Attachment Flashcards
Social Releasers
Behaviours/ characteristics that trigger a caregiver response.
Reciprocity
Caregiver responds to signals given by baby- e.g. baby cries and caregiver comforts.
Brazelton 1975- reciprocity
Reciprocity like a dance, caregiver and infant respond to each move.
Interactional Synchrony
Synchronisation/ mirroring of behaviours and expression between child and caregiver.
Dyad
Individuals regarded as a pair.
Infant Attachment Characteristics
- Selective
- Seek comfort
- Proximity seeking
- Separation anxiety
Shaffer and Emerson 1964- Stages of Attachment
Studied 60 babies monthly for 18 months at their homes in Glasgow. Observed their behaviour and how they responded to caregivers (caregivers also interviewed). Attachment is not who feeds and changes the child, but who plays and communicates with them.
Stage 1- Birth to 6 weeks- Pre-attachment/ asocial- doesn’t recognise or interact with anyone.
Stage 2- 6 weeks to 7 months- Indiscriminate attachments- preference for people
Stage 3- 7 months to 1 year- Specific attachment- clear preference for single figure, separate/ stranger anxiety
Stage 4- From 1 year- Multiple attachments
Cernoch and Porter 1977- Breast Pads
Breast pads either side of baby’s head in stage 1. One pad had the mother’s scent, the other someone else’s: the baby turned to the pad with the mother’s scent.
Bowlby- Father
Father should provide financially for mother and baby.
Christensson 1996- Father
Fathers engaged in rougher play, mothers in gentle play.
Paquette 2004- Father
Fathers engaged in riskier play and talked about active play, mothers engaged in more emotional dialogue.
Verissimo 2011- Father
Relationship with father impacts number of friends in school: those who played rougher with their father could make more friends at school.
Precocial
Animals born late into development can move after birth- e.g. horses
Altricial
Animals who continue to develop- e.g. primates and humans
Lorenz 1935- imprinting
Separated 12 eggs (left 6 with mother). When they hatched, the goslings immediately followed Lorenz as they imprinted onto the first moving thing they saw.
Kangaroo Care
Skin to skin contact after birth with premature babies to aid attachment.
Harlow 1958- Monkeys
Separated rhesus monkeys from their mothers and reared them in a cage with two ‘surrogate’ mothers. One was made of wire and held a bottle, the other was made of a soft towel. The monkeys spend 17-18 hours of the day on the soft monkey and clung to it when scared.
Animal Study Evaluation
+ More ethical than humans
+ Kangaroo care
+ Against cupboard love theory
+ Lab and field experiment
- Ungeneralisable to humans
- Unethical
- Long lasting affects
Freud- Cupboard Love/ Learning Theory
Baby attaches to whoever feeds it
Dollard and Miller- Learning Theory Behaviourism
Classical conditioning occurs when the baby associates the caregiver with food, leading to pleasure. Operant conditioning occurs when parents attend to the child to stop it crying (negative reinforcement) or the baby smiles when interacted with (positive reinforcement).
Learning Theory Evaluation
- Ignores nature
- Quality of care affects attachment
- Person who interacts positively according to Schaffer.
- Based on animals
- Reductionist
Bowlby 1951- monotropy
- Monotropy is one single special attachment usually to the mother as infants have an innate tendency to attach to their mother.
Critical Period
First 12 months of life when an infant must form an attachment else psychological harm can be caused (deprivation/ privation).
Deprivation
Taken away
Privation
Never had it
Internal Working Model
Internal working model- first attachment provides a template for the rest.
Continuity hypothesis
Successful attachments continue through life.
Ainsworth 1970- Strange Situation
Observed babies between the ages of 12 and 18 months old in the USA and how they interact with their caregiver and a stranger in an unfamiliar environment.
- CG, I, O - 30 seconds - Shown into the room.
- CG, I - 3 minutes - The caregiver watches the infant playing and exploring the room.
- CG, I, S - 3 minutes - The stranger interacts with the caregiver and infant.
4*. I, S - 3 minutes - The caregiver leaves and the stranger plays with the infant. - CG, I - 3 minutes - The caregiver returns to comfort the infant/
6. I - 3 minutes - The infant is left alone.
7. I, S - 3 minutes - The stranger comes to comfort the infant. - CG, I - 3 minutes - The caregiver returns to comfort the infant.
Type A
Insecure avoidant- 20%- detached from mother and ignores her. Little stranger or separation anxiety.
Type B
Secure- 70%- plays happily with mother and explores freely. Moderate separation/ stranger anxiety, easily comforted.
Type C
Insecure resistant- 10%- extremely clingy. High stranger and separation anxiety, very difficult to comfort.
Parental sensitivity- Strange Situation
How emotionally close the mother is will affect the attachment type of the child.
Infant temperament- Strange Situation - Kagan
Some children are difficult to bond with
Family circumstances - Strange Situation
Social, cultural and environmental factors impact attachment.
Individualist culture
Stress needs of individual over group
Collectivist culture
Emphasise needs of group over individual
Van IJzendoorn and Kroonenberg 1988- meta analysis of Strange Situation
Meta-analysis of 1990 children over 32 studies in 8 countries (West Germany, Great Britain, Netherlands, Sweden, Israel, Japan, China, USA.)
- Most have 1-4 studies, USA had 18- ethnocentric?
- China least secure, GB most.
- Japan least avoidant (children never left alone), West Germany most.
- GB least resistant, Israel most.
Grossman et al- Germany
German infants are more avoidant because of larger interpersonal distance and more independent.
Sagi et al- Israel
Israeli infants are more resistant because many are raised in Kibbutz so are less reliant on a single attachment figure.
Strange Situation Evaluation
- Based on Western Culture- ethnocentric
- Not representative sample
- Greater variation within cultures
+ Useful diagnostic tool
Maternal Deprivation
Absence of love and care from a mother figure, causing failed attachment and mental health issues, including delinquency, depression, affectionless psychopathy and sometimes dwarfism.
Affectionless Psychopathy
A lack of affection and concern for others, inability to form close lasting relationships, lack of guilt for antisocial behaviour.
Bowlby 1946- Juvenile Thieves
44 juvenile thieves and 44 boys with no criminal record. 14 thieves were affectionless psychopaths, 12 of those had issues with their mothers.
- Sample bias as he chose them and diagnosed affectionless psychopathy himself.
- Evidence relies on accurate recall of past events (retrospective).
- Correlations cannot show cause.
Goldfarb 1943- institution IQ
Children raised in institutions had lower IQs.
Spitz and Wolf 1946- South American
South American orphanages had severe depression.
Harlow 1962- reintroduction
Attachment deprived monkeys could not be successfully reintroduced into a population of their own kind.
Heinicke and Westheimer 1965- familiarity
A familiar environment reduces separation distress.
Maccoby 1980- distress ages
Distress most severe between ages of 6 months and 3 years with a peak of 12-18 months.
Rutter 2011- orphanages
Studied 165 Romanian orphans and 52 British children all adopted at the same time. He assessed their physical, cognitive and emotional development at ages 4, 6, 11 and 15 years of age, finding delayed intellectual development, malnourishment, low IQs (especially when adopted after 6 months old), different rates of recovery and Disinhibited Attachment Disorder in those adopted after 6 months of age.
Rutter Evaluation
+ Case study
+ Temporal validity
+ Large sample
+ Practical applications
+ Controlled.
- Time consuming
- Limited reliability
- Could be too early.
Disinhibited Attachment Disorder
“A particular pattern of abnormal social functioning in the first 5 years of life that persists despite marked changes in environmental condition.”
Zeanah et al 2005- orphanage Strange Situation
95 children aged 12-31 months who lived in institutions. Compared to a control group of 50 children who never lived in one. Used the Strange Situation to measure attachment type and interviewed carers.
- 74% of the control group were securely attached compared to 19% of the institutional group.
- 65% disorganised attachment.
- 44%/ 20% had DAD.
Hazan and Shaver 1987- type of attachment quiz
Placed a quiz of 100 questions in the Rocky Mountain News. They received 620 replies- 56% secure, 25% avoidant, 19% resistant.
