Attachment Flashcards
(Caregiver-infant interactions)
Studied interactions
- Babies have ‘alert phases’ in which they signal that they are ready for interaction
- Mothers respond to these two-thirds of the time
- Interaction increases from around 3 months of age, involving verbal signals and facial expressions
Feldman
(Caregiver-infant interactions)
Interactional synchrony
- Observed 30 mothers and infants
- Observed interaction and assessed quality of attachment
- High levels of interaction and synchrony were associated with better quality attachments
Isabella
(Caregiver-infant interactions)
Fathers and play
- Longitudinal study of babies into their teens
- Quality on infant level of attachment had no effect on attachment in adolescence
- Attachment to the father is linked to quality of play time in later life rather than comfort and interactions
Grossman
(Caregiver-infant interactions)
Attachment formed with the most nurturing parent
- Filmed 4 month old babies in face-to-face interactions with primary caregiver mothers, secondary caregiver fathers and primary caregiver fathers
- Fathers took on the ‘role’ on the mothers, spent more time smiling at and imitating babies
- Attachment type may be to most nurturing parent, rather than the mother
Field
(Stages of attachment)
- Method
- 60 babies
31 male, 29 female
Glasgow, working class families
- Visited at home every month for first year, and at 18 months
- Interviewed mothers about attachment behaviours - Findings
- 25-30 - 50% of babies show signs of separation anxiety towards one parent (specific attachment)
- This was with the most interactive parents
- 40 weeks - 80% had specific attachments, 30% had multiple attachments
Schaffer and Emerson
Stage 1: Asocial stage
(first few weeks)
- Similar behaviour towards humans and objects
- Show some preference for familiar adults when being comforted
Stage 2: Indiscriminate stage (2-7 months) - Prefer people to objects - Recognise and prefer familiar adults - Usually accept comfort for any adults - no separation or stranger anxiety
Stage 3: Specific attachment
(around 7 months)
- Start to display separation and stranger anxiety
(mother in 65% of cases)
Stage 4: Multiple attachment
(shortly after specific attachment is formed)
- Extend attachment behaviour to other caregivers
(most have multiple attachments by 1)
(Stages of attachment A03)
Separation anxiety
Babies have playmates and may show distress when they leave the room, but this may not necessarily signify attachment
Bowlby
(Animal studies)
Geese - imprinting
- Randomly divided eggs; half hatched with mother, half half hatched in an incubator and the first thing they saw the Lorenz
- The second group followed Lorenz around, whilst the control followed the mother, even when mixed together
Critical period - there is a critical period iin which imprinting must take place
Sexual imprinting - geese also directed courtship behaviour towards him
Lorenz
(Animal studies)
Monkeys - contact comfort
- Reared 16 baby monkeys with 2 wire mothers, with one covered in cloth)
- Monkeys cuddled the cloth-covered monkey regardless of which dispensed milk
Maternal deprivation - as adults the monkeys were dysfunctional; they were aggressive, unsociable and bad at mating
They neglected and even killed babies
Critical period - around 90 days
Contact comfort more important than food
Harlow
(Animal studies A03)
Rubber glove - reversible
- Chickens imprinted on a yellow rubber glove and tried to mate with it
- However, with experience they naturally learned to prefer mating with other chickens
Guiton
(Explanations of attachment: Learning theory)
Classical conditioning
- Unconditioned stimulus: food
- Neutral stimulus: mother
- Unconditioned response: pleasure
Operant
- Positive reinforcement - ‘social suppressors’
Crying leads to reinforcement of behaviour (food, comfort)
- Negative reinforcement - parent stops the crying
Dollard and Miller
(Explanations of attachment: Learning theory)
Attachment is a secondary drive
Primary drive - food (innate, biological)
Secondary drive - attachment
Happens because the baby associates food with the attachment
Sears
(Learning theory A03)
Alternative explanation - SLT
- Parents teach children to love them by modelling attachment behaviour (hugging them or other family members)
- They are rewarded with approval
E.g. “that’s a nice hug”
Hay and Vespo
(Explanations of attachment: Monotropic theory)
Evolutionary explanation
- Attachment/ imprinting has survival advantage, even in a modern society (e.g. traffic)
Monotropy
- Placed great emphasis on a child’s attachment to the primary caregiver; it is the most important
- The more time spent with the ‘mother’ the better
~ Law of continuity - care should be constant and predictable
~ Law of accumulated separation - the effects of every separation add up
Social releasers
- Innate ‘cute’ behaviours
- Encourage the attention of caregiver and make them feel love towards the baby
- Both mother and baby have an innate predisposition to become attached
Critical period
- Around 2 years of age
- More of a senstive period - it is harder to form attachments after this age
Internal working model
- We form a mental representation (schema) of relationships based on relationship with primary caregiver
- Effects relationships in later life
Those who had poor relationship with caregiver may assume all relationships and negative and form poor relationships with their own children
Bowlby
(Monotropic theory A03)
Blank face experiment - social releasers
- Instructed parents to ignore babies’ social releasers
- Babies initially showed signs of distress
- Eventually some curled up and lay motionless
Supports importance of social releasers in forming attachments
Brazleton
(Monotropic theory A03/ later life: adulthood)
99 mothers - internal working model
- Assessed 99 mothers with 1 year old babies
- Interviews with mother about attachment to own mother, observation of mother and baby attachment
- Mothers who reported poor attachments in childhood were more likely to have attachment with own baby assessed as poor
Bailey
(Monotropic theory A03)
Temperament - internal working model
- Similarities between a mother’s childhood attachment and attachment with own baby may be due to genetic factors
- Some children are naturally more anxious - troubles forming relationships in later life may be a result of temperament
Kagan
(Strange situation)
Procedure
- observation
- laboratory
- two-way mirror
Behaviours
- proximity seeking
- exploration and secure-base behaviour
- stranger anxiety
- separation anxiety
- response to reunion
- Child encouraged to explore
- Stranger enters
- Parent leaves child with stranger
- Caregiver returns, stranger leaves
- Child left alone
- Stranger returns
- Reunion
Ainsworth
(Strange situation A03)
Validity - later life
Insecure-resistant children more likely to have mental health problems later in life
Ward
(Strange situation A03)
Inter-rater reliability
- Found 94% inter-rater reliability in a team of strange situation researchers
Suggests classifications are not based on who is observing the children
Bick
(Strange situation A03)
Disorganised attachment
- Some children do not fit neatly into any of the 3 classifications
- Disorganised attachment - atypical attachment made up of a mix of behaviours from resistant and avoidant types
Main and Soloman
(Cultural variations)
Meta-analysis
Procedure
- 32 studies using strange situation
- 8 countries
- 1,990 children
Findings - Secure attachment most common in all countries Britain: 75% - China: 50% - Insecure-resistant least common in all countries Britain: 3% - Israel: 30% - Insecure-avoidant Germany - Japan
Differences within countries were 150% greater than that between them
USA - one study believed 46% were securely attached, and another said that 90% were
Van Ijzendoorn
(Cultural variations)
Italian study
- 76 1 year olds
Secure - 50%
Insecure-avoidant - 36%
Suggested this may be due to women working longer hours and relying on childcare services
Simonella
(Cultural variations)
Korean study
- Proportions of secure to insecure children were the same as other countries
- Majority of insecure children were avoidant - only one was resistant
May be due to child-rearing styles
Jin
(Maternal deprivation)
Separation vs deprivation
- Brief separations have no effect on development
- Extended separations can lead to deprivation
The critical period
- First 30 months
Effects on development
- Intellectual development - low IQ
- Emotional development - affectionless psychopathy
44 thieves study
- Thieves interviewed by Bowlby about emotions
- Families interviewed about separations
- Control group - emotionally disturbed, not thieves
Bowlby
44 thieves
- 14 affectionless psychopaths, 12 of them had experienced separations
- 5 non-psychopaths had experienced separations
Controls
- 2 experienced separations
(Maternal deprivation A03)
Replication
- 500 young people
- Early prolonged separation did not predict criminality or difficulty forming relationships
Hilda Lewis
(Maternal deprivation A03)
IQ
- 30 children: half adopted before 4 months of age, half remained in institutions
- Assessed at age 12
Fostered group - average IQ of 96
Orphanage group - average IQ of 68 (mental retardation)
Goldfarb
(Maternal deprivation A03)
Deprivation vs privation
Deprivation - loss of attachment figure after attachment has been formed
Privation - never being able to form an attachment
Effects seen in Bowlby’s study more likely to be the effects of privation
Rutter
(Maternal deprivation A03)
Animal studies
- Separating rats from their mothers for as little as a day had a permanent effect on their social development
- However, it did not influence any other forms of development
Levy
(Institutionalisation: Romanian orphan studies)
English and Romanian adoptee study
Procedure
- 165 Romanian orphans adopted in Britain
- Development assessed at 4, 6, 11 and 15
- Control group of British adopted children
Findings
- Showed differential rates of recovery depending on age when adopted
Mean IQ
Adopted before 6 months - 102 (caught up with control group by age 4)
Adopted between 6 months and 2 years - 86
Adopted after 2 years - 77
Disinhibited attachment
Seen in children adopted after 6 months
Believed this was due to having multiple caregivers
Rutter
(Institutionalisation: Romanian adoption studies)
Bucharest early intervention project
Findings
- 95 children, 12-31 months old who had spent most of their lives (90%) in institutions
- Control group of 50 children who had never been in care
- Strange situation
- Interviews with parents about attachment behaviour
Attachment types
- Secure: 19% (74% for controls)
- Disorganised: 65%
- Disinhibited: 44% (20% for controls)
Randomly allocated children to conditions of foster care or institutionalisation
Zeanah
(Later life: childhood)
Friendship
Securely-attached infants go on to form the best quality friendships in childhood, whereas insecurely-attached infants have trouble forming friendships
Kerns
(Later life: childhood)
Bullying
- 7-11 year olds
- Questionnaires
Secure children - unlikely to be involved
Insecure-avoidant - most likely victims
Insecure-resistant - most likely bullies
Myron-Wilson and Smith
(Later life: adulthood)
Intimacy
- 40 adult women
- Assessed as infants for attachment type
Secure children - best romantic relationships and friendships
Insecure-avoidant - struggled with intimacy in romantic relationships
Insecure-resistant - struggled maintaining friendships
McCarthy
(Later life: adulthood)
The love quiz
Procedure
- Analysed 620 replies to magazine ‘love quiz’
- 3 sections
1. current/last relationship
2. general experiences (number of partners)
3. attachment type
Findings
Securely attached - 56%
Most likely to have strong, long-lasting relationships
Insecure-avoidant - jealousy, fear of intimacy
Hazan and Shaver
(Later life A03)
Not all studies support the ITM
- Found no evidence of link between quality of attachment in infancy and adolescence
- This is not what we’d expect if internal working models were important in development
Zimmerman
(Later life A03)
Probablistic, pessimistic
- Poor attachment type just means we have greater risk of problems, but we are not inevitably going to have poor relationships
- Emphasising the risk will lead to greater problems
Clarke and Clarke
