Attachment Flashcards
What is reciprocity?
The actions of one person get a response from the other person
What is interactional synchrony?
Behaviour is synchronised when it is carried out at the same time
What is attachment?
A strong, long-lasting two-way emotional bond between two people (usually an infant and caregiver).
It is characterised by behaviours such as proximity seeking, separation distress, and secure-base behaviour.
What did Tronick et al (1979) do?
Filmed controlled observations of mothers with their baby to observe changes in the infant’s behaviour when reciprocity from the mother stops.
Three stages, each episode lasting 2-4 minutes:
- Normal interaction
- A still-face episode, no response to infant
- Reunion -> resumed interaction
What did Tronick et al (1979) find? Conclusion?
FINDINGS:
During still-face -> increase in gaze-aversion, a decrease in positive mood, an increase in visual scanning, pick-me-up gestures, distancing behaviour (eg. turning and twisting), psychological stress indicators (eg. Heart rate and cortisol changes).
CONCLUSION
Demonstrated that the babies were upset and confused when the mother wouldn’t engage, and that babies aren’t passive in their interactions with caregivers, and they have an active role in reciprocal interactions.
Give a strength and weakness of Tronick et al (1979):
Strength:
-> Controlled observations, internally valid.
-> Filmed, so good Inter-rater reliability
-> Has been replicated, so findings are reliable
-> Practical applications -> consequences of lack of reciprocity
WEAKNESSES:
-> Artificial environment impacts behaviour? Lacks ecological validity.
-> Ethical issues, eg. Distress but temporary
What did Meltzoff and Moore (1977) do?
Controlled observation with infants 2-3 weeks old.
Adult displayed one of three facial expressions and one hand gesture.
Infant’s behaviour/ facial expressions were observed.
What did Meltzoff and Moore (1977) find?
What was the conclusion?
Found an association between the behaviour of the infant and the caregiver.
A later study (1983) found same levels of interactional synchrony with infants 3 days old, suggesting this behaviour is innate.
Give a STRENGTH and a WEAKNESS of Meltzoff and Moore (1977):
STRENGTHS:
-> Controlled observations, so high internal validity
-> Filmed, so inter-rarer reliability can be checked
-> Replicable study
-> Limited expressions increase confidence of reciprocity, increased reliability
WEAKNESSES
-> Not all replications have succeeded, casting some doubt on reliability of findings.
-> Adult model wasn’t caregiver, so findings may not reflect true baby caregiver interactions. HOWEVER Schaffer and Emerson say babies don’t distinguish until 3 months.
What did Brazelton (1979) do?
12 mother/baby pairs observed in 7-minute videos. Babies were upset to 5 months of age.
Three phases were revealed:
1. Attention and build-up
2. Recovery
3. Turning away
These phases were repeated at regular intervals.
What did Brazelton (1979) find? Conclusion?
Evidence for mother/baby interactional synchrony.
Concluded these repeated phases at regular intervals showed signs of early organised behaviour and communication. This allows a caregiver to anticipate the infant’s behaviour and respond appropriately, which in turn means further attachment can occur.
Interactional synchrony study?
Brazelton (1979)
Reciprocity Study?
Tronick et al (1979) still face
Meltzoff and Moore (1977) three expressions and hand gesture
Give a PRO and CON of overall research into caregiver infant interactions:
Pro) Most research filmed, so high reliability and validity due to high inter-rater reliability, ability to capture small details.
Research was laboratory conditions so distractions limited.
Babies don’t know they’re being observed, so natural behaviours
Cons) Babies’ movements hard to interpret, muscles not developed enough to control movement, so we cannot know what is meaningful or deliberate.
Feldman (2012) says although we cannot record observable behaviour, we cannot know the purpose so research has limited use in explaining developmental behaviour.
Isabella et al showed interactional synchrony leads to successful later relationships, so highlights the value of these relationships.
What are the four attachment stages by Shaffer and Emerson?
Stage 1) Asocial (Birth to 2 months)
Stage 2) Indiscriminate (2-7 months)
Stage 3) Specific/ discriminate (7-12 months)
Stage 4) Multiple (not long after main attachment formed)
Describe Stage 1 - Asocial
Response to objects and humans, voices and sounds are similar.
Don’t distinguish between people, but more easily comforted by familiar people.
Describe Stage 2 - Indiscriminate
Can distinguish between people and things, showing sociability to people over objects.
No stranger anxiety… comforted by anyone but prefer familiar ones.
No separation anxiety.
Describe Stage 3 - Specific/ discriminate attachment
Starts showing separation anxiety
Starts showing stranger anxiety
Primary attachment figure forms, the person who is most responsive to the baby
65% of cases, it’s the mother
Describe Stage 4 - Multiple
Secondary attachments are typically adults with whom they spend time with.
29% of babies observed had formed a secondary attachment within a month of the primary attachment.
Who did Schaffer and Emerson (1964) study and when?
Longitudinal study that lasted 2 years.
60 infants, 5-23 weeks, mainly working-class families in Glasgow.
Infants observed every four weeks until 1 years old and then again at 18 months.
How did Schaffer and Emerson (1964) measure attachment?
Using separation anxiety (crying when adult left room)
Using stranger anxiety (response to unfamiliar adults)
What did Schaffer and Emerson (1964) find?
-> Between 25 and 32 weeks of age, babies showed separation anxiety towards a specific adult. Attachment tended to be the most interactive caregiver sensitive to the infants’ signals and expressions (ie. Reprocity).
-> By 40 weeks, 80% babies had specific attachment and 30% displayed multiple
Give a strength and weakness of Schaffer and Emerson (1964):
STRENGTHS:
-> Good external validity… natural behaviour: took place in their homes, observed by parents, during everyday activities.
-> Longitudinal design so high internal validity… same children studied eliminates different personal characteristics
-> Practical application, like deciding when to start nursery
WEAKNESSES:
-> ‘Asocial’ behaviour found early on due to poor mobility and coordination. Not valid.
-> Objective mothers as observers, inaccuracy
-> Babies in similar area of Glasgow and from same socioeconomic background, so not generalisable to a wider population or culture.
-> Conducted in 1964 so lacks temporal validity.. parenting styles different to today.
-> Some cultures like collectivist ones have multiple attachments form before specific ones
What was Harlow’s procedure?
16 infant rhesus monkeys taken at birth and studied for 165 days.
Cage -> cloth and wire
8: Cloth = food
8: Wire = food
What was Harlow’s findings?
All showed a preference for cuddly despite food
What was Harlow’s conclusion?
“Contact comfort’ is more important than food in forming attachments.
When scared by a mechanical figure, the monkeys fled to the cloth too.
What is an advantage and disadvantage of Harlow’s study?
STRENGTHS:
Practical application -> social care workers and psychologists can intervene to prevent poor outcomes
Primates used, genetically and biologically similar to humans, so can be generalised to humans.
WEAKNESSES;
Unethical, harm caused to monkeys
Can’t be extrapolated to humans, as it’s unlikely we have the same emotional atttachment
Confounding variable, with surrogates looking different… so reduced internal validity
What is the procedure for Lorenz?
Laboratory experiment
Condition 1 -> Goose mother hatching
Condition 2 -> Lorenz incubator hatching
What was Lorenz findings?
When mixed up later, they still followed either Lorenz or Harlow
What was Lorenz’s conclusion?
Imprinting is genetically determined, species-specific behaviour. Occurs during critical period of 24 hours.
What is an advantage and disadvantage of Lorenz’s study?
STRENGTHS:
Supporting research
Although hard to generalise to humans… Lorenz‘s work influenced other psychologists, like Bowlby… who went on to suggest there was a sensitive period for human attachment.
WEAKNESSES
Difficult to generalise findings, as attachment is a two-way process in mammals.
Lorenz’s geese were mobile and able to feed themselves from birth, so a critical period of 24 hours must differ from humans
Lorenz may have overstated the importance of imprinting… Guiton et al found chickens that imprinted on yellow rubber gloves would initially try to mate with them, but later engaged in normal sexual behaviour.
Ethics but he did take care of them.
Traditional role of the father?
Fathers played a minor role in parenting children, and the father went out to work to provide resources for his family.
Traditional family:
Children raised by married couples, father going to work and playing a minor parenting role, mothers staying at home to take care of children until school age.
Summarise Field (1978)
Filmed 4 month old babies in face to face interactions.
PCG fathers and PCG mothers spent more time showing reciprocity and interactional synchrony than SCG fathers.
So, fathers can be more emotion-based PCGs in the same way s mothers, but only if they have the role of a PCG.
Give a strength and weakness of Field (1978)
STRENGTHS
Controlled observation, so internally valid, as high levels of control over extraneous factors
Filmed study, so reliable results, as they can be checked.
Lamb (1987) supporting research, so Field study may be externally valid.
WEAKNESSES
Hardy (1999) conflicting evidence of fathers being less able to detect infant distress… Field isn’t internally valid
Controlled environment -> adults don’t act naturally, so findings may not be internally valid
Summarise Grossman et al (2002)
Longitudinal study, attachments studied from infancy to teens.
Quality of babies’ attachments with mothers -> related to relationship behaviour in adolescence. Suggests attachment to fathers is less important than to mothers.
BUT Grossman found the quality of fathers play with babies was related to the quality of adolescence attachment.
Suggests fathers have a different role more to do with play and stimulation and less to do with emotional development.
Pro and con of Grossman et al (2002)
Strength:
Research supported by many studies that have found mothers have a more nurturing role, and fathers have a more playmate role (Geiger 1996)… suggests valid findings.
WEAKNESS:
Correlations study, so not possible to conclude that mothers or fathers parenting caused later attachment behaviour in children. Other factors may be involved such as experience with peers.
What is a study for and against the role of the father being as important as the mother:
For) Field 1978
Against) Grossman et al 2003
Name a biological factor for the role of the father:
Oestrogen linked to caring behaviour, emotional sensitivity
What did Dollard and Miller (1950) believe?
Attachments were driven by ‘Cupboard Love’ - children learn to become attached to their caregivers because they give them food. Learning can be due to associations being made between different stimuli (classical conditioning) or behaviour can be altered by patterns of reinforcement (operant conditioning).
What is classical conditioning?
When two stimuli are associated together so we can respond to one and the same way we have always responded to the other.
Label the attachment by classical conditioning:
- before
Food. -> Happy baby
_______. ____________
- during
Mother. + Food. ->. Happy baby
________. _______. ____________
- After
Mother -> Happy baby
________. ___________
Label the attachment by classical conditioning:
- before
Food. -> Happy baby
US UR
- during
Mother. + Food. ->. Happy baby
NS. US UR
- After
Mother -> Happy baby
CS CR
What is operant conditioning?
Involves learning from consequences.
Reinforced (rewarded) behaviour will be repeated, whereas a behaviour which is punished is less likely to be repeated.
Learning theory: primary and secondary drives explanation
Primary drives (such as hunger) are innate biological needs which motivate us to survive, therefore the attachment with the caregiver becomes the secondary driver (Sears et al 1957)
Give a strength and weakness of the learning theory of attachment:
STRENGTH:
-> Babies’ preference explained by feeling comfortable in the presence of a particular adult, which may be due to reinforcement.
WEAKNESS:
-> Lack of support from animal studies, eg. Lorenz geese imprinted on first moving object they saw rather than food, and Harlow found contact comfort more important in attachment than food.
-> Contradicting studies: Schaffer and Emerson (1964) found less than half of children attached to people that fed them the most. Isabella et al (1989) found international synchrony was the most important factor.
-> Classical and operant conditioning both suggest babies role in attachment is passive, but interactional synchrony suggests a baby is more active in the process.
-> Bowlby’s evolutionary theory suggests attachments helps up to survive and gives an evolutionary advantage. This suggests we are born with a genetically based drive to become attached and we don’t need to learn this through conditioning.
What was the procedure for the Strange Situation by Mary Ainsworth ?
Controlled observation of 100 middle-class American mothers and their babies.
8 pre-determined ‘episodes’ recorded behaviour of both the parent and child.
What are the 3 types of attachment Ainsworth identified and their percentages?
Secure (60-75%)
Insecure Avoidant (20-25%)
Insecure resistant (3%)
Secure attachment:
Secure base/ exploration?
Separation anxiety?
Stranger anxiety?
Reunion?
Comfort?
CG
Explores, plays happily with toys, and uses caregiver as secure base.
Moderate sep anxiety
Moderate stranger anxiety
Goes to caregiver when returns and easily soothed
Mothers here are sensitive and responsive to the child’s needs
Insecure avoidant attachment:
Secure base/ exploration?
Separation anxiety?
Stranger anxiety?
Reunion?
Comfort?
CG
Little attention to caregiver and explores room with no use of secure base.
Little concern showed when CG leaves.
Little stranger anxiety.
Comforted by anyone
Makes little effort to renew contact on reunion… may actively avoid.
No real preference for stranger or CG.
CG tends to ignore infant
Insecure resistant attachment:
Secure base/ exploration?
Separation anxiety?
Stranger anxiety?
Reunion?
Comfort?
CG
Limited environment exploration.
Difficulty moving away from CG.
Very distressed on separation.
Difficult to comfort on reunion… rushes to her and may show anger/ struggle to get down.
tends to ignore stranger and resists CG attempts to interact/ comfort.
CG behaviour is inconsistent, sometimes rejecting and angry, sometimes overly sensitive and responsive.
SS strength and a weakness:
STRENGTHS:
Easy replication -> controlled, systematic procedure increases validity.
Higher inter-rater reliability.. Bick 2012 found agreement on 94% of cases.
Research support for predictive power… eg. Secure tend better outcomes in school achievement, later childhood, and better mental health in adulthood.
WEAKNESSES:
Lacks ecological validity -> unfamiliar environment = atypical behaviours
SS reactions invalid? Eg. Daycare may show avoidant behaviour but not necessarily avoidant.
Unethical -> distress? But temporary.
Observers for the SS recorded the behaviour of the mothers and infants.. especially noting what? Give 3 of 5:
Proximity seeking
Exploration and safe base behaviour
Stranger anxiety
Separation anxiety
Reunion behaviour
Briefly say what happened in the 8 episodes of the SS:
CG + infant shown room by an observer.
CG sits + watches, infant explores + plays
Stranger enters, interacts, CG leaves
Stranger interacts
CG returns, Stranger leaves, CG greets and comforts and then leaves.
Infant alone
Stranger enters and interacts
CG enters, greets and picks up with stranger leaving.
What was the procedure for Van ljzendoorn and Kroonenberg?
Meta analysis of the SS using 32 studies in 8 different countries using 2000 babies.
What did Van ljzendoorn and Kroonenberg study?
Cultural variations
What did Van ljzendoorn and Kroonenberg find?
-> Secure was most common in all countries studied, with highest in IK 75% and China 50%
-> Avoidant was most common in West Germany 50% and lowest in Japan 5%
->Resistant was most common in Israel 29% and Japan 27%, lowest in the UK 3%
-> The difference within a culture was 1.5x greater than the variation between different cultures.
What did Van ljzendoorn and Kroonenberg conclude?
The overall consistency in secure attachments suggests this may be a universal characteristic.
However, cultural differences do exist which suggests child-rearing practices may affect attachment types.
Give a strength and weakness of the Van ljzendoorn and Kroonenberg study?
STRENGTHS:
1) Good population validity and representation of cross-cultural findings on attachment -> large sample in a variety of countries
2) Researchers recruited were from the same cultural background as participants, which avoids problems of cross-cultural research such as language barriers, researcher bias, and enhances validity.
WEAKNESSES:
1) Meta-analysis, so difficult to accurately compare results -> lacks internal validity
2) Environmental variables like room size may affect proximity seeking
What theory did Bowlby reject?
Bowlby rejected the learning theory, believing that instead attachment was a biological and instinctive survival mechanism to keep young close to caregivers.
Bowlby’s monotropic theory of attachment: Monotropy:
Primary attachment figure is different and the most important.
He used 2 principles to clarify this:
-> Law of continuity… constant and predictable care = better quality of attachments.
-> Law of accumulated separation… interruptions of care add up
Bowlby’s monotropic theory of attachment: Social Releasers:
Designed to activate caregiving.
Bonds are formed with adults who are most sensitive to these social releasers in a two-way, reciprocal process.
Bowlby’s monotropic theory of attachment: Critical Period:
At first, Bowlby proposed a limited time for attachment to form (12 months), otherwise it wouldn’t happen and the child would suffer the consequences.
Bowlby later reviewed this and called it a critical period of 6 months to 2 years old. After this, attachment would become harder to form.
Bowlby’s monotropic theory of attachment: Internal Working Model:
One special Montrose relationship provides a template and the rules and expectations for future relationships.
A child that has experienced a positive, loving relationship will bring those qualities to future ones. But, a child who hasn’t will struggle to form future relationships and bring up their own children.
Give a strength and weakness if Bowlby’s Monotropic Theory
STRENGTHS:
- Bowlby’s work has been influential, stimulating a great deal of research, leading to changes in childcare.
- Brazelton and Tronick provide evidence for the importance of social releases in forming bonds.
WEAKNESSES:
- Ethnocentric, as normal patterns in child rearing differ between cultures. So, may not be culturally valid.
- Schaffer and Emerson found that at 8 months, 50 infants had more than one attachment… there may not be a unique quality to the single CG attachment that Bowlby believed.
- It ignores the role of the father, suggesting the mother is the most important for the child to attach to… it sets mothers up to accept blame for anything that goes wrong for the children, restricting them from returning to work. Times have changed.
- In much of the research, other facts are ignored. Bailey et al (2007) suggests a poor attachment might be genetic (similar personality traits etc.) rather than passed down.
What was the procedure for Rutter’s Romanian Orphan study?
165 Romanian orphans who were adopted into UK families.
All had entered the orphanage between one and two weeks old.
Rutter assessed all the children.
A control group of 52 British children adopted in the UK before 4 years old were assessed for comparison.
What were the findings for Rutter’s Romanian Orphan Study? Give a couple
At the outset, all Romanian children lagged behind their British counterparts physically, cognitively, and emotionally.
Half showed signs of delayed intellectual development, and most were under nourished.
Their mean IQs were lower the longer the time they had spent before adoption.
Children adopted before 6 months rarely displayed disinhibited attachment.
Give a strength and weakness of Rutter et al (2007) (Romanian orphans):
STRENGTH:
/ Rich + detailed research… range of methods used, like semi-structured interviews and observations.
/ Real-life applications -> improvements in childcare in institutions such as less people playing a central role for the children to avoid disinhibited attachments.
/ Romanian orphans were often given up by loving parents and had similar backgrounds, reducing the chance of confounding variables.
WEAKNESSES:
\ Methodological issues, children who couldn’t be followed up after many years were different from those who did stay in the study, distorting results.
\ Hard to generalise findings? As the orphanage conditions were bad… results may be due to these poor conditions rather than institutionalisation… lack of external validity.
What was Bowlby’s theory of maternal deprivation?
Bowlby combined his ideas about a critical period and monotropy to form his theory of maternal deprivation…
… children should experience a positive relationship and if they are deprived of emotional care for an extended period during the critical period (2.5 years), there’s a high chance of psychological damage and the risk continues to age 5.
Bowlby’s theory of maternal deprivation:
S__________ vs d________
S___________ = child temporarily not with the mother, d___________ = child loses an element of care
Separation
Deprivation
Who did Bowlby’s 1944 ‘44 Juvenile thieves: their characters and home lives’ study?
88 children studied, 44 thieves and 44 control.
What did Bowlby’s 1944 ‘44 Juvenile thieves: their characters and home lives’ find and conclude?
14 thieves were described as affectionkess psychopaths (lack of affection, guilt, or remorse) and 12 of these had experienced prolonged separations from mothers in the critical period.
Suggests a disruption of attachment has long-lasting negative effects.
What are 2 effects of development of Maternal Deprivation?
Intellectual development -> children who had experienced MD tended to show lower than normal intelligence
Emotional Development: Affectionless psychopathy -> lacks affection, guilt, or remorse.
Give a weakness and then a HOWEVER of Bowlby’s theory of maternal deprivation:
- Bowlby himself collected and analysed the findings, so it was subject to researcher bias.
HOWEVER… Levy et al 2003 found some support for his theories through their studies with baby rats.
The influence of early attachments on adult relationships (the answer is related to the IWM):
Avoidant attachments may seek functional but not close relationships.
Resistant attachments may become controlling or argumentative.
What did Hazan and Shaver study related to the influence of early attachments on adult relationships?
Hazan and Shaver (1987)
Love quiz.
205 male + 415 female = 620
Securely attached as infants tended positive relationships.
Insecure types found more negative adult relationships.
Secure = Av. 10yr relationships
Resistant: Av. 5yr relationships
Avoidant = Av. 6yr relationships
Give a weakness of the influence of childhood experiences on later relationships:
Much of the research is based on self-report measures, which can be retrospective, subjective and subject to demand characteristics.
