Attachment -

Question 1

What is attachment?

Answer 1

The formation of a strong, reciprocal, emotional bond between an infant and a caregiver.

Question 2

What are the 3 characteristics of attachment?

Answer 2

Proximity seeking (close to caregiver)
Separation distress
Secure base behaviour (even when independent, make regular contact with them)

Question 3

Define reciprocity?

Answer 3

Infants coordinate their actions with caregivers, like a conversation.

Question 4

Define interactional synchronicity?

Answer 4

Imitating/taking turns

Mother and infant reflect both actions and emotions of each other and do so in a coordinated way.

Question 5

What is the role of the father?

Answer 5

Usually secondary caregiver
More to do with play and stimulation than nurturing.
This may be to do with cultural or economic factors.

Question 6

Who are Schaffer and Emerson (1964)?

Answer 6

Glasgow babies - Stages of attachment
Longitudinal study of 60 Glasgow infants at monthly intervals for 18 months. Mothers asked to keep diary of separation responses and behaviour.
Stage 1 - Asocial attachment (0 - 2 months) similar response to everything, animate or inanimate.
Stage 2 - Indiscriminate attachment (2 - 7 months) recognise and prefer familiar adults, comfort from anyone.
Stage 3 - Specific attachment (7 months +) stranger anxiety, separation distress, primary attachment figure.
Stage 4 - Multiple attachments (after 1 month of specific attachment) secondary attachment figures.

Question 7

Evaluate Schaffer and Emerson?

Answer 7

+ High external validity
+ Stages appear to be correct

• Unreliable (field experiment)
• Social desirability bias (from mothers keeping diary)
• Some infants at asocial stage show preference for mother.
• Subjective judgement

Question 8

Who is Lorenz (1935)?

Evaluation?

Answer 8

Lorenzes geese - imprinting
Geese attached to first moving thing they see - imprinting
Must be within critical period - usually 36 hours after birth.
Evaluation - Nature side of debate
Cannot be generalised to humans

Question 9

Who is Harlow (1958)?

Answer 9

Harlow’s monkeys - effects of privation
16 monkeys separated from mother immediately after birth and placed in cages with 2 surrogate mothers, one made of wire and the other covered in a soft towel.
Half could get milk from cloth mother and the others from wire one.
Both groups of monkeys spent more time with cloth mother and were comforted by it)
When these monkeys were re - introduced they were timid, could be aggressive, difficulty mating, killed off spring.
Only found this in those left for more than 90 days (critical period)

Question 10

Evaluation of Harlow?

Answer 10

+ Although monkeys are very similar and children raised in similar conditions have found similar effects (Genie)
+ Applied to real life

• Cannot be generalised
• Ethical issues (psychological disturbance of animals, some died due to stress)

Question 11

What is the social learning theory of attachment?

Answer 11

Behaviors are learnt

• Classical conditioning (learning by association) - Mother constantly paired with unconditioned stimulus of food so mother becomes associated with pleasure and becomes conditioned stimulus.
• Operant conditioning (learning by reinforcement) - Behavior resulting in rewards is more likely to be repeated, and those resulting in punishments is less likely. e.g. child hungry so cries (discomfort) and when fed feels pleasure (reward). Mother is source of food so attachment occurs.

Question 12

What is Bowlby’s theory of attachment?

Answer 12

Bowlby suggests that attachment is an innate process that is an evolutionary function (innate drive to attach to survive and reproduce)
Attaches to person who responds most sensitively to social releasers (primary caregiver)
Develops internal working model (based on this relationship) gets all future expectations from this.
Infant internalises this model.
Critical period (2 and a half years).

Question 13

Evaluation of Bowlby’s theory?

Answer 13

+ Brazelton (1975) supports social releasers
+ Support for internal working model (Ukrainian girl raised by dogs, could never communicate)

• Attachment not monotropic
• Monotropy socially sensitive idea (can change mothers lifestyle choices).

Question 14

What is Ainsworth (1978) study?

Answer 14

Strange Situation
To see how infant behaves under mild stress and novelty.
106 middle class infants and mothers.
7 stages to test different things
Mother and baby enter room
Mother sits quietly, responding if infant seeks attention (Proximity seeking, secure base)
Stranger enters, mother leaves (stranger anxiety, separation anxiety)
Mother returns, stranger leaves, mother leaves (reunion, separation)
Infant alone
Stranger returns (stranger anxiety)
Mother returns.

Question 15

What were Ainsworths attachment types as a result of her study?

Answer 15

Secure 66% (comfortable with social interaction, high stranger anxiety, happy reunion, easy to soothe)
Insecure avoidant 22% (avoid social interaction at reunion, low stranger anxiety, indifferent separation)
Insecure resistant 12% (seeks and rejects social interaction, high stranger and separation anxiety)

Question 16

Evaluation of Strange Situation?

Answer 16

+ Good reliability/test - retest reliability (Main 1985 re - tested babies and found same attachment types)
+ High inter - rater reliability (different researchers found same results)
+ Paradigm
+ Real world application (helps parenting)

• Lacks population validity
• Low ecological validity (lab)
• Child temperament wasn’t taken into consideration
• Demand characteristics
• Ethics (causing stress, both child and mother)

Question 17

What are the Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg’s (1988) study on cultural variations?

Answer 17

Meta analysis combining findings of 32 other studies from a variety of other countries.
US and Japan children had highest rate if securely attached children (70%)
Germany had lowest rate of securely attached children (40%) and highest rate of avoidant children (50%).
Japan and Israel had highest rate of resistant children (28%).

Question 18

What are the explanations for the cultural differences found by Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg?

Answer 18

Israeli children were reared in a Kibbutz so are used to being separated from from their mother so show little anxiety when they leave but are not used to strangers (stranger anxiety) - resistant behaviour. (Fox 1977 - strange situation variation with mother and Kibbutz nurse).
German parents seek “independent, non - clingy infants” - avoidant behaviour (Grossman 1985).
Japanese children are rarely left my mother - secure.

Question 19

Evaluation of Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg’s study?

Answer 19

+ use of meta analysis is ethically sound - secondary data so no more children had to be put through traumatic ‘strange situation’.
+ real - world applications - helped develop understanding of rearing practices in different countries and how it can impact child.

• use of strange situation - ethnocentric (American study) therefore an imposed etic.
• not representative - small number of studies in certain countries, cannot generalise to large.

Question 20

What is Bowlby’s theory of maternal deprivation (1951)?

Answer 20

Strong attachment to mother figure is essential for normal psychological development of children.
Loss of this attachment (MATERNAL DEPRIVATION) results in long lasting problems.
There is a critical period of 30 months and if child is separated from mother for an extended period of time then damage is inevitable - brief separations fine.

Question 21

What are the effects on development if a child is maternally deprived (Bowlby’s theory of maternal deprivation)?

Answer 21

Intellectual development - mental retardation - Goldfarb (1977), lower IQ of those in institutions compared to those who were fostered.
Emotional development - affectionless psychopathy: inability to experience guilt or strong emotion for others.

Question 22

What is Bowlby’s 44 thieves study and what were his findings?

Answer 22

To investigate link between affectionless psychopathy and maternal deprivation.
Opportunity sample of 88 teenagers - group 1: 44 thieves, group 2: 44 emotionally disturbed (non criminals).
Interviewed to find out about early life experiences.
FINDINGS - 14 from group 1 identified as affectionless psychopaths, 12 of these had experienced maternal deprivation. Only 5 of remaining 30 had experienced separation.
Group 2 - only 2 experienced prolonged separation.

Question 23

Evaluation of Bowlby’s theory and study?

Answer 23

+ interviews provide in depth answers (44 thieves)
+ Goldfarb war orphans supports.

• interviews could be biased (44 thieves)
• Goldfarb - orphans from war were traumatised and had poor after care so more dominating factor than separation.
• more of a sensitive period than critical - Czech twins, isolated for 18 months to 7 years old, once found were adopted and fully recovered.
• failure to distinguish between deprivation and privation - deprivation: loss of attachment figure once it has developed. - privation: failure to form any attachment.

Question 24

What is the Romanian orphans study by Rutter and Songua-Barke (2010) and it’s findings?

Answer 24

Studies effects of institutionalisation.
165 Romanian children who had lived in institutions - 111 adopted before age of 2 and 54 by age of 4.
Compared to 52 British children adopted by age of 6 months.
- regularly tested for physical, social and cognitive development.
FINDINGS - when adopted, Romanian children were behind British children - classified as mentally retarded.
Those adopted by 6 months caught up - after 6 months showed disinhibited attachment and difficulties with peer relationships.

Question 25

What is disinhibited attachment?

Answer 25

Child doesn’t prefer parents over strangers - seeks comfort and attention from anyone.

Question 26

Evaluation of Romanian orphans study?

Answer 26

+ real - life applications - helped improve institutions with key workers.
+ high control over extraneous variables.
+ high internal validity.

• not typical orphanages - cannot generalise.
• ethical issues
• long term effects not clear - incomplete study.

Question 27

What is Hazan and Shaver’s (1987) study and their findings?

Answer 27

The Love Quiz - to study a correlation between attachment type and later relationships.
620 people aged 14 to 82, quiz measured attachment style (Ainsworth’s attachment types) and love experiences.
FINDINGS - high correlation between infant attachment types and adult romance.

Question 28

Evaluation of ‘The Love Quiz’?

Answer 28

• bias - not always truthful.
• sample was self selected - volunteer bias.
• deterministic - those with insecure attachment may not always have insecure adult relationships.