Attachment

Question 1

Define attachment

Answer 1

A close 2 way emotional bond between 2 individuals where each individual sees the other as essential for their own emotional security. Endures over time and serves to protect the infant.

Question 2

How can you recognise an attachment?

Answer 2

Proximity- people try to stay physically close to those they are attached to.

Separation distress- people are distressed when an attachment figure leaves their presence.

Secure- base behaviour - even when independent, we tend to make regular contact with our attachment figures. We regularly return to them so they are a base from which we explore.

Infant’s seek closeness and feel more secure when in presence of attachment figure.

Question 3

Define caregiver?

Answer 3

any person who provides care for the infant e.g. grandparent, parents

Question 4

Define infant

Answer 4

first year of a child’s life

Question 5

Define caregiver-infant interaction

Answer 5

communication between a caregiver and infant.

These form the basis of the attachment between the 2

Question 6

What is reciprocity?

Answer 6

caregiver- infant interaction. 2 way mutual process, each party responds to the other’s signals to sustain interaction (turn - taking).
Both caregiver and infants can initiate responses

Question 7

What is synchrony?

Answer 7

When a caregiver and infant reflect the actions and emotions of each other in a coordinated way

Question 8

When is a infant- father attachment formed?

Answer 8

secondary attachments form in 75% of infant;s at around 18 months.

Question 9

What is the Meltzoff and Moore (1977) experiment?

Answer 9

Brought mothers and infants together and looked for certain behaviours- observed behaviours response to certain actions and babies response.

Question 10

What experiment did Schaffer and Emerson use in 1964 to investigate attachment formation?

Answer 10

60 babies from glasgow, mostly from skilled working class families.
Separation anxiety measured by asking parents what protest behaviours babies did
Stranger anxiety measured- response to unfamiliar adults

• between 25 and 32 weeks of age c.50% of babies showed separation anxiety towards a specific adult- specific attachment, not necessarily one it spent more time with
• By 40 weeks, 80% had specific attachments
• 30% had multiple attachments

Question 11

What are the 4 stages in human attachment

(schaffer and Emerson’s 1964 stage model)?

Answer 11

stage 1 - indiscriminate attachment 0-2 months
No preference for any object/ people
Preference for social stimuli
Stage 2 - beginnings of attachment 2-4 months
Can distinguish familiar people from strangers
No stranger anxiety - comforted by anyone
Stage 3 - Discriminate attachment 4-7 months
separation anxiety begins
preference for one person (primary figure)
Stage 4 - multiple attachment 7+ months
discriminate attachments are formed with others
secondary attachment figure is often fathers

Question 12

Define imprinting

Answer 12

an innate readiness to develop a strong bond with the mother, which takes place during a specific time in the development.

If this doesn’t happen in a certain time it probably won’t happen.

Question 13

Define sexual imprinting

Answer 13

idea that imprinting can affect adult mate preferences. Animals choose a mate that is the same object they imprinted on.

Question 14

What experiment did Lorenz (1935) use to conclude imprinting in animals?

Answer 14

Aim- investigate attachment in geese
IV(1) - gosling raised from birth by mother
IV(2) - gosling raised by Lorenz from birth
DV- whether gosling followed Lorenz or mother
Results- gosling always followed first adult they saw.
Conclusion- there is a critical period just after birth when infants imprint on the first adult they come into contact with

Question 15

What experiment did Harlow use to study attachment in monkeys (1959)?

Answer 15

Aim- investigate attachment in monkeys
IV (1) - food on wire mother
IV (2) - food on cloth mother
IV (3) - stranger anxiety (scary robot/ new toys)
DV (1/2) - Time spent with each mother
DV (3) - secure base behavior and mother choice
Results- all monkeys spent longer with cloth mother, regardless of where food was.
Conclusion- infants seek comfort over food. Critical period for attachment, lack of mother resulted in abnormal development. Recovery only happened in first 3 months

Question 16

How long is the critical period?

Answer 16

2 years
imprinting doesn’t happen instantly in babies
If an attachment has not yet developed during this period then the child will suffer from irreversible developmental consequences e.g. reduced intelligence and more aggressive

Question 17

What is the behaviourist theory of attachment?

Answer 17

People are born as a blank slate and everything is explained in terms of our experience- all behaviour is learned through classical and operant conditioning

Question 18

What is the process of classic conditioning in attachment?

Answer 18

1) Food -> baby feels pleasure
Mother -> baby doesn’t responds
2) mother + baby -> baby feels pleasure
3) mother-> baby feels pleasure

Question 19

What is the process of operant conditioning in attachment?

Answer 19

If behaviour leads to pleasure it is repeated

Baby performs action (cries) -> baby receives reward (food) -> baby repeats action as reinforced.

Question 20

What is drive reduction?

Answer 20

when we feel discomfort, it creates a drive for us to reduce this

Question 21

What are primary and secondary reinforcers?

Answer 21

• when an infant is fed, the drive of hunger is reduced which produces pleasure.
• The food is a primary reinforcer
• the mother who supplied the food is associated with the food and so becomes a secondary reinforcer- infant becomes attached to mothers

Question 22

How does the SLT link into attachment?

Answer 22

• We might observe role models, with whom we identify being rewarded for§ caring behaviours
• The meditational process of modelling allows for vicarious reinforcement
• Imitation then results in direct reinforcement

Question 23

What is Bowlby’s mono tropic theory of attachment?

Answer 23

We form attachments because we learned to through natural selection and that it is essential for survival

Question 24

What is a social releaser?

Answer 24

Babies are born with a set of innate cute features and behaviours that encourage adult attention. these activate the innate adult attachment system.

These are:

• physical: baby face
• behavioural : cooing, crying ,gripping

Both mother and baby have an innate predisposition to become attached and social releasers trigger this

Question 25

What is meant by a critical period?

Answer 25

babies must become attached within 2 years, if they don’t attach here they have trouble forming attachments afterwards

Question 26

What is meant by monotropy?

Answer 26

the relationship the infant has with the mother is of special significance in their emotional development.

Question 27

What is meant by internal working model?

Answer 27

a child forms a mental representation of their relationship with their primary caregiver. This gives a child a model of what relationships are like- template for future relationships

Question 28

What is the continuity hypothesis?

Answer 28

individuals who are securely attached in infancy continue to be socially and emotionally competent. They are likely to have secure relationships as adults.

Question 29

Write 3 evaluative paragraphs about caregiver- infant interactions.

Answer 29

P - Interactional synchrony consistently correlated with attachment security - research support
E - Meltzoff (2005) developed a ‘like me’ hypothesis of infant development. He proposes that there is a connection between what the infant sees and and their imitation. Second, infants associate their own acts and underlying mental states. Third Infants project own internal experiences into others performing similar acts
E - This a theory of mind- understanding mental states
L - Shows kids know what others think and feel, and so conduct relationships

P - Failure to replicate Meltzoff & Moore
E - Koepke et al (1983) failed to replicate Meltzoff and Moore - this was because it was less carefully controlled
E - Marian et al (1996) replicated the study by Murray and Trevarthen and found infants can’t distinguish live from videotaped interactions. This suggests infant is not responding to mother - marian did acknowledge that this could be her procedure being wrong
L - Not replicable

P - Issues with studying infants
E - Babies face in constant motion, hard to see which is is general activity and which is specific imitated behaviours

E - However meltzoff and Moore filmed the babies and later asked an observer to judge the babies- this person had no clue what behaviour was being imitated
L -

Question 30

Write 3 evaluative paragraphs about Schaffer and Emerson

Answer 30

P - Stage theories do not account for individual differences
E - Doesn’t say how behaviour changes with age.Theory says development is inflexible. , In case of stage theory for attachment, it says normally single attachments must come before multiple attachments. In some situations and cultures multiple attachments are first,.
E - However in some cultures multiple attachments first may be seen as abnormal
L - Ecologically invalid

P - Unreliable self-report methodology
E - Some may be less sensitive to their infants’ protests. Some may want to be seen as good mother’s.

E - However 60 babies is a good sample and you can get some good data from it

L - creates systematic bias

P - Biased sample (class & historical context)
E - Working class background, from Glasgow and sample from 1960s.Women were expected to stay at home.
E - However now, women go out to work or cared for by others, dad can also be a carer. Number of stay at home dads has quadrupled over last 25 years (Cohn et al (2014). Different cultures may also be different.
L - Not generalisable

Question 31

Write 3 evaluative paragraphs about animal studies in attachment?

Answer 31

P - Lorenz - Research Support for imprinting
E - Research shows chickens exposed to yellow gloves as mother try to mate with glove in future- imprinting is permanent
E - however research has also shown that with experience, chickens learned to prefer mating with chickens
L - poor ecological validity

P - Harlow Shows food was not only driver of attachment
E- monkeys spent >18 a day with the cloth mother, other only for food
E - Applied to childcare. E.g. orphans given no emotional care. Harlow helped to reform foster system to help them develop properly
L - can be applied to the real world

P - Difficult to generalise to humans from animal models
E - Human children have spoken language and experience a different social environment to geese or monkeys.
E - highlights issue of biological determinism. Assuming behaviour with a evolutionary purpose will be identical in all animals ignores cognitive and emotional factors completely.
L - In order to generalise, researchers must consider both nature and nurture. Only then can valid models of human’s attachment be formed

Question 32

Write 3 evaluative paragraphs about the learning theory of attachment

Answer 32

P - It suggests that food is the key element in attachment is a limitation
E - Harlow (1959) shows Rhesus monkeys more attached to cloth mother …
E - Supported by emerson and schaffer as shows attachment is all kinds of scenarios
L - Oversimplified and ignores things like contact comfort

P - Based on animal studies
E - Skinner based his experiments on pigeons and rats. Behaviorists argue there’s no difference. All behaviour patterns are built from the same basic building blocks of stimulus and response.
E - however not all human behaviour is explained by conditioning. Non behaviourists claim attachment involves innate predispositions and mental activity that conditioning doesn’t explain
L - May lack ecological validity as present oversimplified human behaviour

P - Does not explain WHY attachment forms; only how
E - it can explain Schaffer and Emerson’s findings that infants are not always most strongly attached to the person who feeds them.
E - Bowlby’s Monotropic theory solves this issue…as it says why they form including the strengths, protection from harm and thus increased chances of survival
L - Bowlby offers a more holistic theory

Question 33

Write 3 evaluative paragraphs about Bowlby’s monotropic theory of attachment

Answer 33

P - Alternative explanation - temperament hypothesis, proposes infants innate behavior explains attachment (Kagan 1984)
E - infants with easy temperament are more likely to become strongly attached and vice versa. Supported by Belsky and Rovine (1987) found infants between 1 and 3 days old who had signs of behavioural instability were later judged to be insecurely attached.
E - However a suggestion by Belsky and Rovine and supported by research found mothers perception of infants temperament influenced mothers responsiveness
L -

P - Questioned whether it is crucial for survival
E - In our distant ancestors it was important e.g. monkeys babies attached to their bellies, humans don’t cling on
E - However when human infants start crawling ( 6 months) attachment is vital
L - good ecological validity

P - Does not explain how abused/neglected children can recover
E - Lorenz supports Bowlby - imprinting in geese (monotropic behaviour)
E - However Rutter(2010) calls the “critical” period a “sensitive” period instead through his romanian orphan study.
Sensitive period is when children are receptive to forming certain behaviours and characteristics, but can do stuff outside this,
L - sensitive period not a critical period

Question 34

What was Ainsworth’s strange situation?

Answer 34

Controlled observation to measure the security of attachment that a child display’s towards a caregiver. 100 middle class American infants and their mother’s took part.

Question 35

What were the 8 stages in Ainsworth’s strange situation?

Answer 35

1) mother and infant go into room, mother sits and infant on floor
2) stranger enters and talks briefly to mum
3) Stranger leans forward and tries to engage infant through play and talk
4) Mother leaves room-baby with stranger
5) mother returns and stranger leaves
6) mother leaves and infant is alone
7) stranger returns
8) mother re-enters and stranger leaves

Question 36

What is insecure avoidant attachment?

Answer 36

Type A- insecure- avoidant attachment (20% of children):
Explore freely and do not seek proximity or show secure base behaviour. They show little or no reaction when a caregiver leaves and do little to make contact when they return. Little stranger anxiety and do not require comfort at reunion stage.

Question 37

What is secure attachment?

Answer 37

Children explore happily but regularly go back to caregiver. Moderate separation and stranger anxiety. Require and accept comfort at reunion stage

Question 38

What is insecure resistant attachment?

Answer 38

Seek greater proximity than others and so explore less. Show huge separation/ stranger distress. Resist comfort when reunited.

Question 39

What is disorganised attachment?

Answer 39

As children:

• fears close proximity to abusive parents
• Mixture of avoidant and resistant or aggressive behaviours in proximity to parents
• Little or no sense of safety in relationships
• Inability to self regulate emotions.
• Seems dazed, dissociated or confused

As adults:

• Fears close proximity in relationships
• Fears showing vulnerability
• Extreme rage or anger in response to confrontation to threat
• Expresses little or no empathy with others
• little or no understanding of personal boundaries

Question 40

What was the Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg study (1988)?

Answer 40

Meta analysis of 32 studies of attachment behaviour. Studies examined over 2000 strange cases. Wanted to see inter/intra cultural differences.

Results- secure attachment most common in all countries, In western countries insecure avoidant was second best (eastern countries was insecure resistant.

Question 41

What is an individualist culture?

Answer 41

emphasise independence, individuality and autonomy at the expense of group goals, resulting in a strong sense of competition.

Question 42

What is a collectivist culture?

Answer 42

Emphasise group membership, interdependence and cooperation.

Question 43

What is the difference between separation adn deprivation?

Answer 43

Separation- child not in the presence of attachment figure: brief separations have no effect on development

Deprivation- child lose an element of the primary attachment figure’s emotional care-causes harm.

Question 44

What is the difference between monotropic theory and maternal theory?

Answer 44

Monotropic- why we from attachments

Maternal- what happens if you don’t form an attachment

Question 45

What is maternal deprivation?

Answer 45

Long term separation or loss of emotional care from the mother or mother substitute.

If attachment is broken or disrupted during critical period (2.5 years) the child will suffer irreversible long term consequences, risk continues up to the age of 5.

continuous care crucial for the child

Question 46

What are the effects of maternal deprivation>

Answer 46

Delinquency
Depression
Affectionless psychopathy

Question 47

What was Bowlby’s 44 thieves experiment (1944)?

Answer 47

Aim: provide evidence for maternal deprivation
Hypothesis: People with prolonged separation will be psychos.
Method: retrospective study, 44 matched pairs, 50% serious offenders and 50% under age 11.
-Unstructured interviews to provide detail about childhood
-IQ test
-Psychiatric assessment
Results:
-32% psychopaths (0% in control)(86% suffered early separation)
-20% depressed (30% depressed)
-less than 5% were normal
Conclusion: maternal deprivation

Question 48

What is an orphan?

Answer 48

child whose parents have either died or abandoned them at birth

Question 49

What was Romanian like between 1966 and 1989?

Answer 49

In 1966, president Nicolae Ceausescu incertisised Romanian women to have more children:
>5 got large tax cuts
>10 become heroine mothers
-many mothers could not afford children
In 1989, revolution overthrew Ceausescu
All the unwanted children were later found in government institutions. Experienced more than maternal deprivation

Question 50

What was the Rutter et al study (2011)?

Answer 50

English and Romanian adoptee (ERA) study
Aim: to test to what extent good care can make up for poor early experiences in institutes.

Hypothesis: The age at which an infant is adopted will affect how much they recover.

Method: 165 Romanian orphans adopted in Britain, 111 adopted before 2 adn the rest before 4. Control of 52 children adopted before 6 months.
Physical, cognitive and emotional development assessed at 4,6,11 and 15 years. Also interviewed teachers and parents.

Results:When arriving in Britain, half showed signs of mental retardation and majority severly malnourished 
Mean IQ:
6 months: 102
2 years: 86
4 years:77

Conclusion: adopted after 6 months showed disinhibited attachment

Question 51

What variables did Rutter not include in his study?

Answer 51

• lacked medicine and cleaning facilities
• overcrowded
• bedrooms infested with fleas and rats
• sexual/ physical abuse
• Rain would come in through the roof
• At 18 most orphans kicked out onto the streets

Question 52

What did Rutter conclude from his experiment?

Answer 52

Good after care can help infants recover from deprivation

, sensitive period instead of critical period

Question 53

Define institutionalism?

Answer 53

Effects of living in an institutional setting (outside of a family home) for long continuous periods of time. Often little emotional care.

Children adopt rules and norms of the institute that effect the infants

Question 54

What are the effects of institutionalisation?

Answer 54

Physical underdevelopment- Physically small, poor nourishment cause developmental dwarfism.

Intellectual under functioning/ low IQ- have a low IQ

Disinhibited attachment- form of attachment where they are equally friendly and affectionate towards strangers and people they know. Attention-seeking and clingy.

Poor parenting- grew up to have trouble parenting

Emotional functioning- affectionless psychopathy

Lack an internal working model- difficulty interacting with peers and forming close relationships

Quasi- autism- obsessional behaviour and may not understand social contexts

Question 55

Write 3 evaluative paragraphs about Ainsworth’s strange situation

Answer 55

P - Scientific method - very high inter-rater reliability
E - Ainsworth et al (1978) found almost perfect inter-observer reliability of .94, suggesting high agreement among different observers in terms of exploratory behaviour.

E - But low internal validity as in a controlled environment, so extraneous variables

L - Reliable method

P - Real-world applications - circle of security
E - Circle of security project teaches caregivers to understand their infant’s signals of distress and this project found an increase in infants classified as securely attached (from 32% to 40%)

E - This may be ethnocentric as Ainsworth only used 100 American middle-class, as some other cultures favour different attachment types

L - Cannot be generalised

P - Ainsworth needed to add a 4th type to explain all attachments
E - Main and Soloman (1986) analysed over 200 strange situation videotapes and put forward a fourth attachment type- insecure-disorganised (Type D)

E - These infants don’t conform to one of Ainsworth’s original attachment types, as they have a very strong attachment behaviour which is often followed by avoidant behaviour

L - this suggests Ainsworth’s original conclusion was too simplistic and do not account for all types of attachment

Question 56

Write 3 evaluative paragraphs about cultural variations (van Ijzendoorn)

Answer 56

P - Meta-analysis methodology
E - 32 meta analysis of 32 countries and concluded that some cultural similarities which influence how children are raised.

E - However, biased towards individualistic cultures, 18 studies were American with the next highest being 4
(holland)

L - Cultural bias, suggest low ecological validity

P - May actually be nation, not culture, that determines attachment type
E - Many different subcultures in a country, One study of Tokyo (urban)found a similar distribution of attachment type to western studies.

E - However a rural in Tokyo sample showed they were more insecure-resistant.

L - Shows more variation within cultures than countries- reductionism

P - Cultural bias in included countries
E - Rothbum et al(2000) looked at contrasts between American and Japanese cultures. Bowlby and Ainsworth proposed that infants who are more securely attached go on to develop better as adults. (they studied american infants and found secure attachments as best.)

E - However in some countries (usually eastern) more people are group orientated and therefore form multiple attachments sooner, and have a higher level of insecure- resistant
L - Cannot be generalised

Question 57

write 3 evaluative paragraphs about maternal deprivation

Answer 57

P - excludes individual differences- not all children affected in same way
E - Barrett (1997) found that securely attached children cope better with separation than insecurely attached children.

E - Furthermore, bowlby (1956) studied 60 kids being treated for TB, showed some children in TB group were more maladjusted (63%). Bowlby suggested kids who were securely attached dealt better and so individual differences had an impact.
L - not generalisable

P - Real-world applications - hospital and foster care
E - Before this research, children were separated from parents when they went to hospital. Visiting was discouraged and even forbidden. James Robertson (1952) filmed a 2 year old girl called Laura who is in hospital for 8 days, she is frequently distressed and begs to go home.

E - Furthermore, Economy/Crime benefits as there are less affectionless psychopathy as deprived children are likely to get help quicker and re

L -

P - Don’t know the real cause
E - other external variables, such as family conflict, parental income, education, etc. may have affected the behavior of the 44 thieves

E - Bolwby conducted the interviews himself- investigator bias. Theory never proved as based on correlation
L - Rutter (1972) pointed out he may have mixed up cause and effect with correlation- never proved

Question 58

Write 3 evaluative paragraph’s about institutionalisation (Rutter)

Answer 58

P - Deprivation not only factor in development, confounding variables
E - Romanian orphans faced a lot more than emotional deprivation. E.g. orphans had no medical help, nowhere to clean themselves. Rats and fleas, abuse etc.

E - Some orphans recovered more than others (Individual differences) due to things such as IQ or at what age they had been adopted

L -

P - Real-world applications - key-workers, social workers in schools/care system
E - Orphanages and children’s no avoid having a large number of caregivers and instead ensure that a much smaller number of people, one or two. This is called a key worker and they mean that children can develop normal attachments and help avoid disinhibited attachment.

E - This also has economic benefits as it means that more children can grow up to work healthily. Therefore the workers can pay tax and contribute to the government. Also, it is cheaper to prevent deprivation than to try and fix it

L - Therefore can be applied to the real world.

P - Longitudinal studies give extremely valid data
E - We can follow the participants and see how they change over time. Without such studies we may mistakenly conclude that there are major effects due to early institutional care. Longitudinal studies show the effects may disappear after a long time

E - Rutter studied a highly specific group, so his findings may not generalise well…

L -

Question 59

Write 3 evaluative paragraphs about the influence of early attachment on later life

Answer 59

P - Correlational research
E - It is possible that attachment types and later love styles are down to something else- such as innate temperament. An infant’s temperament affects the way their parents respond.

E - Furthermore, other causes of stable attachment types could be culture. Different cultures could favour different attachment types more and therefore later love life.

L - Research never proved

P - Methodological issues - retrospective self report
E - Adults always view childhood through rose tinted glasses. People’s recollection of their past is not always accurate.

E - However, longitudinal studies also support Hazan and Shaver’s findings. E.g. Simpson et al (2007) found that ppt’s who were securely attached as infants showed that securely attached infants were more popular. Longitudinal studies predict relationship’s in adult life and quite accurate
L -

P - Too deterministic
E - Hazan and Shaver said early experiences have a fixed effect on later life. Children securely attached at age 1 at doomed to face bad relationships. However researchers have found plenty f instances where ppts were experiencing happy relationships without being securely attached as a child

E - Other than early attachment, other causes of adult types might be… that adult relationships are guided by a self-verification process, tendency to seek others who confirm attachment type. Therefore adult secure relationships cause adult attachment type

L -

Question 60

What was Hazan and Shaver’s love quiz?

Answer 60

Aim: to test the effect of internal working model from childhood on adult relationships

Procedure: 620 rocky mountain news readers (Colorado)
structured questionnaire items investigating memory of attachment in adult and childhood

Findings: -56% secure avoidant, 25% avoidant and 19% resistant

• positive correlation between attachment type and adult experiences
• big difference in average relationship length (2x as long for secure)
• IWM from attachment type correlated with adult love beliefs

Question 61

What was concluded about the IWM, based on Hazan and Shaver?

Answer 61

• securely attached children are more popular
• poor parenting, based on bad IWM
• more likely to develop reactive attachment disorder (RAD) if not attached in critical period
• poorly attached children have poor adult relationships