Attachment Flashcards
What is reciprocity?
A description of how two people interact. Mother- infant interaction is reciprocal in that both infant and mother respond to each other’s signals and each elicits a response from the other
What does Brazleton et al argue about the interactions between a child and their mother?
He says the interaction can be described as a ‘dance’ because it is just like a couples dance where each partner responds to each other’s moves
What is intersectional synchrony?
Mother and infant reflect both the actions and emotions of the other and do this in a co-ordinated synchronised way
What did Isabella et al find out about synchrony and quality of attachment?
Observed mothers and infants together and assessed the degree of synchrony
- high levels of synchrony were associated with better quality mother- infant attachment
At what age does reciprocity become apparent?
From 3 months close attention between mother and infant
Where the mother responds to infant alertness
Evaluation of carer- infant interactions
- we cannot know for certain that behaviours seen in mother- infant interaction have a special meaning
- good validity - captures fine details
- observations don’t tell us the purpose of synchrony and reciprocity Feldman
What did Schaffer and Emerson find out about attachment?
That the majority of babies did become attached to their mother first (7 months)
- a few weeks later secondary attachments formed
Research into the role of the father
- Grossman et al - attachment to fathers less important but fathers may have a different role - play and stimulation
Fathers as primary carers
Field - fathers as primary carers adopt attachment behaviour more typical of mothers
Evaluation of attachment figures
- children without fathers aren’t different so suggests their not important
- inconsistent finding on fathers - some research primary attachment some secondary
- fathers not primary attachments - may be due to traditional gender roles or biological differences
- socially sensitive research - working mothers
Who conducted a study into the development of attachment?
Schaffer and Emerson
- they investigated the age of attachment formation and who with
- mothers of 60 Glasgow babies reported monthly on depression anxiety
- most babies showed attachment to a primary caregiver by 32 weeks and developed multiple attachments soon after this
Evaluation of Schaffer and Emerson’s study
- good external validity - observations were in participants natural environments
- longitudinal design - the same participants were observed at each age eliminating individual differences as a confound
- limited sample characteristics - only from the same area, and over 50 years ago lacks generalisability
What are Schaffer’s stages of attachment?
- Asocial stage - little observable social behaviour
- Indiscriminate attachment - more observable attachment behaviour, accept cuddles from at adult
- specific attachments - stranger anxiety and desperation anxiety in regard to one particular adult
- multiple attachments - attachment behaviour directed towards more than one adult (secondary attachments)
Evaluation of Schaffer’s stages of attachment
- social behaviour is hard to observe in the first few weeks but it doesn’t meant he baby is asocial
- conflicting evidence - Ijzendoorn et al research in different contexts has found multiple attachments may appear first
- just because a child protests when an adult leaves the room does not necessarily mean attachment
- Schaffer and Emerson used limited measures of attachment
Who conducted animal studies of attachment?
Lorenz and Harlow
What was Lorenz research?
- goslings day Lorenz when they hatched
- Newly hatched chicks attach to the first moving object they see (imprinting)
- Adult birds try to mate with whatever species or object they imprint on
- there is a critical period
- the control group followed their mother
What’s the evaluation of Lorenz research?
- birds and mammals have attachment systems so Lorenz’s results may not be relevant to humans
- Guiton et al - birds imprinting in a rubber glove later preferred their own species
What was Harlow’s research?
- 16 baby monkeys
- 2 wire mothers - in one condition milk was dispensed from the wire mother and in the other the milk was dispensed from the cloth mother
- the baby moneys preferred the cloth mother regardless of what one had the milk
- they grew up socially dysfunctional as they were maternally deprived
- after 90 days attachment wouldn’t form
Evaluation of Harlow’s research
- demonstrates that attachment depends more on contact comfort rather than feeding
- it has helped social workers understand the risk factors in child neglect, and allows them to understand that a child in a loving family that lack money isn’t abuse and they shouldn’t be separated instead the family should get money
- Harlow faced severe criticism for the ethics of his research. Their suffering is seen as human like
What is the learning theory’s explanation of attachment?
- classical conditioning - caregiver (neutral stimulus) associated with food (unconditioned stimulus)
Caregiver becomes conditioned stimulus - operant conditioning - crying behaviour reinforced positively for infant and negatively for caregiver
Attachment becomes a secondary drive through association with hunger - learned by association between the caregiver and the satisfaction of a primary drive
Evaluation of the learning theory
- Lorenz and Harlow showed that feeding is not he key to attachment
- Schaffer and Emerson - most primary attachment figures were the mother even when others did most the feeding
- cannot account for the importance of sensitivity and interactions synchrony
- some elements of conditioning could still be involved - many aspects of human development are affected by conditioning
- newer learning theory explanation - social learning theory - social behaviour is acquired largely as a result of modelling and imitation of behaviour
What is Bowlby’s theory?
Bowlbys monotropic theory includes:
- monotropy - one particular attachment is different in quality and importance than others
- the law of continuity- the more constant and predictable a child’s care the better the quality of their attachment
- the law of accumulated separation- the effects of every separation from the mother add up ‘and therefore the safest dose is therefore a zero dose’
- social releasers - innate cute behaviours in the first two years due to the critical period lasting 2 years
- internal working model - mental representations of the primary attachment relationship are templates for future relationships
Evaluation of Bowlby’s theory
- some babies form multiple attachments without a primary attachment
- Seuss et al - other attachments may contribute as much as primary one
- support - Brazleton et al - when social releasers ignored babies were upset
- support - Bailey et al - quality of attachment is passed through generations in families
- monotropy is a socially sensitive idea
- temperament may be as important as attachment - the child’s genetically influenced personality
Who did the strange situation?
Ainsworth
- 7 stage controlled observation: assessed proximity seeking, exploration and secure base, stranger and separation anxiety, response to reunion
- found that infants showed consistent patterns of attachment behaviour
- types of attachment:
- secure - enthusiastic greeting, generally content
- avoidant - avoids reunion, generally reduced responses
- resistant - resists reunion, generally more distressed
Evaluation of Ainsworth’s strange situation
- support - attachment type predicts later social and personal behaviour, eg. Bullying
- good reliability - different observers agreed 90+% of the time on children’s attachment types
- attachment behaviour may have different meanings in different cultures so the strange situation may be measuring different things
- Main and Solomon creates a disorganised attachment type
Studies of cultural variation
- Van Ijzendoorn compared rates of attachment type in 8 countries. 75% secure in uk and 50% in China
- found more variations within than between countries. Results of studies within the same country were actually 150% greater than those between countries
- Simonella et al - Italian attachment rates have changed, may be due to changing practices
- Jin et al - Korean attachment rates similar to Japan, could be due to similar child rearing styles
- concludes that attachments are innate and universal and secure attachment is the norm
- however cultural practices affect rates of attachment types
Evaluation of cultural variations in attachment
- large samples reduce the impact of anomalous results so improve internal validity
- countries do not equate to cultures nor to culturally specific methods of child rearing so can’t make generalisations
- research using the strange situation imposed a USA test on other cultures (imposed etic)
- the strange situation lacks validity
- more related to temperament - in which case the strange situation is not assessing attachment it is simply measuring anxiety
What is Bowlby’s theory of maternal deprivation?
- physical separation only leads to deprivation when the child loses emotional care
- the first 30 months are critical and deprivation in that time causes damage
- Goldfarb- deprivation causes low IQ
- Bowlby - emotional development eg. Affection-less psychopathy
- 44 thieves study - many more affection less psychopaths than controls had a prolonged separation
Evaluation of Bowlby’s theory of maternal deprivation
- Lewis - sample of 500, no link between early separation and later criminality
- orphans have experienced other traumas
- bowlby exaggerated the importance of the critical period its more of a sensitive period
- animal studies show effects of maternal deprivation
- failure to distinguish between deprivation and privation - deprivations a loss of the primary attachment figure. Privation - the failure to form any attachment in the first place
Romanian orphan studies
- Rutter’s ERA study - 165 orphans adopted in Britain
- some of those adopted later show low IQ and disinhibited attachment
- Bucharest Early intervention project random allocation to institutional care or fostering
Secure attachment in 19% of institutional group vs 74% of controls
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