereotypes of another. This enhances the validity of the data collected.

Question 31

What is a secondary drive with relation to attachment?

Answer 31

Learned drives (motivators) are acquired through association with a primary drive. With attachment, the primary drive is food, and the secondary is the attachment.

Question 32

What are the two negative outcomes suggested by Bowlby as a result of deprivation?

Answer 32

• Intellectual development – low IQ and emotional development.
• Affectionless psychopathy – lack remorse, guilt, struggle with relationships and become criminals.

Question 33

What is an internal working model? (in attachment)

Answer 33

In attachment, it is the representation we have of our relationship to our primary attachment figure.
This model affects our future relationships because it carries our perception of what relationships are
like.

Question 34

Describe a disinhibited attachment.

Answer 34

Being equally friendly and affectionate towards friends and strangers. Highly unusual as must children show
stranger anxiety in their second year.

Question 35

Why is Bowlby’s 44 thieves study flawed?

Answer 35

Bowlby himself carried out the family interviews and assessments for affectionless psychopathy. This left him open to bias because he knew in advance which teenagers he expected to show signs of psychopathy.

Question 36

What primary drive is associated with Harlow?

Answer 36

Contact comfort

Question 37

Why is real-world application a strength of Romanian orphanage studies?

Answer 37

These studies have improved psychologists’ understanding of the effects of early institutional care and now know
how to prevent the worst of these effects. Eg, children now have one or two key workers who provide most of their
care and institutional care is now seen as a undesirable option.

Question 38

What are the two key behaviours associated with caregiver infant interactions?

Answer 38

Reciprocity and interactional synchrony

Question 39

Who is most likely to be involved in bullying?

Answer 39

Insecure resistant children

Question 40

Who tends to struggle with forming romantic relationships?

Answer 40

Insecure children

Question 41

Why is the lack of adult data a weakness of Romanian orphanage studies?

Answer 41

We do not currently have the data to answer some of the most interesting research questions about the long term effects of early institutional care such as the prevalence
of mental health problems or the participants’ success in forming lasting adult relationships. It will take a long time to gather this data because of the longitudinal design of the study.