Attachment Flashcards
What is Attachment?
Attachment is an emotional bond between two people that develops over time between the infant and their primary caregiver.
What is Reciprocity?
It is a form of interaction between infant and caregiver involving mutual responsiveness.
Why are Mother infant interactions reciprocal?
`Because both the infant and mother respond to each other’s signals and each elicits a response from the other.
What did Jaff et al say about caregiver-infant interactions?
He said that from birth, babies move in a rhythm when interacting with an adult almost as if they were taking turns as people do when having a conversation.
What did Brazelton say about caregiver-infant interactions?
Brazelton said that the regularity of an infant’s signals allows a caregiver to anticipate their behaviour and respond appropriately.
Laying a foundation for later attachment.
What is interactional synchrony?
Is when two people interact and tend to mirror what the other is doing in terms of their facial and body movementS (emotions and behaviours)
What did Meltzoff and Moore 1977 study investigate?
It investigated the development of interaction synchrony.
What was the procedure of Meltzoff and Moore 1977 study on the development of interactional synchrony?
There was a controlled observation of three faces and a hand gesture and they watched the infant’s responses in the 4 specific areas.
They were videoed for inter-rater reliability.
What are strengths of Meltzoff and Moore 1977 study on the development of interactional synchrony?
It was a controlled observation, both the infant and the mother were filmed from multiple angels so very fine details of behaviour could be recorded meaning that the research conducted has good validity.
What are weaknesses of Meltzoff and Moore 1977 study on the development of interactional synchrony?
The study is unreliable, infant’s mouths are in constant motion and they often stick their tongue out, yawn and smite which may cause an issue for researchers investigating infant behaviour as it is difficult to distinguish between general activity and specific imitated behaviour.
There was also inconsistent findings when people replicated Meltzoff and Moore study, Kopek et al failed to replace Meltzoff and Moore’s findings, suggesting the original research may be unreliable, however M&M said this was because Koepke’s research was less controlled
What are the stages of attachment?
Asocial stage
Indiscriminate attachment stage
Specific attachment stage
Multiple attachments stage
What is the Asocial stage?
(0-2months) is when the baby starts to recognise and form bonds with carers. The baby’s behaviour to objects and humans is similar.
What is the indiscriminate attachment stage?
(2-7 months) Is when babies start to display more observable social behaviour.
They recognise and prefer familiar adults and accept comfort from any adults and do now show stranger/separation anxiety.
What is the specific attachment stage?
(From 7 months) Is when babies start to display stranger / separation anxiety.
They have formed a specific attachment to a primary attachment figure who offers the most interaction.
What is the multiple attachments attachment stage?
Formed shortly after a specific attachment babies form secondary attachments (29% within a month of forming a primary attachment)
and by the age of one, most infants have developed multiple attachments.
What was Schaffer and Emerson 1964 study investigate?
To investigate the formation of early attachments, the age at which they developed, their emotional intensity and to whom they were directed.
What was the procedure of Schaffer and Emerson’s 1964?
Participants were 60 babies from working class families in Glasgow.
The mother and baby were visited at home every month for the 1st year and again at 18 months .
The researcher asked the mother questions about the kind of protests their baby showed in 7 everyday situations e.g. an adult leaving the room which assessed separation anxiety.
They also assessed stranger anxiety.
What was the findings of Schaffer and Emerson’s 1964 study?
They found that the specific primary attachment was usually with the mother.
50% of babies showed operation anxiety between 25-32 weeks of age.
At 40 weeks 80% of the babies had a specific attachment and almost 30% displayed multiple attachments.
What did Schaffer and Emerson conclude from their 1964 study?
They concluded that the attachment tended to be to the caregiver who was the most interactive and sensitive to the infants signals and this did not have to be the person they spent the most time with.
What are the strengths of Schaffer and Emerson’s 1964 study?
It had a longitudinal design, the same children were followed up and observed regularly resulting in the study having better internal validity because it doesn’t have the confounding variable of individual differences between participants.
Another strength is that it was done in natural settings, there was no observer effects as the parents were doing the reporting, so behaviour was natural as a result the study has high external validity as research was conducted in homes and not an artificial setting.
What are weaknesses of Schaffer and Emerson’s study?
It lacks historical validity, it was conducted in the 60s when gender roles were different, now more men stay at home to look after their children and more women go out to work so the sample is biased.
Another weakness is that it lacks cultural variation, in western cultures there is an emphasis on individualism and in eastern cultures there is an emphasis on collectivism. The study can not be generalised as it is an imposed etic, it applies specifically to individualist cultures.
What was Lorenz 1935 study investigate?
It investigated imprinting in animals.
What was the procedure of Lorenz 1935 study on imprinting in animals?
Lorenz took a group of gosling eggs and divided them into 2 groups, one was left with their mother and the others were placed in an incubator.
When the incubator eggs hatched the first living thing they saw was Lorenz and they soon started to follow him around.
To test the effect, he marked the 2 groups and placed them together.
What was the findings of Lorenz 1935 study on imprinting in animals?
He found that they quickly divided themselves up, one group following their natural mother and the other Lorenz.
This process is said to occur in a definite period of life, the critical period. If an animal does not see a moving object during this time, it will not imprint.
What did Lorenz 1935 conclude from his study?
he concluded that a young animal will imprint on the first moving object it sees.
What are strengths of Lorenz 1935 imprinting study?
It has high validity as there is research supporting it. Guiton demonstrated that leghorn chicks, exposed to yellow rubber gloves for feeding them during their first few weeks, became imprinted on them.
What are weaknesses of of Lorenz 1935 imprinting study?
The findings from the study are hard to generalise to human behaviour.
Humans differ in important ways to animals, much more of our behaviour is governed by conscious decisions.
Lorenz studied imprinting in birds but mammalian mothers would show more emotional attachment to their infants.
Although animal studies can act as an important pointer in understanding human behaviour, we should always seek confirmation with human research because we differ in nature and complexity to that of other species.
What did Harlow 1959 study investigate?
Testing learning theory of attachment in animals.
What was the procedure of Harlow’s 1959 study on testing learning theory of attachment on animals?
Infant monkeys were removed from their mother at birth and raised in isolation in cages.
Two types of surrogate mother were constructed, a harsh wire mother and a soft towelling mother.
There were 4 conditions and the feeding time and time spent with each mother was recorded.
What did Harlow find out from his 1959 study on testing learning theory of attachment on animals?
He found that they preferred to cling to the towelling mother, regardless of whether she produced milk.
All 8 monkeys spent the most time with the cloth covered monkey and all hung onto when frightened.
What did Harlow 1959 conclude from his study?
He concluded that monkeys have an innate, unlearned need for comfort contact, suggesting that attachment concerned emotional security more than food.
What are the strengths of Harlow 1959 study?
Harlow’s research has had many real world applications it has helped social workers to understand risk factors in child neglect and abuse such as a lack of comfort.
Using animals to study attachment can benefit children that are most at risk in society, it can also have later economic implications as those children and more likely to grow up to be productive members of society.
What are the weaknesses of Harlow’s 1959 study on testing learning theory of attachment in monkeys?
It is immoral, Harlow’s work created an emotional lasting harm on the monkeys and a state of anxiety in female monkeys which had implications one they became parents. The counter-argument is that Harlow’s research was sufficiently important to justify the effects.
Although monkeys are clearly much more similar to humans that Lorenz’s geese they are not human. Psychologists disagree on the extent to which studies of non-human primates can be generalised to humans.
What are cultural variations?
Culture refers to the norms and values that exist within and group of people.
Cultural variations then are the differences in norms and values that exist between people in different groups.
In attachment research we are concerned with the difference in the promotion of children of different attachment types.
What did Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg 1988 study investigate?
It aimed to discover whether there were differences in attachment types between cultures.
What was the procedure of Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg 1988 study on differences in attachment types between cultures?
The researchers located 32 studies of attachment where the Strange Situation had been used to investigate the proportion of infants with different attachment types.
These 32 studies were conducted in 8 countries, 15 were in the USA.
Overall the 32 studies yielded results for 1990 children.
The data for these 32 studies were meta-analysed, results being combined and weighted for sample size.
What was the findings of Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg 1988 study on differences in attachment types between cultures?
They found that the secure attachment was the most common type of attachment across all 8 countries.
There were significant differences in the distribution of insecure attachments, the dominant type in the west was avoidance, the dominant type in the non-west was resistant and China had a 50/50 split.
What did Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg conclude from their 1988 study on differences in attachment types between cultures?
They concluded that there are cultural variations in infant care arrangements, but secure attachment is still the most common classification.
Variations within cultures is greater than variation between cultures.
Cross cultural similarities support the view that attachment is innate and biological which supports Bowlby.
What are the strengths of Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg 1988 study on different in attachment types between cultures?
One strength of the their study is that it has high internal validity as when you combine the results of studies carried out in different countries you end up with a very large sample size. This is a strength because large samples reduce the impacts of anomalous results caused by bad methodology or very unusual participants.
Another strength of the study is that it used a standardised methodology in the form of the Strange Situation as a procedure meant that a comparison could be made across cultures increasing the reliability.
What are the weaknesses of Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg 1988 study on differences in attachment types between cultures?
It has cultural bias, it uses the Strange Situation which was created and tested din the USA and assumes that behaviour has the same meaning in all cultures when in fact, cultural perception and understanding of behaviour differences greatly. The research is an imposed etic , it reflects the norms and values of American culture and lacks population validity.
The samples are unrepresentative of culture, the meta-analysis by Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg claimed to study cultural variation whereas, in fact, the comparisons were between countries not cultures. Within any county there are many different cultures each with different child-rearing practices. One sample might, for example over represent people living in poverty, the stress of which might affect caregiving and hence patterns of attachment. This means that comparisons between countries may have little meaning; the particular cultural characteristics and thus the caregiving styles of the sample need to be specified.
How has the role of the father changed in the last 100 years?
Traditionally fathers have played a minor role in child rearing.
Historically, fathers would go to work and provide resources while mothers took care of the children.
However, society has changed significantly.
What is the role of the father in child rearing?
Some researchers argue that men are not equipped to form attachments, both psychologically and socially.
Other researchers argue that fathers are not ‘caregivers’ and that they provide a ‘playmate’ role.
However, others argue that fathers can demonstrate sensitive responsiveness where they respond to the needs of their children.
What research evidence iso there suggesting that the role of the father is as a playmate?
Geiger 1996
What did Geiger 1996 study find out about the role of the father?
Research by Geigar 1996 found that fathers’ play interactions were more exciting in comparison to mothers’.
However, the mothers’ play interactions were more affectionate and nurturing.
What does the research by Geiger 1996 suggest about the role of the father?
This suggests that the role of the father is in fact as a playmate and not as a sensitive parent who responds to the needs of their children.
These results also confirm that the mother takes on more of a nurturing role.
What research is there suggesting that fathers are not to provide a sensitive and nurturing attachment?
Hrdy 1999
What was Hrdy 1999 study about the role of the father?
Hrdy 1999 found that fathers were less able to detect low levels of infant distress, in comparison to mothers.
These results appear to support the biological explanations that the lack of oestrogen in men means that fathers are not equipped biologically to form close attachments with their children.
What Hrdy 1999 suggest about the role of the father in the development of attachment?
Provides evidence that fathers are not able to provide a sensitive and nurturing type of attachment as they are unable to detect stress in their children.
It suggests that the role of the father to some extent is biologically determined and that a father’s role is restricted because of their biological makeup; however, as some fathers are able to form close attachments with their children this suggests that a softer view of determinism may be more appropriate.
What research suggests that fathers are able to form secure attachments with their children if they are in an intimate marriage?
Belsky et al 2009
What did the Belsky et al 2009 find about the role of the father in the development of attachment?
It found that males who reported higher levels of marital intimacy also displayed secure father-infant attachment, whereas males with lower levels of martial intimacy displayed insecure father-infant attachments.
What does Belsky et al 2009 suggest?
This suggests that males can form secure attachments with their children’ however the strength of the attachment depends on the father and mother relationship.
