Attachment Flashcards
Reciprocity
- A way in which caregiver and baby interact
- Both care giver and infant respond to each other’s signals
Alert phases
- Phases in which the baby signals that they are ready for an interaction
- According to research mothers pick up on these phases around 2/3 of the time
- After three months alert phases become more frequent
Active involvement
- Both caregiver and infant can initiate interactions
- Brazelton et al. describes reciprocity as a dance
Interactional synchrony (IS)
- Caregiver and baby interact in such a way that their actions and emotions mirror each other
Synchrony begins
- Meltzoff and Moore
- Observed IS in babies as young as 2 weeks old
- An adult would make one of three faces and the babies response was filmed to be assessed by an independent observer
- They found a significant association between the baby and adults gestures
Importance of IS
- Isabella et al.
- Found that high levels of synchrony was associated with better quality attachment
Filemd observations
- Babies do not know they are being filmed so won’t act differently
- Filming it means that important behaviour wont be missed, and other people can give their own observations, high inter-rater reliability
Difficulty observing babies
Babies have limited movements, making it hard to determine what their behaviours actually mean
Developemental importance of IS and reciprocity
- Feldman, points out that IS and reciprocity just give names to observable patterns of behaviour rather than giving us understanding into how they affect the developement of a child
- Isabella et al. found a positive correlation between IS and quality of attachment
Practical and ethics of IS and reciprocity
Practical
- Crotwell et al. found that a 10 minute Parent- Child Interaction Therapy improved interaction synchrony between 20 low income mothers and their pre school children
Ethics
- This research can be used to criticise mothers for going to work
What is Schaffer and Emerson’s first stage of attachment
- A social stage
- First few weeks
- Their behaviour towards humans and objects are fairly similar
- However they prefer the comfort of people and familiar faces demonstrating how they are starting to form bonds
What is Schaffer and Emmerson’s second stage of attachment
- Indiscriminate attachment
- 2 to 7 months
- Their behaviours clearly demonstrate their preference to other humans over inanimate objects
- they prefer familiar faces
- They normally don’t express seperation or stranger anxiety
What is Schaffer and Emmerson’s third stage of attachment
- Specific attachment
- from seven months
- This is one when the baby forms a specific attachment the person who the attachment is formed with is called the primary attachment figure, this wont necessarily be the person the baby spends most with but rather has the most interactions with
- This primary attachment forms the basis of all close emotional relationships in later life
- In 65% of cases it is the mother, in 3% it is the father and in 29% its is both parents
- During this stage the baby will start to display separation and stranger anxiety
What is Schaffer and Emmerson’s fourth stage of attachment
- multiple attachments
- Shortly after babies form their first attachment they are able to form another
- these attachments are called secondary attachments
- Schaffer and Emmerson found that 29% of babies form a second attachment within a month from their first attachment
- By 12 months the majority of babies have developed multiple attachments
Schaffer and Emmerson’s procedure
- 60 babies - boys and girls
- all from Glasgow
- Majority from skilled working class families
- Babies observed in their homes for the first year and again at 18 months
- Mothers asked questions about their babies behaviours when faced wsith everyday seperations in order to measure their seperation anxiety they also measured stranger anxiety
What did Shcaffer and Emmerson find about babies attachments to their fathers
- 75% were attached to their father by 18 months
What did Grossman et al. conclude about the impacts of parents on a child’s relationships in later life
- Good quality attachment with mother had a positive correlation with good quality relationships in later life
- Good quality play with father had a positive correlation with good quality relationships in adulthood
Father as a primary caregiver
A study by Feild found that father’s are able to adopt the emotional role as a primary caregiver as well as a mother can
Lorenz’s research
- Investigated imprinting in geese
- Half the geese eggs were hatched normally with their mother and the other half hatched in an incubator where the first moving object they saw was Lorenz
- The eggs hatched in the control group followed the mother and the other eggs in the experimental group followed Lorenz even after being mixed up - this is called imprinting which occurs in species of birds
- Lorenz identified a critical period which varies across bird species, if imprinting does not occur in this time then the bird will not attach to a mother figure
- Lorenz also investigated sexual imprinting and found that the species the bird imprinted on would also be the species the bird would try to mate with, he found that the ducks who had imprinted on him only tried to mate with humans.
Lorenz evaluation
- Another study found that they were able to imprint birds to a moving object rather than even an animal
- His study can not be applied to humans as attachments in humans are 2 way
- unethical - costs outweigh benefits as results can’t be generalised to humans
Harlow’s research
- Tested the idea that monkeys seeked comfort over food when it came to attachment
- He split 16 monkeys into two groups
- Both groups had two wire monkeys with one covered in cloth, in one condition the wire monkey dispensed milk and in the other the cloth monkey dispensed milk
- The experiment found that even if the cloth monkey did not dispense milk the monkeys would still attach to that monkey and move to that monkey when scared, they would also hold onto the cloth monkey while feeding
- The researchers followed the monkeys into adulthood finding that their maternal deprivation had permanent effects, and led to an inability to develop normal social behaviour, these monkeys mated less often with some even killing their own young
- Harlow concluded that the critical period for a monkey to form an attachment with a mother figure was 90 days after birth
Harlow evaluation
Real world application
- helps social workers to understand that a lack of bonding experience may be a risk factor in child development
- Also practically can be used to understandd the importance of monkey attachments in zoos
Generalisability
- Mammals have similar attachment behaviours
- However humans brains are more complicated then monkeys
Dollard and Miller - learning theory and attachment
Classical conditioning
- cupboard love - whoever feeds the baby is who the baby attaches to
- Food - unconditioned stimulus, pleasure - unconditioned response and caregiver - conditioned stimulus
- So baby starts to react to the caregiver even without the food because of the association
- Sears et al. refers to attachment as a secondary drive, the primary drive is hunger and attachment comes from the association between caregiver and the satisfaction of the primary drive
Operant conditioning
- Baby crying - 2 way
- When baby cries and mother responds this is positive reinforcement for the baby to cry when in distress
- it is also negative reinforcement for the mother to comfort the baby as by comforting the baby the mother is avoiding something unpleasant by getting the baby to stop crying
Evaluation of learning theory as an explanation for attachment
Contradicting studies on animals
- Lorenz found that geese imprinted on the first moving object they saw rather than the one that fed them
- Harlow found that monkeys attached to the cloth monkey even if the wire one was feeding it, monkeys chose comfort over food when attaching to a mother figure
Contradicting studies on humans
- Isabella et al. found that high levels of interactional synchrony resulted in better quality attachments
- Schaffer and Emmerson found that most babies formed attachment to their mothers regardless of who fed them the most often
Support
- Some conditioning may be present in forming attachments, for example a child may associate comfort with a particular adult
- However conditioning suggest that babies play a passive role in attachment which has been disproven by research into interactional synchrony and reciprocity
Hay and Vespo - attachment based on social learning theory
- Parents teach babies to love them by modelling attachment behaviours such as hugging
- Based around 2 way interaction between baby and adult, which aligns with research that baby play an active role in attachment
Bowlby’s monotropic theory
- Undermines cupboard love as children don’t readily form attachments to every person that feeds them, suggests a more evolutionary approach using Harlow and Lorenz’s research
Bowlby’s monotropy
- Bowlby beleived that children form one primary teacher to one specific person which is more important from their other attachments
- He put forward two principles: law of continuity; which is that a child’s care should be predictable and stable which will lead to stronger attachment and law of accumulated seperation; the times that a baby is seperated from its primary attachment figure adds up to affect their quality of attachment
Bowlby and Social releasers
- Bowlby called actions such as smiling and cooing from babies social releasers, as they encourage adults to interact with them therefore forming attachments, he recognised tat these attachments had to be reciprical
Bowlby’s critical period
- He found a sensitive period of 6 months by which a child had to have formed an attachment or it will be difficult for them to form one later
Internal working model
Internal working model, Bowlby suggests that babies form a mental representation of their relationship with their primary caregiver which they base all future relationships on, this internal working model especially affects how they parent when they are older
Bowlby’s monotropy evaluation
- Lack of support
- Schaffer and Emmerson found that babies are able to form multiple attachments even at the same time
- Although their first attachment appears to have a stronger influence on the child, their attachments are not different as they all provide emotional and physical support and comfort
Bowlby social releasers evaluation
- Supported by research
- Brazzelton et al. asked caregivers not to react to their babies social releasers
- babies reacted in distress
- This demonstrates how social releasers are a key part in attachment
bowlby internal working model evaluation
- Bailey et al. tested mothers attachments to their primary caregiver and to their newborn baby
- Positive correlation between mothers attachments to their caregiver and to their baby
- However there are many other factors which were not taken into account such as genetics which could’ve also been passed through generations as well as environmental factors
Bowlby social sensitvity
- Bowlby’s conclusions put a lot of pressure on mothers to be constantly looking after their child
- He doesn’t take into account that some mothers may need to work and other factors
What are three types of attachment with a description
- secure attachment - associated with psychologically healthy outcomes
- insecure avoidant - weak attachment, low stranger and seperation anxiety
- insecure resistant - strong attachment, high stranger and separation anxiety
Ainsworth strange situation procedure
- Controlled observation using a 2 way mirror
- 7 stages:
1. Baby and caregiver in room, baby is encouraged to explore
2. Stranger enters room and talks to caregiver
3. caregiver leaves
4. caregiver returns and stranger leaves
5. caregiver leaves
6. stranger enters, providing baby with comfort if necessary
7. parent returns
Behaviours used to judge attachment:
- willingness to explore and secure base
- stranger anxiety
- seperation anxiety
- behaviour at reunion
Ainsworth strange situation findings
Secure attachment:
- explore happily with their caregiver as a secure base
- moderate stranger and seperation anxiety
- Accept comfort from caregiver at reunion
- 75% of British babies
Insecure avoidant:
- explore freely and do not seek proximity to caregiver
- little to no stranger or seperation anxiety
- indifferent at caregivers return
- 20-25% of British babies
Insecure resistant:
- Not willing to explore seek proximity to care giver
- high stranger and seperation anxiety
- resists comfort when caregiver returns
- 3% of British babies
The strange situation evaluation
- Good predictive validity: The attachment type found can predict how the child will be in later life, children with secure attachment have more success in school and social life as well as having less mental health problems in adulthood than the other attachment types
- Doesnt take all attachment types into account, such as disinhibited attachment, which was found in Romanian orphans as a result of institutionalisation, Main and Solomon also found a more common attachment type called disorganised attachment
- High cultural validity: Tested in individualists and collectivist cultures finding different results
- Good interratibility; despite being an observation so subjective Bick et al. found agreement on attachment type in 94% of cases
Izendorn and Kroonenberg’s research into the strange situation
- Meta-analysis of 32 experiments where the strange situation was used to assess attachment type in 8 different countries
- They found that in all countries secure attachment was the most common, however it varied from 75% in Britain to 505 in China
- In individualist cultures insecure resistant attachment was similar to ainsworth (14%), however in collectivist cultures rates were above 25%
- Variations between studies in the same countries were 150% larger than the variations between different countries
Italian study - the strange situation
- Found a higher rate of insecure avoidant (36%) and lower rate of secure (50%) that has been found in many studies
- Shows how attachment types are not static and change with changing culture
Korean study - strange situation
- Results for securely attached were similar to those in most countries
- Found very few babies to be insecure avoidant most were found to be resistant
Evaluation of cultural variation of the strange situation
- Cultural variation were conducted mostly by psychologists from that country, so cross-cultural problems could be avoided such as miscommunication due to language barriers
- Confounding variables such as poverty, social class, rural/urban can affect results
- Confounding variables such as the setting, Bigger/smaller room
- Imposed etic could be a limitation, when you assume that a technique or idea in one culture will apply to another culture
- Cross cultural variation has mostly found similar results, Bowlby’s explains this by understanding attachment as innate, however Izendorn and Kroonenberg explain by socicetal standards displayed through global media
Maternal deprivation
The emotional and intellectual consequences of the separation between the child and caregiver
Bowlby proposed that continuous care from this caregiver is required for normal psychological developement, and prolonged separation can cause problems
seperation versus deprivation
- deprivation occurs when a child is not receiving necessary care
- therefore a substitute caregiver for a short period of time will not affect a child psychologically
Critical period
Bowlby identified a critical period where a child must not be deprived of emotional care, or they will develop psychological development issues
he beleived this critical period lasted until age 5
Effects of maternal deprivation
- Intellectual developement, characterised by abnormally low IQ, Goldfarb found that children who had remained in instutions rather than those fostered had much lower IQs
- Emotional development, charcterised by Affectionless psychopathy, inability to express or appreciate emotions, often lead to criminality
Bowlby’s 44 theives study
- Intervweied 44 teenage criminals and their families, in order to find if they had affectionless psychopathy as well as if they had experienced maternal depriavtion
- They were compared to a control group of emotionally distrubed children who were not criminals
- Bowlby found that 14 of the thieves could be described as having affectionless psychopathy and 12 of them having experienced maternal deprivation
- Only 2 in the control group experienced long seperations
Evaluation 44 theives study
- Flawed conducted by Bowlby and based on observations, therefore biased
- Based on evidence from Goldfarb which had confounding variables such as early trauma from the children in institutions
- Most attempts to replicate the study have failed eg Lewis
- However Levy et al. found that separating baby rats from their mother for as little as a day had a permanent affect on their social development
Rutter et al.
- Observed Romanian orphans who had been adopted by UK families, in order to investigate whether good care could make up for the effects of institutionalisation
- Observed physical,cognitive and emotional development between the ages 4-25
- The mean IQ of children adopted before 6 months was 102, compared with 86 for those adopted between 6 months and 2 years, and 77 for those adopted after 2 years
- Children adopted after 6 months showed a particular style of attachment called disinhibited attachment
Zeanah et al.
- strange situation to assess attachment type of Romanian orphans aged 12-31 months, compared with a control
- 74% of the control were securely attached only 19% of the Romanian children
- 44% of the Romanian orphans had disinhibited attached compared with less than 20% of the control
Disinhibited attachment
- Equally friendly and affectionate toward familiar people and strangers
- adaptation to living with many caregivers
- symptoms include attention seeking and clinginess
Evaluation of Romanian orphans aged studies
Real world application
- improved psychologists understanding of the effects of early institutional care and how to prevent the worst of the effects, for example care systems ensure that children don’t have a large number of care workers so that children don’t develop disinhibited attachment style
- institutional care is seen as undesirable meaning that considerable effort is made to accommodate such children in foster care or have them adopted
Confounding variables
- the care in the Romanian institutions is known to have been remarkably poor, the children experienced privation and deprivation
Lack of adult data
- no research into the long term effects of institutional care, such as ability to form romantic and parental relationships
