Attachment Flashcards
Define attachment
An emotional tie or bond between two people, usually a caregiver and a child. The relationship is usually reciprocal meaning it is a two way relationship that endures over time.
Outline caregiver-infant interactions
From an early age babies have meaningful social interactions with their carers. These interactions are thought to be important for social development and for building quality attachments.
Babies have periodic alert phases - cues which signal they are ready for interaction. Feldman suggests mothers tend to recognise and respond to these signals 2/3 of the time.
Reciprocity - a turn taking process, when each person responds to the other and elicits a response from them. Brazelton describes this process as “a dance” and the notion of reciprocity contradicts previous ideas of the infant having a passive role. Feldman suggests the frequency of reciprocity increases at around 3months of age.
Interactional synchrony - the temporal coordination of micro level social behaviour. When a caregiver and infants’ actions and emotions mirror each other.
Outline research into caregiver-infant interactions
Meltzoff and Moore -
demonstrated that babies as young as 12-27 days would attempt to imitate facial and physical gestures.
Isabella et al -
Babies were observed at 3 and 9 months and the secure group interacted in a well-timed, reciprocal, and mutually rewarding manner. In contrast, insecurely attached infants displayed interactions that were minimally involved, unresponsive and intrusive. From this, the researchers concluded that different interactional behaviours predicted attachment quality.
Evaluate research into caregiver-infant attachment
Overt observations could take place without the issue of demand characteristics confounding the results. Observations could also be recorded. This allows for other researchers to validate and findings by assessing inter-rater reliability.
Changes in infant behaviour is subtle. This makes it difficult to draw conclusions about what is happening from the babies perspective and if imitation is a conscious choice or not.
Subtleties in behaviour makes it difficult to drawn meaningful conclusions about the significance on them in terms of development.
Outline the role of the father
-According to Bowlby, a father is more likely to engage in physically active and novel play than the mother and tends to become his child’s preferred play companion.
Grossmann et al:
longitudinal study looking at how parenting influenced the child’s future relationships. Findings showed whilst mothers had a more nurturing role which enabled future attachments to form, caregiver had a key role in play and stimulation. (whether this play style was sensitive, challenging or interactive) was closely linked to the fathers’ own internal working model of attachment. The quality of this play was correlated with the quality of the child’s future attachments.
Field et al:
Observed interactions between infants and primary caregiver mothers, primary caregiver fathers and secondary caregiver fathers. Overall, it was observed that secondary caregiver fathers engaged more in game playing and held their infants less. However, for primary caregiver fathers, observations showed them, like mother, holding, smiling and interacting with their child more. These behaviours are important for the development of quality attachments and shows that gender is not key but rather, the level of responsiveness the caregiver shows their child.
Evaluate research into the role of the father
Lack of clarity on question being asked:
Some research is interested in fathers as a secondary caregiver, whilst other research is focussed on fathers as primary caregiver. This means findings vary dependent on how the question is being approached, resulting in conflicting and inconclusive answers. Eg: Field’s research suggested the the gender of the parent doesn’t matter but rather the quality of care the provide. Whilst, Grossmann suggested that the father has a distinctive role in play and stimulation.
Practical application:
Research into the gender roles of parenting can give prospective parents reassurance. Findings have shown gender is not key but rather the quality of care. Fathers have been shown to be more than capable primary caregivers, which could relive anxieties in single father households who are stressed over the developmental consequences this may have on their child.
Contradictory evidence:
Grossmann suggests fathers have a distinctive role in the stimulation and play of the child and that this role influences the development of quality attachments in that child’s later life. From this, we would expect to see children coming from fatherless households struggling in developing strong attachments in adulthood. However, McCallum and Gollumbok identified this is not the case. When comparing heterosexual households to single mother and lesbian households, there was no evident findings to support this hypothesis.
Outline Schaffer’s stages of attachment
Schaffer and Emmerson:
60 Glaswegian working class families used in the sample.
Observations took place in the family home, once per month for a year and then once again at 18 months. Interviews also took place with the caregivers in regards to their child’s attachment behaviours. Eg: “how does your child react when you leave the room.”
Schaffer noticed trends in emerging behaviours from the infants at particular stages in their development. For example, between 25-32 weeks half of the infants displayed some elements of separation anxiety. Similarly, the majority of infants had formed a primary attachment at 40 months, with some forming multiple attachments.
From this, Schaffer outlined his stages of attachment.
Asocial: 0-2 months:
Infants’ behaviours, such as crying or smiling, are simply for attention and are not directed toward a specific person.
Indiscriminate: 2-7 months
Babies are usually happy to receive attention from anyone and do not yet resist strangers or unfamiliar people. However, they respond more strongly to people familiar with the baby.
Primary attachment: 7-9 months
Most infants showed preference to a particular caregiver, typically the most responsive caregiver, and showed signs of separation and stranger anxiety.
In 65% of cases this primary attachment was formed with the biological mother.
Multiple attachments:
Infants become interested in and attached to other people, such as grandparents, siblings, or familiar adults.
Evaluate Schaffer’s stages of attachment
longitudinal study: The same children were observed and followed up regularly. longitudinal designs have better internal validity than cross sectional designs because they do not have the confounding variable of individual differences between participants. This can make it easier to establish cause and effect.
High external validity: Observations done in the home and mostly made by the parents. This reduces demand characteristics and the infant feeling anxious around an unfamiliar adult. However, parents are unlikely to be objective observers which could bias the findings.
Ungeneralisable sample.
Temporal validity.
Conflicting theories on multiple attachments. Bowly argues a primary attachment is formed first and this is the most important. Whereas, Ijzendoorn argues that in collectivist cultures where multiple caregivers is the norm, infants typically form multiple attachments from the outset.
Difficulties observing the asocial stage. At this age, babies are largely immobile and lack coordination. Therefore, if they did experience anxiety, this was probably displayed in a subtle hard to observe way.
Real world applications - Decisions in regards to day-care can be helped using Schaffer and Emmerson’s findings. For example, day care may be most suitable during the asocial and indiscriminate stages as the infant is likely to feel comforted by any skilled adult. In contrast, it may be more difficult to integrate the child in day care during the primary attachment stage, as they are less responsive to unfamiliar adults.
Bowlby pointed out that it is difficult to classify who classifies as an attachment figure. Infants tend to show similar signs of distress when a playmate leaves the room but this doesn’t necessarily mean they are an attachment figure.
Outline Ainsworth’s strange situation
Controlled observation: 5 behaviours observed across 7 different situations and scored for an intensity on a 1-7 scale.
Proximity seeking, stranger/separation anxiety, exploration and secure base behaviour and response to reunion.
3 common trends of behaviour observed from which 3 attachment styles were defined.
securely attached - 66%
Moderate separation and stranger anxiety. Willing to explore but frequently returned to their base. Accept comfort upon reunion. Thought to be the result of consistent nurturing, loving and emotionally available parents.
Insecure avoidant - 22%
These children explore freely but do not seek proximity or show secure base behaviour. They show little or no reaction when their caregiver leaves and they make little effort to make contact when the caregiver returns. They also show little stranger anxiety. They do not require comfort at the reunion stage . Thought to be the product of unresponsive, emotionally unavailable parents leading to an encouragement of premature independence.
Insecure resistant- 12%
These children seek greater proximity than others and so explore less. They show huge stranger and separation distress but they resist comfort when reunited with their carer. Thought to be the cause of inconsistent parenting styles with equal measures of responsiveness and being unavailable. This leads to confusion in the child and can explain their conflicting displays of emotions
Evaluate Ainsworth’s strange situation
Predictive value:
Ainsworth’s attachment styles can be used to predict later development. Kokkinos found that insecure attachments were more likely to experience bullying. Ward found that securely attached children went on to have better mental health in adulthood.
High internal validity:
Inter-rater reliability of 94% (Bick) This can increase confidence in the findings being meaningful and doesn’t depend of subjectivity.
Alternative suggestion:
Kagan suggests that the temperament of the child is actually what leads to the different attachment types. This temperament hypothesis was supported by research from Fox. Eg those with “easy” temperaments and so eat and sleep regularly and are accepting of new experiences, are more likely to accept new experiences.
Possible limited explanation: Main and Solomon outlined a 4th attachment style “Type D” that Ainsworth’s original research overlooked. Type D characterised by a lack of consistent patterns of social behaviour. Such infants lack a coherent strategy for dealing with the stress of separation. However, this dysfunctional attachment style is often the result of neglect or trauma and therefore doesn’t appear to be a normal variation within attachment. Therefore, Ainsworth’s attachment styles holds up as a baseline description of normal attachment styles, and type D just adds useful additional information.
Culture bound: This is because there are cultural differences in children’s experiences which mean that they respond differently and caregivers from different cultures also behave differently. For example, Takahashi found that Japanese mothers are rarely separated from their infants; therefore, those infants show high levels of separation anxiety. Similarly, Grossmann outlines that in Germany exploration would be praised as a good sign of independence, opposed to an insecure attachment style.
Outline the learning theory of attachment
Dollard and Miller propose a “cupboard love” approach to attachment.
An infant associates the caregiver (NS) who continually provides them with food (UCS). This leads to a conditioned response of relief from hunger and the formation of an attachment, as the child learns to associate the mother with feelings of relief, pleasure and happiness.
By crying, infants produce a response from the caregiver of caring and comforting them, so learns that by crying, the caregiver will care for them. From the caregiver’s perspective, comforting the infant leads to the crying stopping, so this behaviour will be repeated by the caregiver (this is negative reinforcement- continuing a behaviour to avoid a negative outcome).
When an infant cries, a caregiver offers them a response as a social suppressor to relive the crying, such as comfort through feeding. This positively reinforces the infants’ crying and they will learn to direct this towards their caregiver to receive care. Similarly, by providing the infant with comfort, the caregiver is relieved from the baby’s crying and so their actions are negatively reinforced. This process of mutual reinforcement, strengthens the attachment bond between mother and child.
Learning theorists also draw upon the concept of drive reduction. Food is a primary reinforcer, as a caregiver provides the infant with food, the infant’s primary drive of hunger becomes associated to them. Attachment is therefore a secondary drive learned by the association of the caregiver and satisfaction of the primary drive.
Evaluate the behavioural explanation for attachment
Lots of research into attachment shows attachments being formed despite presence of food. Harlow’s monkeys consistently showed a preference to the cloth surrogate mother opposed to the wire model, despite the wire on dispensing food. This suggested creature comfort played a bigger role in the formation of attachments compared to food. Lorenz’s geese also imprinted onto him before being fed.
Isabella et al found that high levels of interactional synchrony were correlated with better quality attachments. Despite this having no relation to food.
Whilst the theory can still be used as helpful information, giving insights into the development of attachments. Learning theory only considers food as the driving force behind attachment formation and quality, not considering other factors such as sensitive responding and developing reciprocity. This makes the explanation over-simplistic.
Outline Lorenz’s research into attachment
Lorenz’s research suggests that organisms have a biological predisposition to form attachments to one single subject.
Divided a clutch of 12 geese eggs, half hatching in an incubator and the control group hatching in their natural environment. The results showed that the incubator group followed Lorenz everywhere, whereas the control group, hatched in the presence of their mother, followed her. This remained the same even after the two groups were mixed up together.
Lorenz identified a critical period in which imprinting needs to take place. Depending on the species this can be as brief as a few hours after hatching or birth.
Divided a clutch of geese eggs so half hatched in an incubator and saw Lorenz as the first moving thing upon birth, and the other half hatched in their natural environment and saw their biological mother as the first moving thing.
Lorenz found that the incubator geese imprinted onto him. Even when having the two groups interact, they remained imprinted onto Lorenz.
Sexual imprinting - Lorenz extended his research to sexual mating and found that what an organism imprinted onto was predictive of their later sexual preferences. Lorenz describes a peacock that had been reared in the reptile house of a zoo where the first moving objects the peacock saw after hatching were giant tortoises. As an adult this bird would only direct courtship behaviour towards giant tortoises.
Outline Harlow’s research into attachment
Isolated infant rhesus monkeys from their biological mothers and reared them with two models of surrogate mothers. One wire model and one cloth model insulated with a hot water bottle. The conditions varied in regards to which model provided and dispensed food.
The findings showed that regardless of which model dispensed food, the infants monkeys consistently showed preference to the cloth model. When exposed to new frightening experiences - such as being shown a scary doll - the monkeys sought comfort from the cloth model.
‘contact comfort’ was of more importance to the monkeys than food when it came to attachment behaviour.
As a result of being maternally deprived, the monkeys grew up to be dysfunctional and display abnormal behaviour. This included mating and breeding less, being aggressive and even killing their young in some cases.
Evaluate Lorenz’s and Harlow’s research
Research support for imprinting - Regolin and Vallortiga found that when new-born chicks were shown a moving simple shape combination, when later exposed to various ones, they followed the original one most closely. This supports the idea that young animals have an innate mechanism to imprint onto a moving object present within a critical period of development.
Influence within developmental psychology - Lorenz’s research such as the suggestion of imprinting occurring in a specific time period suggests that attachment is a biological process which happens in a critical window of development. This concept has led developmental psychologists (such as Bowlby) to develop well recognised theories of attachment suggesting the attachment formation takes place during a critical period and is a biological process. Such theories have been highly influential in the way child care is administered today.
Conflicting evidence - Guiton et al found that whilst the chicks initially imprinted onto yellow rubber gloves, with experience they eventually learnt to prefer mating with other chicks.
Generalisability issues - the mammalian attachment system appears different to that of birds. For example, mothers tend to show more emotional responses to their children. Therefore, whilst Lorenz’s findings can offer insights into the development of attachments , the conclusions drawn may not be suitable to be extrapolated to the human population.
Real life applications - research into the effects of maternal deprivation can ensure that captive wild monkeys or ones in breeding programmes have adequate attachment figures in order to prevent negative developmental consequences. Similarly, Howe notes that Harlow’s research can help social workers and clinical psychologists understand the consequences of a lack of bonding experience. This can help interventions be put in place to prevent poor outcomes in child development.
Ethical issues - as a result of maternal deprivation, Harlow’s monkeys went on to exhibit negative developmental consequences and distress. If animal studies aim to generalise their findings to human, then it is reasonable to assume the extent of psychological trauma endured by the monkeys is similar to that of a human baby. Issues like this must be considered when deciding if knowledge obtained on attachment justifies the procedures used to gain them.
