attachment

Question 1

What is attachment?

Answer 1

an emotional bond between two people. It’s a two way process that endures over time. It leads to certain behaviours like clinging and proximity- seeking, and serves the function of protecting the infant.

Question 2

What is a caregiver?

Answer 2

any person who is providing care for a child, such as parent, grandparent, sibling

Question 3

What is interactional synchrony?

Answer 3

it is when two people interact they mirror what the other is doing in terms of their facial and body movements

Question 4

What is reciprocity?

Answer 4

responding to an action of another with a similar action

Question 5

What is imprinting?

Answer 5

an innate readiness to develop a strong bond with the mother which takes place during a specific time in development.( most likely the first few hours after birth/hatching.)

Question 6

what are the 3 stages of attachment?

Answer 6

indiscriminate attachment
beginnings of attachment
discriminante attachment

Question 7

What is separation anxiety?

Answer 7

the distress shown by an infant when separated from his/her caregiver

Question 8

What is stranger anxiety?

Answer 8

the distress shown by an infant when approached or picked up by someone who is unfamiliar

Question 9

Who is the primary caregiver?

Answer 9

the person who has formed the closest bond with a child

Question 10

What is multiple attachment?

Answer 10

having more than one attachment figure

Question 11

What are cultural variations?

Answer 11

the way that different groups of people vary in terms of their social practices and the effects these practices have on development and behaviour.

Question 12

What is deprivation?

Answer 12

the loss of emotional care that is normally provided by a primary caregiver.

Question 13

what does Bowlby’s theory of maternal deprivation focus on?

Answer 13

how the effects of early experiences may interfere with the usual process of attachment formation

Question 14

what did bowlby think deprivation in a critical period could lead to?

Answer 14

delinquency
depression
affectionless psychopathy

Question 15

what is type A attachment?

Answer 15

insecure avoidant attachment

Question 16

what is type B attachment?

Answer 16

secure attachment

Question 17

what is type C attachment?

Answer 17

insecure-resistant attachment

Question 18

what are the steps of classical conditioning of attachment?

Answer 18

UCS (food) —- pleasure (UCR)
NS (mother) —- no response

NS and UCS paired
NS now CS —- CR(pleasure)

Question 19

what is secure attachment?

Answer 19

it describes infants that are comfortable with social interaction and intimacy

Question 20

What is insecure avoidant?

Answer 20

it describes those infants who tend avoid social interaction and intimacy with others

Question 21

What is insecure resistant attachment?

Answer 21

describes infants who both seek and reject intimacy and social interactions

Question 22

What is the critical period?

Answer 22

a biologically determined period of time, during which certain characteristics can development

Question 23

What is internal working model?

Answer 23

a mental model of the world which enables individuals to predict and control their environment

Question 24

What is monotropy?

Answer 24

the idea that the one relationship that the infant has with his/ her primary attachment figure is of special significance in emotional development

Question 25

What is a social releaser?

Answer 25

a social behaviour or characteristic that elicits caregiving and leads to attachment

Question 26

What is the continuity hypothesis?

Answer 26

The idea that emotionally secure infants go on to be emotionally secure, trusting and socially confident adults.

Question 27

What is institutionalisation?

Answer 27

the effect of institutional care. Specifically how much time spent in an institution such as an orphanage can affect the development of children.

Question 28

What are the three types of Attachment that ainsworth found?

Answer 28

insecure-avoidant attachment
insecure-resistant attachment
secure attachment

Question 29

What is the strange situation?

Answer 29

A controlled observation designed to test attachment security.

Question 30

Who led the study the study of a group of Romanian orphans since the early 1990s called the ERA (English and Romanian Adoptees)?

Answer 30

Michael Rutter and Sonuga- Barke

Question 31

What was the procedure of the ERA study?

Answer 31

165 Romanian kids who spent their early lives in Romanian institutions.
111 who were adopted before the age of two
54 were adopted before the age of 4
adoptees test at regular intervals (ages 4, 6, 11 and 15) to assess their physical cognitive and social development.
interviews were conducted with parents or teachers.
progress compared to a control group of 52 british children adopted before the age of six months

Question 32

What were the findings of the ERA study?

Answer 32

The romanian orphans were behind the british counter- parts on all measures of physical, cognitive and social development.
Some were smaller, weighed less and were classified as mentally retarded.
By the age of four some had caught up with their british counterparts.
This was true for almost all the romanian children adopted before the age of 6 months.
Significant deficits remain in a substantial minority of individuals who had experienced institutional care to beyond the age of six months.

Question 33

What are the effects of institutionalisation?

Answer 33

Low physical development - physically small.
Intellectual underfunctioning - cognitive development also affected by emotional development.
Disinhibited attachment - a form of insecure attachment were children don’t discriminate between people they choose as attachment figures. They’ll treat near strangers with inappropriate familiarity.
Poor parenting - supported by Quinton et al (1984) who compared 50 women raised in institutions to 50 women raised at home. When the women were in their 20s it was shown that the ex-institutional women were experiencing extreme difficulties functioning as parents. E.g more of the ex-institutional women had children who had spent time in care.

Question 34

Describe the key study: Lorenz (1935)

Answer 34

Procedure: he took a clutch of gosling eggs and divided them into two groups. One group was left with their natural mother while the other eggs were placed in an incubator. When the incubator eggs hatched the first living (moving) thing they saw was Lorenz and they soon started following him around. To test this effect of imprinting Lorenz marked the two groups to distinguish them and placed them together; they had become imprinted on him. Both Lorenz and the natural mother were present.

Question 35

Describe the findings of Lorenz’s study

Answer 35

The goslings quickly divided themselves up, one following their natural mother and the other following Lorenz. Lorenz’s group showed no recognition of their natural mother. Lorenz said that imprinting is restricted to a very definite period of the young animal’s life (the critical period). If a young animal is not exposed to a moving object they will not imprint. Lorenz did observe that imprinting to humans doesn’t occur in some animals e.g curlews will not imprint on a human

Question 36

What are the long-lasting effects Lorenz noted?

Answer 36

the process is irreversible and long lasting. He describe that one of the geese who had imprinted on him, (Martina) used to sleep in his bed every night.
He also noted that this early imprinting had an effect on later male preferences, called sexual imprinting. Animals (especially birds) will choose to mate with the same kind of object upon which they were imprinted

Question 37

Describe Harlow’s research.

Answer 37

Procedure: Harlow created two wire mothers each with a different “head”. One wire mother was wrapped in soft cloth. 8 infant rhesus monkeys were studied for a period of 165 days. For four of the monkeys the milk bottle was on the cloth-covered mother and on the plain wire mother for the other four. During that time measurements were made of the amount of time each infant spent with the two different “mothers” Observations were also made of the monkey infants’ responses when frightened by, e.g a mechanical teddy bear.

Question 38

What were Harlow’s findings?

Answer 38

All 8 monkeys spent most of their time with the cloth covered mother whether or not this mother had the feeding bottle. The monkeys who fed from the wire mother only spent a short amount of time getting milk and then returned to the cloth-covered mother.
When frightened, all the monkeys clung to the cloth mother, and when playing with new objects the monkeys often kept one foot on the cloth mother seemingly for reassurance.
These findings suggest that infants don’t develop an attachment to the person who feeds them but to the person offering contact comfort

Question 39

Describe indiscriminate attachment

Answer 39

it’s the first stage of attachment. Happens from birth until about two months. Infants produce similar responses to all objects, whether they are animate or inanimate. Towards the end of this stage infants are beginning to show a greater preference for social stimuli, e.g smiling face. During this time reciprocity and interactional synchrony play a role in establishing the infants relationships with others.

Question 40

Describe the beginnings of attachment.

Answer 40

1. It’s the 2nd stage of attachment.
2. happens at around the age of four months infants become more social.
3. They prefer human company to inanimate objects and can distinguish between familiar and unfamiliar people. However they’re still relatively easily comforted by anyone, and don’t yet show stranger anxiety.
4. The most distinctive feature of this phase is their enjoyment of being with people.

Question 41

Describe discriminate attachment

Answer 41

Happens when the infant is about 7 months old. The infant shows separation anxiety. They also show especial joy at reunion with that person and are most comforted by this person. They are said to have formed a specific attachment to one person, their primary attachment figure. At around the same time infants start to exhibit stranger anxiety.

Schaffer and emerson found that the primary attachment was not always formed with the person who spent most time with the child. They observed that intensely attached infants who were poorly attached had mothers who failed to interact. Thus they concluded that it is quality of the relationship not quantity, that matters most in the formation of attachment.

In 65% of the children the first specific attachment was to the mother, and in a further 30% the mother was the first joint object of attachment. Fathers were rarely the first sole object of attachment (3%) but 27% of them were the joint first object.

Question 42

What is the learning theory?

Answer 42

The name given to a group of explanations, which explain behaviour in terms of learning rather than any inborn tendencies or higher order thinking

Question 43

Describe the strange situation

Answer 43

Procedure: The research room is a novel environment, a 9x9 foot space often marked off into 16 squares to help in recording the infant’s movements.
The procedure is made up of 8 episodes, each designed to highlight certain behaviours. The key feature of these episodes is that the caregiver and stranger alternately stay with the infant or leave. This enables observation of the infant’s response to:
1. separation from the caregiver (separation anxiety)
2. reunion with the caregiver (reunion behaviour)
3. response to a stranger (stranger anxiety)
4. the novel environment, which aims to encourage exploration and thus tests the secure base concept

Question 44

What were the 8 episodes of the strange situation?

Answer 44

1. parent and infant play (no behaviour assessed)
2. parent sits while infant plays (use of parent as secure base)
3. stranger enters and talks to parent (stranger anxiety
4. parent leaves, infant plays, stranger offers comfort if needed. (separation anxiety)
5. parent returns, greets infant, offers comfort if needed, stranger leaves (reunion behaviour).
6. Parent leaves, infant alone (separation anxiety)
7. stranger enters and offers comfort (stranger anxiety)
8. Parent returns, greets infant, offers comfort. (reunion behaviour).

Question 45

What were the findings of the strange situation?

Answer 45

She found three main patterns of behaviour:
Type A insecure avoidant - kids who show little response to separation and don’t seek the proximity of their caregiver on reunion. if infant is picked up shows little/ no tendency to cling or resist being put down. These children are happy to explore with or without the presence of their caregiver. Also characterised by high levels of anxiousness.

Type B - Secure - not likely to cry if the caregiver leaves the room and shows some distress when picked up by a stranger. When feeling anxious they seek close bodily contact with their caregiver’s side prematurely.

Type C - insecure resistant - responds to separation with caregiver with immediate and intense distress, and behave similarly towards strangers. On reunion, such children display conflicting desires for and against contact; they may angrily resist being picked up while also trying other means to maintain proximity.

Question 46

Describe the multiple attachments?

Answer 46

very soon after the main attachment, is formed, the infant also develops a wider circle of multiple attachments depending on how many consistent relationships he/she has