Attachment Flashcards
Caregiver-Infant Interactions: AO1.
Meltzoff and Moore: presented an infant with four different stimuli. Recorded responses of head and tongue movement. Interobserver reliability calculated at greater than 0.92
Reciprocity - Jaffe et al: infants coordinate actions with a caregiver in a conversational form.
Interactional synchrony - Meltzoff and Moore: mirror actions aged 2-3 weeks. Mimicked facial and hand gestures. Also seen in 3 day olds, not a learnt behaviour.
Piaget believe imitation developed at 1 year and anything earlier was caused by response training.
Murray and Trevathan: unresponsive mother lead to a distressed then neutral response.
Caregiver-Infant Interactions: AO3.
Difficult to test infant behaviour.
Hard to differentiate.
Subjective.
Failed to replicate.
Abravanel et al: infants respond specifically to humans.
Isabella et al: individual differences, strongly attached infant caregiver pairs have greater interactional synchrony.
Le Vine et al: cultural bias. Kenyan mothers have less physical interaction but high secure attachment.
Ethnocentric, not representative.
Developing Attachments: AO1.
Schaffer and Emerson: 7 different situations. 0 no protest - 3 loud crying. Also measured stranger anxiety.
Glaswegian individuals.
Specific attachment 6-8 months. 13% one attachment, 31% five attachments. 65% mother, 3% father.
Indiscriminate attachment, beginning of attachment, discriminate attachment, multiple attachments.
Developing Attachments: AO3.
Unreliable, subjective data.
Biased sample, working class, same location.
Not aware if all attachments are equivalent.
Multiple attachments more common in collectivist cultures. Developmental theories are inflexible. Fathers spend less time with infants, less sensitive to infant cues.
Lorenz and Harlow: AO1.
Lorenz: gosling eggs, two groups. One group first saw Lorenz. Placed two groups together with Lorenz and mother. Lorenz’ goslings went to him, imprinting.
Harlow: one wire mother, one cloth mother. Baby Rhesus monkeys. Feeding bottle on wire monkey, scared. Spent time with cloth mother - socially and sexually abnormal.
Lorenz and Harlow: AO3.
Imprinting - leghorn chicks imprinted on rubber gloves, male chickens later tried to mate with the gloves.
Confounding variables.
Animal studies cannot be generalised to human behaviour.
Ethical issues.
Bowlby: AO1.
Critical period for attachments. Social releasers - adults respond to. Monotropy - primary attachment. Promotes survival. Internal working model: short term, caregiver's behaviour, long term, template for future relationships.
Bowlby: AO3.
Attachment is more important for emotional development than survival. Sensitive period rather than critical period.
Continuity hypothesis: early attachment, later emotional and social behaviour.
Temperament hypothesis: based on emotional personality, may explain attachment behaviour.
Strange Situation: AO1.
Ainsworth and Bell: caregiver does not interact with infant, stranger enters, caregiver leaves, stranger approaches infant, caregiver returns, stranger leaves, infant plays, caregiver leaves, stranger returns, stranger leaves, caregiver returns. Explores separation anxiety, willingness to explore, stranger anxiety, behaviour on return.
Secure: easily soothed, enthusiastic on return, safe base.
Insecure avoidant: indifferent, no stranger anxiety, avoids on return.
Insecure resistant: distresses, not easily consoled.
Strange Situation: AO3.
Main and Soloman: disorganised: no clear pattern of attachment, wants to escape caregiver (abusive).
Reliable, 0.94 agreement in interrater reliability. Real world applications. Low internal validity. Maternal sensitivity linked to strength of attachment. Cultural bias: Japanese more resistant, German more avoidant.
Waters - 90% reliability of classification, more unreliable in working class.
Cultural Bias: AO1.
Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg: meta analysis, average: secure 65%, avoidant 21%, resistant 14%. Different childrearing practices: African tribe Efe looked after by different women.
Takahashi: extreme distress for Japanese children.
Cultural Bias: AO3.
Number of studies different in some countries. Cultural similarities may be due to mass media exposure. Country rather than culture. Indigenous/individualist: universality of attachment.
Maternal Deprivation: AO1.
Bowlby, 44 Juvenile Thieves: matched with 44 juveniles with behavioural problems, matched on age and IQ. Parents and both interviewed together.
32% of thieves categorised as affectionless. 86% had experienced frequent separation.
Maternal Deprivation: AO3.
Separation may be physical or physiological.
Yarrow et al: mothers who were severely depressed, 55% of children were insecurely attached.
Vulnerability: 25% later experienced depression/anxiety.
Real world application. Individual differences.
Institutionalisation: AO1.
Rutter: Romanian orphans - 165 adopted before age 2. Tested at intervals for physical, cognitive and social development. Control group of 50 British kids. Some Romanian children had caught up.
Hodges and Tizard: 65, institutionalised at younger than 4 months. Of 39 to be located, 23 had bee adopted, 11 restored and 5 in institution. Matched control group: adopted children were as close to their family. Physically underdeveloped. Lacked cognitive development. Disinhibited attachment (overfriendly).
