Attachment Flashcards

Question

Classical conditioning model

Answer 1

Before conditioning - Mother: Neutral Stimulus = no response Food : Unconditioned stimulus = Happiness : Unconditioned response During conditioning - Mother + food = Happiness After conditioning - Mother : Conditioned stimulus + Happiness : Conditioned response

Answer 2

Dollard and Miller - Hungry infant feels uncomfortable creating a drive to reduced this discomfort Infant is fed discomfort is reduced, feelings of pleasure produced (rewarding) Food, primary reinforcer, reinforces behaviour to avoid discomfort Secondary reinforcer, person who supplies food associated with avoiding discomfort Attachment occurs because child seeks person who can supply reward Settling crying baby through feeding acts as negative reinforcement for parent Drive motivates behaviour - Discomfort = a drive to reduced discomfort/ hungry infant = a drive to reduce hunger Positive reinforcer - crying behaviour reduces hunger through being feed negative reinforcer - feed baby to stop crying, unpleasant sound for mum hunger primary drive Attachment secondary drive learned through association between caregiver and satisfaction of primary need

Answer 3

+ learn through association and reinforcement - Schaffer and Emerson refutes this, attachments formed on the basis of play and comfort not food - Harlow and Lorenz refutes this concept, attachments occurs as result of comfort not feeding

Answer 4

Infants have an innate tendency to form attachment to their primary caregiver, most often their mother A- Adaptive S- Social releasers C - Critical period M - Monotropy I - Internal Working Model

Answer 5

Attachments are adaptive Species an 'adaptive advantage', making us more likely to survive if an infant has attachment to caregiver, safe, given food, kept warm

Answer 6

Caregiving evolutionary behaviour Social releasers - Characteristics infants are born with to elicit care giving Social releasers unlock innate tendency for adults to care for them Physical - 'baby face' features and body proportions Behavioural - crying, cooing Activate adult attachment system Attachment reciprocal process, both mother and baby have innate predisposition to attached and social releasers trigger response in caregiver

Answer 7

Babies have to from attachment with caregiver during critical period Between birth and 2 1/2 years old Bowlby said if it didn't happen child would be damaged - socially, emotionally, intellectually, and physically Bowlby viewed as sensitive period if attachment not formed harder to form one in later life

Answer 8

Infants form one very special attachment with their mother. Special, intense attachment If mother isn't available the infant could bond with another primary caregiver More time mother figure spent with baby the better Two principles - The law of continuity = the more constant and predictable a child's care, the better the quality of attachment The law of accumulated separation = effects of every separation from the mother 'add up and the safest dose is therefore dose zero'

Answer 9

Through monotropic attachment infant would form internal working model Child forms a mental representation of the relationship with the primary attachment figure Serves as a template for what relationships are like A child with relaible caregiver will form expectation that all relationships are loving and reliable. Poor treatment, expect that treatment from others Continuity hypothesis states infants internal working model will influence later adult relationships infants who are strongly attached more likely to have socially and emotionally competent relationships in later life

Answer 10

- Monotropy can be considered to be socially sensitive idea + Evidence support for IWM, Bailey et al studied 99 mothers, those with poor attachments to own parents were more likely to have one year olds who were poorly attached.

Answer 11

Mary Ainsworth - places the infant in different situations in order to research the quality of attachment to the caregiver 12 to 18 months 100 middle class American families Observed through a two way mirror Proximity seeking - well attached children stay close to caregiver Exploration and secure base - Well attached children will explore but also use the caregiver as a point of safety Stranger anxiety - A sign of attachment is to show anxiety when a stranger approaches Separation anxiety - A sign of attachment is to protest at separation from caregiver Response to reunion - Well attached children are enthusiastic upon their caregivers return Explore through 8 events - parent is seated while baby plays with toys (parent as a secure base) Parent leaves the room, stranger responds to baby and offers comfort if baby is upset (Separation anxiety) Parent returns, greets baby, and offers comfort if necessary. Stranger leaves room (Reaction to Reunion)

Answer 12

Three types of attachment : Type A - Insecure - Avoidant : ignored their mothers and her presence did not affect their play, did not return to her, displayed little stress when she left and ignored her when returned, reacted to stranger and mother in similar way, little stranger anxiety, mother not sensitive to the infants needs, 20-25% of British toddlers Type B - Securely Attached, played contently with mother present ( it didn't matter if the stranger was present ), return to her periodically, sought comfort from her upon reunion then went back to playing, mother and stranger treated differently with moderate separation distress and stranger anxiety, mothers were consistent supportive and sensitive to baby's needs, 60-75% of British toddlers Type C - Insecure - Resistant, fussy and wary even with mother present, explored less stayed by mother, huge stranger and separation anxiety, distressed by her leaving and sought contact at reunion simultaneously would show anger, mothers were inconsistent to how they responded to baby's needs, 3% of British toddlers Ainsworth argued that the differences are caused by the sensitivity of the mother to infants needs

Answer 13

+ Good reliability, inter- rater reliability (observers agree) Controlled lab conditions/ use of behavioural categories makes behaviour easy to observe and record - Cultural differences - At least one other attachment type, Solomon pointed out a minority of children do not fall within the behaviour categories, disorganised attachment

Answer 14

Grossman and Grossman - See if the Strange Situation can be used to explore attachment types in German infants and to explore the relationship between maternal sensitivity and attachment type 49 German families Controlled and naturalistic observation Infants insecurely attached (anxious avoidant) rather than securely attached Sensitive to child's needs more likely to have secure attachment Over 10yrs, 80% of children kept the same attachment type, anxious and avoidant children reported having no or few friends Different child rearing practices, German children taught to be independent, used to being left by their parents, led to them being classified as insecurely attached Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg - Investigated the extent of cross cultural variations in attachment, studied cross cultural differences and intra-cultural differences Meta analysis of 32 studies Conducted in 8 countries 1900 children studied overall types of attachment across a range of countries Looked at difference within same countries Secure attachment was the most common type of attachment in all countries Insecure - resistant attachment were similar to Ainsworth's original sample under 14% Collectivist cultures where rates above 25% = Suggests that there were cultural differences in the distribution of insecure attachment Great Britain - 75% securely attached, 3% insecure resistant Israel - 29% insecure resistant Germany - insecure avoidant 35%

Answer 15

+ Large samples, increase internal validity, reduced the impact of extraneous variables or anomalies - Samples tend to be unpresentative of culture , comparisons between countries not culture, many different child rearing practices within a country, cultural characteristics of the sample need to be specified - Method of assessment is biased, imposed etic (cultural universal)

Answer 16

Separation - distress when separated for a relatively short period of time from primary caregiver to whom an attachment has been formed + Deprivation - occurs when a bond that has been formed is broken = Bond disurption

Answer 17

Children should experience a warm, intimate and continuous relationship with this mother/mother substitute in which both find satisfaction and enjoyment. Innate and a variation selected through evolution for survival of young Prolonged deprivation of a young child of maternal care may have grave effects on character If a chid doesn't form an attachment within the critical period they would suffer delayed intellectual development, characterised by abnormally low IQ Emotional development - affectionless psychopathy as the inability to experience guilt or strong emotion for others, lack remorse for their actions as cannot appreciate feelings of victims, stunt normal relationship development and associated with criminality

Answer 18

44 thieves - Examined the links between affectionless psychopathy and maternal deprivation 44 teenage delinquents (accused of stealing) Interviewed for signs of affectionless psychopathy Families interviewed to establish whether prolonged separation from their mothers had occurred Control of 44 non criminal teenagers, with emotional problems were assessed to see how often maternal deprivation occurred to the children 14/44 thieves were affectionless psychopaths and 17/44 had maternal separation 14 that were affectionless, 12 had also experienced prolonged separation in the first two years of life 0/44 in control group were categorised as affectionless psychopaths Prolonged separation/ deprivation caused affectionless psychopathy

Answer 19

+ Real life application, his work led to a major social change in the way children were cared for in hospitals - Critical period or sensitive period + Animal studies have demonstrated maternal deprivation, Levy et al - separating baby rats from their mother for as little as a day had a permanent effect on social development

Answer 20

The effect of institutional care. The possible effects include social,mental and physical underdevelopment, some the effects may be irreversible

Answer 21

I - No attachment figure, less sociable, more aggressive, less intelligent, not cared for well S - Strong emotional attachment, more sociable and cared for well

Answer 22

Lacked medicines and washing facilities Sexual and physical abuse Flea and rat infestations At 18 would be kicked out onto the street

Answer 23

Longitudinal study Children adopted in 1990s and how they developed 165 Romanian children, 111 adopted before age of 2 and 54 adopted by the age of 4 Compared to 52 British children adopted by the age of 6 months Tested regularly for physical, social and cognitive development at the ages of 4, 6, 11, 15 British children in all three aspects By 4, most of the Romanian orphans who had been adopted beofre 6 months had caught up with the British children Children adopted after the age of 6 months showed dis inhibited attachment and difficulties with peer relationships Disinhibited attachment - Child doesn't seem to prefer parents over other people, even strangers, child seeks comfort and attention from anyone

Answer 24

Physically underdeveloped - Children are usually small, research has shown that lack of emotional care rather than poor nourishment is the cause of deprivation dwarfism Intellectual underfunctioning - Cognitive development is also affected by emotional deprivation Disinhibited attachment - insecure attachment, treat strangers with inappropriate familiarity and attention seeking Poor parenting - Harlow showed monkeys who had experienced poor parenting went to be bad mothers themselves Research - (Quinton) - compared group of 50 women raised in institutions with control group reared at home, ex-institutional women had extreme difficulties acting as parents

Answer 25

+ Real world application, greater understanding of effects - Data was not followed into adulthood - Confounding variables, could be due to poor institutional care not institutionalisation itself

Answer 26

Childhood friendships - Continuity between early attachment and later emotional/ social behaviour, securely attached child more popular/sociable, higher expectations that others are friendly and trusting Attachment type is associated with the quality of peer relationships. quality friendships - securely attached, insecurely attached struggle with friendships

Answer 27

Myron- Wilson and Smith - Insecure avoidant, most likely to be bullied, insecure resistant most likely to be bullies Questionnaire 196 children aged 7-11

Answer 28

Poor parenting - lack of attachment / later difficulties parenting, base parenting style on their IWM so attachment type passed on through generations

Answer 29

Bailey et al - attachments of 99 mothers to their babies and their own mothers, using strange situation, mother own attachment assessed using adult attachment interview, same attachment classification both to their babies and their own mothers

Answer 30

lack of attachment in critical period, lac of IWM Attachment disorders = no preferred attachment figure, inability to interact and relate to others evident before age of 5 Psychiatric condition within the DSM

Answer 31

Continuity hypothesis - Infant's relationship with caregiver form basis of child's IWM of relationships, effect child's expectations

Answer 32

Hazan and Shaver Love quiz - 620 replies to the love quiz analysed, from American local newspaper Three sections - first, respondent's current or most important relationships, second general love experiences, third attachment type 56% securely attached 25% insecure - avoidant 19% insecure resistant Secure had good and longer lasting relationships

Answer 33

- Self report techniques, social desirability bias - Can't prove a causal relationship + Supporting evidence from longitudinal research, Simpson et al - securely attached children 1yr higher social competence, 16yrs more expressive and emotionally attached to romantic partners