Attachment Flashcards
Briefly explain Bowlby’s attachment theory
It’s an evolutionary theory that states children come in to the world pre programmed to form attachment with others as this will help them survive.
What did Harlow’s study disprove?
The secondary drive theory of love, monkeys still crave comfort.
What system develops during the first year of life?
The innate behavioural system; attachment behavioural system.
What is the condition under which the attachment behavioural system activates
Under threat
Give examples of internal and external threat
Internal: hunger, sick, pain
External: loud noises, stranger, alone
When the attachment system is activated, what system is deactivated?
The exploration system
What do individual differences in attachment depend on?
Quality of care.
What are the three attachment types according to Ainsworth ‘Strange Situation’?
Ambivalent
Avoidant
Secure
What attachment style does positive view of self and positive view of others belong to?
Secure
What attachment style does rejecting caregiver belong to?
Avoidant
What attachment style does inconsistent caregiver belong to?
Ambivalent
Which attachment style do the following two features belong to; adaptive to the situation your in and an organized strategy
Insecure
Who proposed the concept of disorganized attachment?
Main and Solomon, 1990
How would you describe the behaviour of the caregiver for someone who meets the criteria of disorganized attachment?
The source of care is also the source of threat, the child is subjected to inconsistent or contradictory behaviours.
Academically what is the difference between secure and insecure children?
Secure predicts academic achievement, more engaged in joint reading and develop better pre-reading skills. Insecure have shorter attention spans and do not perform as well on cognitive tasks
How is data for adult attachment obtained?
Interview- ‘narrative measures’
What did Hazen & Shaver do in 1987?
Newspaper advertised a love quiz, adult love can be divided into the same categories as the ‘strange situation’ attachment.
Who distributed attachment style in to four categories?
Bartholamew & Horowitz (1991)
What scale did Brenan, Clark & Shaver (1998) devise? What did they find?
The experiences in close relationships scale (ECR).
Two dimensions tally with Bartholamew four styles;
Secure
Preoccupied (Ambivalent)
Fearful (Avoidant) fear of hurt
Dismissive (Avoidant) don’t need intimacy
Fraley & Shaver did what study?
Airport study; Observed couples separating measured contact seeking behaviour, then administered a questionnaire. Those separating showed more contact and proximity seeking behaviour.
In Fraley & Shaver’s study how were avoidant and anxious different?
Avoidant men and women less likely to maintain proximity to their partners and less likely to provide care and support.
Highly anxious women less likely to report more distress, highly anxious men less likely to maintain contact.
Name three intrapersonal correlated and consequences of attachment avoidance and anxiety
Self-esteem Mental Health Coping Percieved social support Physical Health Pain tolerance Emotion regualtion
Name three interpersonal correlates and consequences of attachment avoidance and anxiety
Caregiving Parenting Empathy Prosocial behaviour Prejudice/Discrimination
What is an Internal Working Model? Who used this term?
The cognitive structures that hold the information comprising of our attachment styles, devised by Bowlby.
What’s another way of thinking of IWM?
A schema for how relationships operate; secure or insecure.
What do hyper activating strategies emphasize?
Negative effect
What did Baldwin et al (1996) propose that attachment style is based on?
It is based on a whole range of experiences and the cognitive availability and accessibility of these experiences. Global at the top and specific at the bottom.
If attachment is thought of as a schema it can be…
primed (subliminally/supraliminal).
Rowe & Connelly (2003) primed attachment styles and found?
Primed with attachment security remember more positive attachment than those who had been negatively primed.
What characteristics were the experiences of secure, avoidant and anxious adults hypothesised to have? Hazan & Shaver, 1987
Secure - confident, trust, friendship and positive emotions.
Avoidant - fear, closeness, doubtful and lack of trust.
Anxious - preoccupying, painfully exciting struggle to merge with another person, fall in love frequently and find it difficult to fall in love easily.
Hazan & Shaver 1987 findings?
The researchers predicted that the romantic relationships of secure individuals would be characterised by trust, friendship, and positive emotions. In contrast, avoidant individuals were hypothesised to experience these relationships with fear of closeness and lack of trust. Those with an anxious attachment style were expected to experience romantic relationships as a painfully exciting and preoccupying struggle to merge with the other person (Hazan & Shaver, 1987).
What were the findings in relation to this hypothesis?
Hazan and Shaver (1987) found that their results broadly supported their hypotheses. Secure participants reported that their most important relationship was happy, friendly, and trusting, accepting, and supportive. They reported warm relationships with their parents. Avoidant participants reported fearing intimacy, emotional highs and lows, and jealousy. They reported that their mothers were cold and rejecting. Anxious participants reported obsession, desire for reciprocation, emotional highs and lows, and extreme attraction and jealousy. They reported that their fathers were unfair.
What are the views of self, and views of others hypothesised in each of the 4 cells of the proposed typology? Bartholomew and Horowitz (1991)
According to Batholomew and Horowitz’s (1991) model of attachment styles, cell 1 describes the secure style. The secure style has a positive view of self (self as lovable) and a positive view of others (others as accepting and responsive). Cell 2 describes the preoccupied style. This style has a negative view of self (unworthy, unlovable) and a positive view of others. Cell 3 reflects the fearful-avoidant style. This style has a negative view of self (unlovable, unworthy) and a negative view of others (untrustworthy and rejecting). Cell 4 reflects the dismissive-avoidant style, which has a positive view of self (self as worthy of love) and a negative view of others.
Briefly describe each of the 4 groups using the descriptive results from study 1. Bartholomew and Horowitz (1991)
The secure group had high interview coherence, friendship intimacy, warmth, balance in friendships, and involvement in romantic relationships. The dismissing group had high self-confidence and control in relationships, and low elaboration, emotional expressiveness, crying frequency, warmth, closeness, caregiving, self-disclosure, intimacy, level of romantic involvement, reliance on others, and use of others as secure base. The preoccupied group had high elaboration, self-disclosure, emotional expressiveness, crying frequency, reliance on others, use of others as secure base, crying in presence of others, caregiving, and romantic involvement, but low coherence and balance of control. The fearful group had low self-confidence, balance of control, self-disclosure, intimacy, level of involvement in romantic relationships, capacity to rely on others, and to use of others as secure base (Bartholomew & Horwitz, 1991).
What strategies are proposed to be used by dismissing and preoccupied styles to cope with unwanted social information? Bartholomew and Horowitz (1991)
Preoccupied individuals may blame themselves for rejections they perceive from others. This enables them to retain a generally positive view of others, despite their experience. Dismissing individuals may deny the importance of others who have rejected them. This enables them to maintain high self-regard despite their experience.
Why do the authors argue for a 4-way typology, rather than Hazan & Shaver’s 3-way typology?
Bartholomew & Horowitz (1991) argue for a 4-way typology rather than 3 because their data showed that working models of self and working models of other can be different. That is, they are separate dimensions. The valence of view of self and other does not have to be the same for the models to be mutually confirming.
