Attachment Flashcards
What is infancy?
The period of a child’s life before speech begins
Define reciprocity
- Responding to the action with another similar action, where the action of one partner elicit a response from the other partner
- the regularity of an infants signals allows a caregiver to anticipate the infants behaviour and respond appropriately
What is an attachment?
-An emotional bond between two people
A
- two way be that endures over time
-serves the function of protecting the infant
- leads to certain behaviours such as proximity seeking
What is interactional synchrony?
- mirroring that occurs during the interaction between infant and caregiver in terms of facial and body movements
Who studied interactional synchrony?
Meltzoff and Moore (1977)
How did Meltzoff and Moore study interactional synchrony?
1) adult model displayed 1 of 3 facial expressions or hand movements
2) a dummy was placed in the infants mouth to prevent any response
3) following the display the dummy was removed and the child’s expression was filmed on a video
What were Meltzoff and Moore able to conclude?
Young infants were displaying this behaviour showed that those behavioural responses must be innate
Evaluation: what are some problems with testing infant behaviour?
- infants mouths are in constant motion
- the expressions that were tested occur frequently
- difficult to distinguish between general activity and specific behaviours
•problems with internal reliability
How did Meltzoff and Moore overcome problems with testing infant behaviour?
They measured infants responses by filming infants and then asking an observer to judge the infants behaviour from the video.
The person judging the behaviour had no Idea what behaviour was being imitated.
This increases the validity of the data
Evaluation: failure to replicate
- other studies have failed to replicate the study
- Koepke failed to replicate the study but Meltzoff and Moore counter argued as it was less carefully controlled
- Marian found that infants couldn’t distinguish between videotaped interactions with their mother (not actually responding to the adult)
- problems with lie within the procedure not he infants ability to imitate their caregivers
Evaluation: the value of the research
- imitative behaviour forms the basis for social development
- Meltzoff developed a ‘like me hypothesis’ based on research on interactional synchrony:
1) connection between what the infant sees and their imitation
2) infants association of their own actions and their own underlying mental states
3) infants project their own internal experiences onto others
4) acquire an understanding of what other people are thinking and feeling, fundamental for conducting social relationships - explains how others think and feel
Define multiple attachment
Having more than one attachment figure e.g. Siblings, grandparents etc
Define primary attachment figure
Person who has formed the closest bond with the child (usually the child’s mother)
What is separation anxiety?
Distress shown by an infant when separated from their caregiver
What is stranger anxiety?
The distress shown by an infant when approached or picked up by someone who is unfamiliar
What are the stages of attachment?
Stage 1: indiscriminate attachments
Stage 2: the beginnings of attachment
Stage 3: discriminate attachment
Stage 4: multiple attachment
Outline Schaffer and Emerson’s study on the development of attachments
- sixty infants from working class families in Glasgow were studied
- initial ages from 5-23 weeks of age studied until the age of 1 year
- visited every 4 weeks
- at each visit each mother reported reported their infants to separation in seven everyday situations
- mother asked to describe the intensity of protests
- 4 point scale
Evaluation: Schaffer and Emerson’s study (based on unreliable data)
- based on mothers report of their infants behaviour -> social desirability bias
- some mothers may have been less sensitive to their infants protests therefore less likely to report them
- creating systematic bias which challenges the validity of the data
Evaluation: Schaffer and Emerson’s study (biased sample)
- working class population-> finding may apply so some social groups but not others
- sample was fro the 1960s -> parental care haschanged (more women go out to work and fathers stay at home)
- number of fathers staying at home has quadrupled over past 25 years
- if a similar study was conducted today the findings would be very different
•low historical validity
Evaluation: Schaffer and Emerson’s study (cultural variations)
- two different types of culture ( individualist and collectivist)
- Individualist-> Britain and USA needs of the individual focused upon
- collectivist-> people focus on the needs of the group
- sagi compared attachments in infants raised in communal environments with infants raised in fairy based sleeping arrangements
- closeness of attachments in family based arrangements twice as common than in communal environments
•stage model focuses primarily on individualist cultures
Define imprinting
An innate readinesses to develop a strong bond with the mother (takes place during a specific time of development)
Describe the procedure Lorenz carried out to investigate attachment
1) clutch of goslings divided into two groups
2) one group left with natural mother and the other eggs placed in an incubator; when hatched the first thing they saw was Lorenz
3) Lorenz marked the two groups and placed them together with their natural mother
Describe the findings of Lorenz’ study of attachment
- goslings divided themselves up into groups one following their natural Mother and the other following Lorenz
- imprinting restricted to a very definite period of the young animals life (critical period)
- process that binds a young animal to a caregiver in a social relationship
What are some of the long lasting effects that Lorenz discovered?
- imprinting is irreversible and long lasting
- early imprinting had an effect on later mate preferences
- animals will usually choose to mate with the same kind if object of which they were imprinted on
Describe the procedure Harlow carried out to investigate attachment
1) two wore monkeys were created, each with a different head
2) 8 rhesus monkeys studied for 165 days
3) 4 monkeys fed but cloth covered mother, other 4 fed by plain wire mother
4) amount of time the monkeys spent with each mother was measured
5) observations made when monkeys frightened by mechanical Teddy bear
Harlow’s findings
- all 8 monkeys spent most of their time with the cloth covered mother
- when frightened the monkeys clung to the cloth covered mother
- when playing with new objects the monkeys kept one food on the cloth covered monkey for reassurance
What did Harlow conclude from his findings?
Infants do not always develop attachments to the person who feeds them but to the person offering contact comfort
What long lasting effects did Harlow discover?
- the motherless monkeys developed abnormally
- socially abnormal (froze or fledwhen near other monkeys)
- sexually abnormal ( did not show normal mating behaviour or cuddle their young)
What did Harlow conclude was the critical period for these effects?
- If the motherless monkeys spent time with the own species the seemed to recover but only if this happened before they were 3 months old.
- more than 6 months with a wire mother was something they were not able to recover from
Evaluation: animal studies of attachment (support for imprinting)
- number of studies with similar findings about imprinting
- (guiton 1966) -> leghorn chicks who were fed by yellow rubber gloves became imprinted on the gloves
- supports the idea that young animals are not born with a predisposition to imprint on a specific object (anything present during a critical window of development )
- Guiton found that male chickens tried to mate with the gloves-> early imprinting is linked to later reproductive behaviour
Evaluation: Harlow’s research (extraneous variable)
- two wire mothers not only differed in terms of cloth or bare wire but they also had two different heads
- extraneous variable that varied systematically with the IV
- monkeys preference for one mother could be because it had a more attractive head
- study lacks internal validity
Evaluation: animal studies of attachment (generalising animal studies to human behaviour)
- humans and animals differ in important ways
- more of their behaviour determined by conscious decisions
- many studies show that observation s of animal attachment behaviour are very similar to humans
- Harlow’s research is supported by Schaffer and Emerson
- animal studies can offer important insights in attachment behaviour but should be used with caution
Evaluation: animal studies of attachment (ethic of Harlow’s study)
- study could not be done with humans
- long lasting emotional harm
- monkeys abnormal social/sexual development
- justified in terms of significant benefit to our understanding of attachment behaviours
- argued that the benefits outweigh the costs
What is classical conditioning?
Learning through association. A neutral stimulus is consistently paired with an unconditioned stimulus. It eventually takes on the properties of this stimulus and it is able to produce a conditioned response
What is operant conditioning?
Learning through reinforcement (positive and negative)
What is learning theory?
The name given to a group of explanations (classical and operant conditioning) which explain behaviour in terms of learning rather than innate tendencies
Explain the learning theory
- leading theory proposes that all behaviour is learned rather than inborn
- children are born as blank slates and everything they become can be explained in terms of experiences they have
- put forward by behaviourists who suggest that all behaviour is learned through classical and operant conditioning
Who first investigated classical conditioning?
Ivan Pavlov
Describe classical conditioning
- US is food which produces an UCR of pleasure
- certain things become associated with food e.g the infants mother (neutral stimuli)
- NS is regularly associated with UCS it takes on the properties of the UCS to produce the same response (pleasure)
How do attachment form through the Process of classical conditioning
An attachment forms when the infant seeks the person (neutral stimulus) who is associated with the CR of pleasure
Who first investigated operant conditioning?
B.F Skinner
Describe operant conditioning
- when an animal is uncomfortable a drive is created to reduce the discomfort
- e.g a hungry infant wanting to eat
- when the infant is fed the drive is reduced and this produces a feeling of pleasure which is rewarding
- the Behaviour that led to being fed is likely to be repeated as it is rewarding
- food is a primary reinforcer because if supplies the reward
How does an attachment form through the process of operant conditioning?
- The person who supplies the food becomes a secondary reinforcer
- they help to avoid the discomfort
- child begins to seek the person who can supply the reward
What is social learning theory?
- development of learning theory
- Albert Bandura
- Dale Hay and Jo Vespa proposed that children observe their parents affectionate behaviour and imitate this
- parents also deliberately instruct their children about how to behave in relationships and reward appropriate attachment behaviours
Evaluation: learning theory (based on research with animals)
- based on research with non human animals e.g Lorenz and Harlow
- behaviourists believe that are behaviour is no different from animals (how they learn)
- stimulus and response
- complex behaviours like attachment may not be able to be explained by conditioning
- non-behaviourist argue that attachment involve innate predispositions
- behaviourist explanations may provide an oversimplified version of human behaviour
Evaluation: Learning theory (contact comfort more important than food)
- learning theory suggests that food forms the basis for attachment
- strong evidence that it doesn’t
- Harlow + Schaffer and Emerson
- although Harlow’s research is with animals it is supported by Schaffer and Emerson
