attachment Flashcards
topic 3/4 paper 1
1
Q
what is attachment?
A
two-way emotional bond between caregiver and infant
2
Q
interactional synchrony
A
caregiver and infant reflect and mirror each other’s actions and emotions
3
Q
reciprocity
A
caregiver and infant respond to each other’s signals to communicate
4
Q
direct imitation
A
infant mimics adult’s behaviour exactly
5
Q
sensitive responsiveness
A
adult pays close attention to infant’s communication and responds accordingly (feeding, changing)
6
Q
caregiverese
A
modified vocal language between caregiver and infant to help communication
7
Q
bodily contact
A
skin-to-skin physical contact, important to bond
8
Q
AO3 Melzoff & Moore; reciprocity
A
- experimenter display facial gestures (sticking tongue out, opening mouth) to infants 12-21 days old
- infant responses rated and recorded by people blind to experiment
- infant imitated experimenter
- ability to observe and imitate develops early in infants
9
Q
AO3 Papusek et al; caregiverese
A
- tendency to produce caregiverese is common in American, Chinese and German mothers
- caregiver-infant interactions not culturally biased
- may be innate
10
Q
Schaffer & Emerson; Glaswegian baby study
A
- 60 babies and their families over 1 year via monthly observations and interviews, follow up visit at 18 month
- looked at: stranger distress & separation anxiety
- separation anxiety by 25-32 weeks
- stranger anxiety approx one month later
- 18 month follow up, 87% of infants had multiple attachments, strongest was the mother
11
Q
AO3 Schaffer & Emerson; generalisability
A
- only used white, working class Scottish babies
- lacks internal validity
- can’t be generalised
12
Q
AO3 Schaffer & Emerson; validity
A
- lack temporal validity, carried out in 1960s
- high ecological validity, studied in own homes
13
Q
Schaffer’s stages of attachment
A
- asocial
- indiscriminate
- specific
- multiple
14
Q
asocial attachment
A
- 0-6 weeks
- babies give similar responses to objects and humans
- preference for faces
15
Q
indiscriminate attachment
A
- 6weeks-7months
- babies can be handled by strangers without distress
- can distinguish between familiar faces, but comforted indiscriminately
16
Q
specific attachments
A
- 7-9 months
- preference for a specific caregiver
- displays separation and stranger anxiety
- looks to particular people for comfort
17
Q
multiple attachments
A
- 10-11 months
- infants are attached to more than one individual
18
Q
Schaffer; role of the father (based on Glaswegian babies)
A
- primary attachment was the mother 65% of the time
- 30% of the time it was the mother and someone else
- was only the father 3% of the time
- possibly due to cultural/temporal factors (1960s)
19
Q
AO3 Bowlby; role of the father
A
- pattern between how father treats child and how it develops their relationship
- fathers fill a role involving play & physically active activities
20
Q
AO3 Field; role of the father
A
- behaviour of primary caretaker mothers compared with primary & secondary fathers
- analysed face-to-face interactions
- observed that fathers engage more in game playing & held their infants less
- primary caretaker fathers smiled more etc
- suggests primary fathers match mother’s style of caregiving
21
Q
AO3 Verissimo et al; role of the father
A
- observed preschoolers relationships with mother & father
- compared to social interactions at a nursery
- stronger bond with father correlated with social ability to make friends
- suggests fathers are important for socialisation
22
Q
AO3 role of the father; real-world application
A
- males can take on a more socially developed role
- shared/parental leave in 2003
- more common & normalised
23
Q
AO3 role of the father; non-scientific
A
- infants are unable to communicate
- findings based on infants: subjective
- observer bias
24
Q
Lorenz’s gosling study aims & procedure
A
- aimed to investigate imprinting
- took goose eggs and split them into two groups of a half
- 1/2 placed under goose mother
- 1/2 placed in an incubator beside Lorenz
- to ensure they imprinted he put all the geese together and allowed them to mix
25
Q
Lorenz’s findings
A
- once they hatched, they followed the first moving object they saw between 12-17 hr (Hess 1958)
- imprinted on him: instinctive/innate drive in animals to form an attachment
- imprinting occurs on first object rather than cues like sound/scent
26
Q
application of Lorenz’s findings to babies
A
- human babies are born immobile, less call for them to form an immediate attachment
- having a biological bond is adaptive, it promotes survival
27
Q
AO3 Lorenz; ethics
A
- permanent & irreversible effect on the geese
- those imprinted to him were less able to mate with their own kind
28
Q
AO3 Lorenz; generalisability
A
- geese are evolutionary different
- differences in social environments
29
Q
Harlow’s rhesus monkeys aims & procedure
A
- study how baby rhesus monkeys bond with their mothers
- 16 monkeys separated from their mothers immediately after birth
- placed in cages with access to 2 surrogate mothers (cloth & wire mother)
- 8 monkeys were fed milk by wire mother
- 8 monkeys were fed milk by cloth mother
30
Q
Harlow’s findings
A
- both groups spent more time with cloth mother (even with no milk)
- only went to wire mother for milk and returned to cloth mother after
- if there was a frightening object, the monkey went to the cloth mother
- infant explored more w/ cloth mother
- biological nature for physical contact & attaches to comfort over food
31
Q
Harlow’s monkeys compared to normal monkeys
A
- more timid
- unsure of how to act w/ other monkeys
- easily bullied & didn’t stand up for themselves
- difficulty mating
- females were inadequate mothers
- could be reversed if monkey was with surrogate mother for 90 or less days
32
Q
AO3 Harlow; ethics
A
- infants subjected to high levels of stress
- caused some irreversible changes
- long-term distress
33
Q
AO3 Harlow; generalisability
A
- monkeys are more genetically similar to humans
- more generalisable than Lorenz
- real world applications: contact between mothers and babies is more encouraged
34
Q
AO3 Dollard & Miller; cupboard love
A
- reason children become attached to caregivers is because they provide them with food
35
Q
learning theory of attachment
A
- classical conditioning: food (US) & mother (NS) presented together. pleasure (UR) associates with mother (CS) so pleasure becomes (CR)
- operant conditioning: consequences of trial & error (reinforcement). food is positive reinforcement (crying to get food). negative reinforcement (stopping crying) to get food.
- primary drives: desire to complete actions based on a biological need
- secondary drives: desires to complete actions develop due to a learned process
36
Q
AO3 learning theory; validity
A
- face validity: makes sense babies cry for attention. clear & believable explanation
37
Q
AO3 learning theory; reductionist
A
- environmentally reductionist: explaining complex interactions between caregivers and infants may reduce human nature
38
Q
Bowlby’s monotropic theory
A
- babies have an innate attachment drive to survive & for security
- monotropy: unique attachment between infant and a single caregiver
39
Q
Bowlby’s critical period
A
- must occur in first 2 1/2 years after birth otherwise they never form an attachment
- resulting in negative social consequences
40
Q
internal working model (mechanism)
A
- first strong attachment a child has acts as a blueprint for all later relationships
- guide on conducting future relationships
41
Q
Bowlby SCAMI
A
- social releasers
- critical period
- attachment-consistency
- monotropy
- internal working model
42
Q
AO3 Bailey et al; internal working model
A
- mothers who had poor attachment to their primary caregivers were likely to have poorly attached children
43
Q
AO3 Bowlby monotropy; validity
A
- lack external validity: came from Lorenz’s work on geese
- alpha bias: suggests only women act as the primary caregiver
44
Q
continuity hypothesis (prediction)
A
- suggests attachment patterns remain stable in a person’s life
- prolonged deprivation from mother limits development of effective schema for relationships
45
Q
Ainsworth’s strange situation aims & procedure
A
- Ainsworth & Bell aimed to measure forms of infant attachment
- 100 middle-class American mothers & their infants
- eight episodes each lasting 3 minutes
- infant observed playing for 20 minutes
- observed are: willingness to explore, separation anxiety, stranger anxiety, reunion behaviour
- observed from one-way mirror so infants did not know they were being watched
46
Q
strange situation findings
A
- 70% securely attached
- 15% insecure avoidant
- 15% insecure resistant
47
Q
what were the 8 stages of the SS?
A
- 1: mother and child enter playroom
- 2: child encouraged to explore (safe base)
- 3: stranger enters and talks to mother while attempting to interact with infant (stranger anxiety)
- 4: mother leaves, stranger remains (separation/stranger anxiety)
- 5: mother enters, stranger leaves (safe base/reunion behaviour)
- 6: mother leaves (separation anxiety)
- 7: stranger returns and interacts with infant (stranger anxiety)
- 8: mother returns and interacts with infant, stranger leaves (reunion behaviour)
48
Q
type B; secure attachment
A
- ideal attachment
- used mother as safe base
- high stranger and separation anxiety
- happy reunion response
- mothers showed sensitive responsiveness (understands infants needs)
49
Q
type C; insecure resistant
A
- infants did not want to explore
- inconsistent with wanting closeness
- high stranger/separation anxiety
- unable to settle in reunion behaviour (rejected attention)
- mothers were inconsistent with sensitive responsiveness
50
Q
type A; insecure avoidant
A
- often distanced from their mother
- did not use her as a safe base, but explored comfortably
- low stranger/separation anxiety
- did not seek comfort or reunion from their mother
- mothers showed little sensitive responsiveness
51
Q
caregiver sensitivity hypothesis
A
the idea parents/mothers behaviour towards their infant determines or predicts their attachment type
52
Q
AO3 Ainsworth; reliability
A
- high inter-observer reliability: research is operationalised (measurable)
- highly controlled observation and a clear standardised procedure with behavioural categories, so replicable
53
Q
AO3 Ainsworth; validity
A
- low ecological validity
- a mother is unlikely to leave her child alone with a stranger
- or the set times in which they leave and re-enter rooms is unlikely
54
Q
van Ijzendoorn & Kroonenberg; cultural variations procedure
A
- aimed to investigate if attachment styles were universal or culturally specific
- meta analysis of 32 studies in 8 countries (UK, US, Japan, China, Germany, Sweden, Holland & Israel)
55
Q
A03 van Ijzendoorn; ethnocentric
A
- cross cultural research judges infants according to behavioural categories developed through observation of American babies
- judged by American standard
56
Q
AO3 van Ijzendoorn;
A
- high reliability due to use of Strange Situation allowing comparison between cultures
57
Q
cultural variations; overall findings
A
- insecure avoidant (A): 21%
- secure (B): 65%
- insecure resistant (C): 14%
58
Q
cultural variations; %’s
A
- non-Western collectivist (group values): Japan; 27% resistant, Israel; 29% resistant, China; 50% secure
- individualist Western (individual values): Germany; 35% avoidant, UK; 75% secure
- secure most common, UK highest, China lowest
- insecure resistant least common
- secure suggests innate way for caregiver to interact with their baby
59
Q
Bowlby’s maternal deprivation theory
A
- not recieving suitable emotional care from a maternal figure
- if attachment is disrupted within 2 1/2 years of birth, baby will never form an attachment
- lack of simulation leaves permanent negative intellectual and emotional effects
60
Q
effects of maternal deprivation; ADDIDDAS
A
- A: aggression
- D: delinquency (etc petty crime)
- D: dwarfism
- I: intellectual retardation
- D: depression
- D: dependency
- A: affectionless psychopathy (apathetic)
- S: social maladjustment
61
Q
aims of 44 thieves study (Bowlby)
A
- aimed to investigate long-term effects of maternal deprivation
- opportunity sample of 88 children
- group 1: 31M 13F theft group stealing
- group 2: 34M 10F control group emotions
- matched pairs for age and IQ
- children and parents tested by psychiatrist (Bowlby) for early life experiences
62
Q
Bowlby’s 44 thieves findings
A
- group 1: 14 children identified as affectionless psychopaths
- 12 experienced prolonged separation 6+ months in first two years
- only 5/30 not AP experienced separation
- group 2: 2 had prolonged separation, not affectionless psychopaths
- AP may lead to delinquency through early separation
63
Q
AO3 44 thieves; practical applications
A
- in orphanages they have to take care of emotional needs, children need to be kept in one stable home rather than moved around
- maternity units, parents may stay overnight with child and sick children get elongated visiting hours
64
Q
AO3 44 thieves; Rutter
A
- argues that Bowlby does not distinguish between deprivation and privation, the lack of an attachment bond rather than loss
- quality of attachment is important rather than just critical period
- argues it is disruption of attachment bond rather than physical separation
65
Q
additional info of Romanian orphans
A
- lived in institution: away from family environment
- fall of communist government in 1989 showed terrible conditions of 300k orphans
- contraception and abortion was banned (pronatalism) so families gave up excess children to orphanages
- orphans lacked physical and emotional care, often malnourished and abused
66
Q
Rutter; Romanian orphans aims & procedure
A
- aimed to understand impact of privation (lack of attachment bond)
- 165 Romanian orphans adopted into British families
- group 1: 58 children 6- months
- group 2: 59 children 6-24 months
- group 3: 48 children 24+ months
- group 4: control group 52 British adoptees
- beginning of study; half of Romanian children were severely malnourished with low IQ
- groups assessed at ages 4, 6, 11, 15
67
Q
Romanian orphans; findings
A
- at 6yr group 1 showed disinhibited attachment & overly friendly with adults
- at 11yr 54% still showed disinhibited attachment
- group 1: delay in intellectual development
- group 3: 77 IQ
- groups 1,2,3: quasi-autism, problems with social contexts
- adoption within 6 months is important to stop effects of (de)privation, critical period is more a sensitive period
68
Q
AO3 Rutter; real-world application
A
changed policies in adoption centres and orphanages. higher care, early-age adoption followed with follow-ups
69
Q
AO3 Rutter; representation
A
the situations in the orphanages were so bad, it is unlikely the research from more recent studies (meta-analysis) allows for generalisable findings based on differences
70
Q
Hazan and Shaver’s love quiz aims & procedure
A
- see if childhood attachment type predicts behaviours of adults in romantic relationships
- “love quiz” placed in a newspaper (opportunity sample)
- over 600 American M&F responded
- 25% A, 56% B, 19% C
- attachment based on independence ability
71
Q
Hazan & Shaver’s love quiz findings
A
- strong correlation between childhood and adult attachment type
- A: fear emotional closeness, short-term love
- B: endure love, lower divorce rate
- C: fell in love easily, trouble being satisfied
- supports internal working model
72
Q
AO3 Hazan & Shaver; demand characteristics
A
- opportunity sample and originated from a newspaper
- possibly exaggerated
