Attachment

Question 1

Attachment

Answer 1

Emotional bond between two people, it is a two way process that endures over time

Question 2

Caregiver infant interactions

Answer 2

Reciprocity- a two way interaction between caregiver and child, sometimes referred to as turn taking, the two respond to others signals to sustain communication. The behaviour of each party elicits a response from the other

Interactional synchrony- simultaneous, coordinated, sequence of movements, communication or emoticons between a caregiver and an infant. Infants as young as two weeks old demonstrated interactional synchrony. An adult model displayed one of the three facial expressions or hand movements, a dummy was placed in the infants mouth to stop any response, following the display the dummy was removed and an association was found between the infants behaviour and that of the adult model

Question 3

Evaluation of caregiver and infant interactions

Answer 3

+ mother interacted with babies over a video monitor, in the next part of the study the babies were played a tape of their mother so she was not responding to them, the babies tried to attract their mothers attention and when failed to do so, stopped responding. Babies want their mothers to reciprocate
+observed infant behaviour when interacting with a puppet that looked like a human mouth opening and closing, infants made little responses to this, so they aren’t imitating what they see, it is a specific social response to other humans
-difficulty to determine an infants intention, psychologists rely on inferences

Question 4

Stages of attachment

Answer 4

Shaffer (1964)- longitudinal study of 60 infants and their mothers for 2 years

Pre attachment (0-3 months)- infants become attracted to other humans, preferring them to toys and events. Demonstrated by their smiling towards people’s faces

Indiscriminate attachment (4-7 months)- infants begin got discriminate between familiar and unfamiliar faces smiling more towards the people they know, they still allow stranglers to handle them

Discriminate attachment (7 months)- a specific attachmnet to the primary attachment figure (usually the mother) staying close to this person, showing seperation protest and stranger anxiety. The primary attachment figure wasnt always the one who spent more time with the child but the quality of the time spent

Multiple attachments (7 months)- very soon after developing their first attachment infants develop strong emotional ties with other major caregivers, they are called secondary attachments, the fear of strangers weakens but their attachment to the primary attachment figure remains the strongest

Question 5

Evaluation of stages of attachment

Answer 5

• data collected buy Shaffer (1964)- may be unreliable because it relies on the mothers reports of their infants, some mother might have been less sensitive to their infants protests and therefore been less likely to report
• the sample was biased- only working class population
• sample biased because it only included individualistic cultures
• lacks temporal validity- done in the 1960s
• inflexible and doesn’t take into account individual differences, some infants might develop multiple attachments first rather than starting from a single attachment

Question 6

Multiple attachments

Answer 6

Majority of babies refer to their mothers as the primary attachment figure, at around the age of 7 month, babies form secondary attachment, 75% of babies studied had formed an attachment with their father by the age of 18 months

Question 7

The role of the father

Answer 7

Fathers are less likely to be the child primary attachment figure, this might be because they spend less time with their infant, it is also possible that most men arent psychologically equipped because of the lack of emotional sensitivity, due to biological factors- hormone oxytocin. Alternatively could be due to societal norms, in some cultures there is also the stereotype that it is feminine to be sensitive to the need of others. Fathers fill a qualitatively different role from that of the mother, fathers provide play and stimulation to complement the role of the mother, which is to provide emotional support, it is just as crucial as the mothers role for the child’s wellbeing

Question 8

Evaluation of the role of the father

Answer 8

-there is inconsistency in the research, research showing growing up in a single female or same sex parent family show there is no effect on development, suggesting the fathers role is not important
-father is less Importnsnt to later development that he mother in terms of nurture, early attachment to the mother was a better predictor of what the teenage relationship was like than the early attachment with the father, however if the father engaged 2, than the adosclenet relationsips with both parents was strengthened
-research also questions whether the father plays a distinct role, in single father family fathers adopt to the traditional maternal role and can be the child’s primary attachment figure
-field (1978)- comparison of behaviour of primary caregiver mother with primary and secondary caregiver fathers, face to face interactions were analysed from video footage with infants at four months of age, overall it was observed that the father engaged more in game playing and held the infant less. However primary caregiver fathers engaged in more smiling, imitative grimaces, and imitative vocalisations, comparable to the primary caregiver mother

Question 9

Types of attachments

Answer 9

Type A- insecure avoidant- 20%
Type B- Secure attachment- 70%
Type C- Insecure resistant- 10%

Question 10

Strange situation

Answer 10

Ainsworth et al. (1990)- Investigated difference in attachment between infants and their caregivers, done in a controlled observation, a room furnished with toys

It investigated the infant in a series of three minute episodes: mother and baby, stranger enters, mother leaves, mother returns.

They recorded an infants proximity seeking, stranger anxiety, seperation protest, reunion joy

Question 11

Evaluation of strange situation

Answer 11

+standardised procedures which allow replication, it has been replicated many times over the years, it has been carried out successfully in many different cultures
-developed in the USA so there is culture bias, in Germany very few mothers worked at this time, insecure avoidant
-validity can be questioned, proximity seeking could be a measure of insecurity rather than security
-gender biased, only carried out using mothers as caregivers, the child might have different attachment with the mother compared with the father, therefore we arent measuring a child’s overall attachment style but their attachment to one individual
-controlled observation, lacks ecological validity

Question 12

Cross cultural variation in attachment

Answer 12

Van Ijzendoorn (1988)- conducted a meta analysis of 32 studies into attachment across 8 countries, all used strange situation.
Main findings:
Secure attachment was the most common attachment style, lowest was in china 50% and highest in Britain 75%
-In collectivist cultures like japan and Isreal the rates of insecure resistant were higher
-in west Germany rates of insecure avoidant were higher 35%
-variations between results of studies within the same country were 1.5x greater than those between countries

Question 13

Evaluation of cultural variation

Answer 13

+ meta analysis
- methodology developed in the USA
- infants from Isreal in this study lived in kibbutz which is a closed community so they did not come into contact with strangers, so they were classified as insecure resistant
- not comparing cultures but countries
- attachment style to the mother only- gender biased

Question 14

Learning theory of attachment

Answer 14

All behaviours are learned rather than being innate or inherited from parents.
Classical conditioning- an infant is born with certain reflex responses, the stimulus food (us) and it produces the reflex of pleasure (ur), the person providing the food (ns) but overtime becomes associated with the pleasure gained from food the person becomes a (cs) that produces pleasure as a (cr). According to classical conditioning this is how the attachment bond develops and is the reason children feel pleasure in their caregivers presence.

Operant conditioning strengthens attachment, baby receives positive reinforcement (when behaviour produces a pleasant consequence) for crying when they are hungry as the caregiver feeds them
The caregiver receives negative reinforcement (when behaviour removes something unpleasant ) for feeding the baby when they are crying as it makes them stop

Question 15

Evaluation of the learning theory

Answer 15

+ plausible and scientific as it is founded in a established theory, it is likely that the association between the provision of needs and the person providing those needs can lead to strong attachment
- comfort is more important than food in determining whom a baby will attach to- baby rhesus monkeys
-how attachment forms but not why they form, according to bowlby it is to ensure that they are protected
-reductioninst- oversimplifies
-deterministic it states that early learning determines later attachment behaviours

Question 16

Bowlbys monotropic theory

Answer 16

The fundamental principle is that attachment between infant and their caregiver is an instinct hat has evolved because it increases the chances of both the babies survival and the parents passing on their genes, it is therefore adaptive

Infants have an innate drive to become attached to an adult, they usually have a critical period in which they must occur or they will never ( between two years of age), infants which do not have a chance to form this attachment will have difficulty forming attachments later on, Bowlby proposed that the attachmnet is determined by the caregivers Sensitivity, social releasers are also important, including smiling and crying, babies release them to encourage the caregiver to look after them.

Bowlby argued that infants have one special emotional bond, he referred to as a monotropy, this bond is often with the biological mother, infants also form secondary attachments that also provide an important emotional safety net significant for healthy psychological development

Question 17

Consequences of attachment

Answer 17

Infants have one special emotional bond (monotropy), usually but not always with the biological mother, the infant uses this relationship to form a mental view of all relationships (internal working model), is secure the child will have a positive internal working model, which means that future and romantic adult relationships will be postive and secure. An insecure one is associated with fear of intimacy and lack of commitment in adult relationships. According to bowlbys maternal deprivation theory, disruption to the monotropic bond before the critical period leads to later emotional problems. The continuity hypothesis proposes that individuals who are securely atttached in infancy continue to be socially and emotionally competent, this is because secure childhood leads to a positive internal working model

Question 18

Evaluation of bowlby’s monotropic theory

Answer 18

• schaffer suggest that multiple attachments are more common in babies than monotropy, at the age of 18 months only 13% had one person they were attached to
  -feminists like Erica Birman have pointed out that the idea of monotropy is socially sensitive- puts pressure on the mother
  -subjective- not testable
  -children who never formed any attachment until the age four, then adopted and could still form attachment to the adoptive parents, goes against the idea of critical period ( if no attachment is formed none will be)
  -

Question 19

Bowlby (1944)

Answer 19

Analysed the case histories of a number of his patients in the child guidance clinic in London where he’d worked, all the children attending were emotionally maladjusted. He studied 88 children half had been caught stealing, other half were a control group. 14 of the thieves were affection-less psychopaths (experienced frequent early separation from their mothers), 12 of the affection-less psychopaths had experienced this compare for 5 out of 30 which were not classified as that. Almost none of the control group experienced this

Question 20

Maternal deprivation

Answer 20

Absence of a mother figure will lead to poor psychological development, it occurs when children suffer from prolonged seperation from their mothers-figure, consequences include reduced IQ, emotional problems, delinquency and affection less psychopathy, according to continuity hypothesis these would continue into adulthood and are irreversible, it even leads to inability to be a good parent. It occurs if child is two and half (critical period) there is a risk upto 5 years (sensitive period)

Question 21

Evaluation of maternal deprivation

Answer 21

+ before this the hospitals did not allow parents to visit during the child’s stay in hospital, often had a profound and damaging effect on the child
+examined children from a poor South American orphanage, the members of staff were under paid, over worked and under trained so rarely gave children attention, the kids showed signs of anaclitic depression
+ kids looked after physically low iq than shifted to institute where looked after properly- Iq rose by 30 points
- there hasn’t been a distinguished between deprivation and privation
- the effects have shown to be reversible

Question 22

Institutional care

Answer 22

When a child’s living arrangement are outside of the family, some children are raised in institutions like children home, hostels, hospital, children raised in institutions can adopt the rules and norms of the institutions, which could impair functioning and lead to a loss of personal identity (deindividuation)

Question 23

Effects of institutionalisation

Answer 23

Delayed intellectual development
Disinhibited attachment
Emotional development
Lack of internal working model
Delayed physical development
Quasi autism

Question 24

Evaluation of institutionalisation

Answer 24

+ potential negative consequences of institutional care, and development of key worked to provide emotional care for children
+ led to changes in the adoption process , in the past mothers were encouraged to nurse their children for as long as possible before giving them up for adoption, today most are adopted within first week of life
- generalising findings of studies of Romanian orphans as stands of care were poor
-not randomly allocated
-negative effects of institutional care can be reduced by sensitive parenting- longitude study of 36 R. Orphans adopted to Canada , physically smaller at 4 but by 10 the difference had disappeared

Question 25

Romanian orphans- Rutter et all (2011)

Answer 25

1957-1989 Romania was ruled by a communist regime, in 1967 communist government passed 770 decree which prohibited abortion and contraception, goal was to increase the population to support industrialisation however many parents abandoned their kids. 165 Romanian children who spent early lives in Romanian orphanages, tested at 4,6,11,15 to assess their emotional, social and physical development. Compared to a control group of 52 British kids adopted before the age of 6 months. In conclusion the long term consequences are less severe than once thought, if kids were adopted before 6 months and receive sensitive parenting. However if adopted after 6 months than the consequences are likely to be severed

Question 26

Harlow (1959)

Answer 26

Harlow created two wire mothers, one was wrapped in a soft cloth , 8 infant rhesus monkeys were separated from their mother at birth and studied for 16t days, placed in a cage with two wire mothers, four of the monkeys received milk from the cloth mother, the other four recovered it from the wire mes mother, the time the monkeys spent with the mother was measured, observations were made of the monkeys responses to being frightened by a mechanical teddy bear and how they coped with exploring a new room full of unfamiliar toys. All 8 spent more time with the soft cloth mother, even if not fed by her. Long term effects- continued to study the 8 monkeys as they grew older, they developed abnormally , they froze or fled when met by other monkeys. Did not show normal mating behaviour and did not cradle their own babies, the monkeys could recover if they spent time with other monkeys before the age of 3 months otherwise irreversible

Question 27

Evaluation of Harlow (1959)

Answer 27

+ contradicting to learning theory- food is not as important as comfort
+ fits with bowlby’s meternal deprivation theory
+ Schaffer et al (1964)- food is not necessary for attachment to form, discovered that babies often attached to those who play with them, 39% of babies attached to someone else rather to mother who fed the,
-unethical

Question 28

Lorenz (1939)

Answer 28

He was ethnologist, he wanted to investigate imprinting (the instinct in several species of animals to attach to the first moving thing they see after birth) he took a clutch of goslings and divided them into 2 groups, one was left to hatch with their mother, whilst the 2nd was placed in a incubator, when the ones in the incubator hatched the first thing they saw was Lorenz, he marked them and placed them together again, the groups divided back into following natural mother or Lorenz, he called this the critical period in which the young goslings see a moving object or they don’t imprint, Lorenz taught them how to swim and they always returned to him. Long term effects- irreversible and long lasting, one geese called martina, used to sleep on his bed every night. It also had an effect on later mate preferences, sexual imprinting

Question 29

Evaluation of Lorenz (1935)

Answer 29

+ similar to critical period in bowlby’s maternal deprivation theory
+ other studies with similar results, chickens exposed to yellow rubber gloves
- reversible- chickens trying to mate with rubber gloves returned to normal once spent enough time with others of same species
- can’t generate findings from animal to humans- we have a much more complex and different types of attachment styles than animals

Question 30

Influence of early attachment on childhood relationships- evaluation

Answer 30

+ (1998) investigation into the internal working model to see if there is an association between early attachment types of participants in bullying in childhood. 196 kids (7-11) from south east London primary school. All children were assessed for attachment type and quality of relationship with parents using separation anxiety test and a parenting styles questionnaire. Secure least likely to be involved in bullying, insecure avoidant most likely to be victims of bullying and insecure resistant most likely to be rated by their peers as bullies
+ Simpson et al’s (2007) longitudinal study assessed infant attachment type at one year of age (using the strange situation) and then gathered data through interviews and questionnaires up to the age of 20-23. They found that participants who were securely attached as infants were rated as having higher social competence as children. This supports the view that attachment type does predict future childhood and adult relationships.

• life events often altered attachment styles

Question 31

Hazan and shaver (1987)

Answer 31

Study to test the connection between a persons infant attachment style, their internal working model and their adult attachment style. Placed a love quiz in the Rocky Mountain news, it asked about relationship with their parents, attitudes towards love, and their current relationship experience. 620 responses, 205 m and 425 w
56% secure, 25% insecure avoidant, 19% insecure resistant. ( ten years, six years, five years)

Question 32

Evaluation of hazan and shaver

Answer 32

-correlational
-relies on the participants early memory
-unreliable, failed to be replicated ( 27 samples of infants assessed on infancy and later reassessed) found a correlation ranging from 0.5 to 0.1