Attachment Flashcards
Findings from data gathered in SS
⚫66% securely attached - willing to explore, high S anxiety, positive upon return of mother ( mother is sensitive)
⚫️22% insecure avoidant - low S anxiety, indifferent to separation, little interest in carers return ( mother sometimes ignore)
⚫️12% insecure resistant - high separation and S anxiety, carer rejected upon return ( mother is ambivalent)
Conclusion on Ainsworth ‘s research
⚫️Parental sensitivity towards child may cause attachment security.
⚫️ individual differences is a factor to consider
Evaluation of Ainsworth’s SS
⚫there may be a few demand characteristics and therefore high external validity
⚫️ethics - informed consent
⚫️ generalisability - American infants
⚫️observer bias
Other researchers on attachment
⚫️Kagan - temperament hypothesis ( infants have an inherited innate personality)
⚫️ takahashi - cross cultural differences in Japan - infants suffer extreme stress during separation( B-68% , A-0%, C-32%)
⚫️ ijzendoorn and kroonberg- theta analysis of 32 analysis and obtained similar results as Ainsworth.
What is the learning theory
View put forward by behaviourist to attempt to explain how attachment forms by 2 principles: classical conditioning , operant conditioning.
Describe classical conditioning
Explains how attachment is acquired through ‘stimulus response’ associations.
Food(U.S.)= pleasure(u.r), mother - provider ( 2nd reinforcer ), mother becomes a neutral stimulus associated with pleasure = attachment
Describe operant conditioning
Explains how attachment is acquired by consequences of actions
Researchers on explanations for attachment
Harlow - monkeys
Schaffer and Emerson - 1yr study on C
Lorenz - imprinting
What is bowlby’s maternal deprivation of attachment
States that if an infant is unable to form an emotional relationship with a mother figure, child may have difficulties in forming relationships and may develop behavioural disorders ( affection less psychopathy, depression, intellectual retardation, developmental dwarfism)
Key features of BMDH
- care giver does not have to be the mother. An be a mother substitute.
- must occur during critical period ( 2.5 years)
- focuses on continuous relationship with mother figure without interruption
Outline Bowlby’s 44 thieves study
⚫️conducted to test BMDH and to see if early separation is associated with delinquency
⚫️he interviewed the children and families comparing the backgrounds of the 44 ‘thieves’ and 44 non offenders
⚫️ 86% of those diagnosed as affection less psychopaths had early prolonged separation
⚫️disrupting wary attachment led to long term ill effects
Evaluate Bowlby’s 44 thieves
⚫️correlational data- the cause and effect cannot be proven for certain
⚫️too deterministic that early separation leads to delinquency
⚫️ uses retrospective information ( asks families about events form years ago = inaccuracy)
Outline James and Joyce robertson’s study
⚫️said that separation need not lead to deprivation as long as separation is kept to a minimum and and emotional substitute is provided
⚫️child( John) was sent to a residential nursery as his mother is in the hospital
- progressively became withdrawn and despairing as staff has little time to provide for his personal needs. Rejected / angry upon mothers return
⚫️ some children were taken into a foster mothers care.
- eats and sleeps well and frequently visits mother in hospital
- welcomed mothers return
PDD model
Protest
Despair
Detachment
Aim and procedure of the strange situation
⚫️Conducted by Mary Ainsworth to identify attachment types produce a method for assessing quality of attachment ⚫-️100 middle class infants participate in a set of predetermined activities where each scenario was 3 min - M and C alone in room > C plays > S enter and interacts with C > M leaves > S and C alone > M returns > C alone > S returns > M returns > S leaves -note were taken : separation anxiety, stranger anxiety, reunion behaviour, willingness to explore
