Attachment

Question 1

What happened with the Harlow-Harlow experiment?

Answer 1

The Harlow-Harlow experiment (1962) was a study on two infant monkeys who had two wire mothers, one of which lactated for the monkeys and the second which had a towel covering it to provide contact comfort. They put the monkeys in similar situations and children (being in a new place, being scared) and investigated whether it was just food that was needed for attachment.

Question 2

What did the Harlow-Harlow experiment find?

Answer 2

The monkeys sought contact comfort when put in new situations despite being raised with the lactating mother, this concluded that it was not just food that was necessary for forming attachments.

Question 3

What were the ethical issues of the Harlow-Harlow experiment?

Answer 3

The monkeys were uncared for properly and put in situations which caused harm, they found that the monkeys later in life found it harder to be a good parent and could not mate, while being volatile with other monkeys. They had both social abnormalities and sexual abnormalities.

Question 4

What are the 5 attachment behaviors?

Answer 4

• Proximity seeking
• Pleasure at reunion
• Stranger anxiety
• Separation protest
• Safe-base effect

Question 5

What are the 3 evaluation points of the Harlow-Harlow experiment?

Answer 5

The issue of confounding variables- There was a different variable involved which could have affected the results as the independent variable was that the mother was either cloth covered or not however the ‘mothers’ had different faces, as the contact comfort mother had a more attractive face that may have been why the monkey had a stronger attachment.

-Ethical issues - socially and sexually although the findings were significant as they allowed a deeper understanding for both infant and primate needs.

Using non human animals- There is an issue with using non-human animals in research as they generalize the findings and human behavior differs to that of non-human animals as they have a greater cognitive capacity and are conscious in their decision making skills.

Question 6

What did Lorenz (1939) do?

Answer 6

He took gosling eggs split them in 1/2 (one experimental and one control) and hatched them in an incubator and they followed him everywhere upon seeing him first. He then further researched imprinting by putting them with the control with the mother, they showed no interest and he noted that there was a critical period for imprinting to occur.

Question 7

What is the critical period as suggested by Lorenz?

Answer 7

2 days

Question 8

Evaluate Lorenz’s study.

Answer 8

Strength - Guiton found chicks imprinted in tubber gloves as they were what they were exposed to when feeding and found there is not a predisposition to imprint on a specific type of object but whatever moving thing the animal sees first.

Criticism- Further research by Guiton found he could reverse the imprinting on those who tried to mate with gloves as early imprinting affects reproductive behaviour by exposing them to their species (Lorenz said it was irreversible)

Question 9

What is learning theory?

Answer 9

That behaviour is learnt and food is the basis of attachment.

Question 10

What is classical conditioning?

Answer 10

Ehen we associate an unconditioned response with a neutral stimulus

UCS - UCR
NS + UCS - UCR
When there is an association it becomes a conditioned stimulus and conditioned response

Question 11

What is operant conditioning?

Answer 11

Explains behaviour through consequences

• reward - positive reinforcement
• removal of unpleasant consequences - negative reinforcement

Dollard and Miller applied this to attachment - attachment can be seen as the result of what caregivers can provide

Question 12

Evaluate learning theory.

Answer 12

Criticism

• Harlow (but issues using non-human animals)
• It can explain some aspects of attachment - infants do learn through association and reinforcement but food not necessarily the main reinforcer. Instead it is the attention and responsiveness from a caregiver - it may not provide a complete explanation but it still has some value.
• Alternative explanations - Bowlby’s monotropy theory - explains why and how attachments form. It offers a more complex explanation.

Question 13

What is Bowlby’s monotropy theory?

Answer 13

• Attachment is innate
• The continuity hypothesis
• One attachment is significant (monotropy)
• There is a critical period for attachment formation (3-6months most likely but can go up to 2 1/2 years)
• Provides a template for later relationships (internal working model)
• Evolutionary explanation
• Babies have social releasers which facilitate attachments forming (smiling)

Question 14

Evaluate Bowlbys monotropy theory

Answer 14

It should be a sensitive period rather than a critical period as Bowlby suggested if the infant did not form an attachment but Rutter et al found it was only true to an extent, it was not impossible.

Is attachment adaptive? Ancestors needed infants to attach from birth, Bowlby suggested 3 months as late for keeping infants safe but its more important from 6 months when the infant starts crawling.

Kagans temperment hypothesis. innate emotional personality more like to be strong attached if their easy to interact with, research that those difficult are insecurely attached.

Question 15

What is Bowlby’s continuity hypothesis?

Answer 15

A hypothesis which suggests that the internal working model gives the child of others as trustworthy and themselves as loveable.

Question 16

Evaluate Bowlby’s continuity hypothesis

Answer 16

Hazen and Shaven carried out “the love quiz” on 600 participants and asked them to give info about early childhood attachments. Those with anxious-avoidant types did not believe in love and thought a happy relationship was not needed to enjoy life. Those with a strong relationship with childhood and adult relationships described others as trustworthy and themselves as loveable.

Zimmerman questioned it in a longitudinal study of 44 children assessing 12-18 months then again 16 years later on life events, suggests childhood attachments don’t predict attachments in adolescence but life events

Question 17

What is the strange situation?

Answer 17

A tool for measuring attachment by Mary Ainsworth. Consists of 8 stages 2-3mins each and is a controlled laboratory observation.

Infant with parents, stranger entering, carer leaving, carer coming back.

Observe infants reaction to seperation/reunion and the strangers presence
Done on infants ages 12-18months.

Key Observations: whether there is separation protest when parent leaves, stranger anxiety when stranger enters, how they react at reunion.

Question 18

What did the strange situation find?

Answer 18

70% secure attachments
20% insecure-avoidant attachments
10% insecure-resistant attachments

Question 19

What is a secure attachment?

Answer 19

A strong bond between infant and caregiver, the infant shows distress at separation but is easily comforted when they are reunited with caregiver

Question 20

What is insecure-avoidant?

Answer 20

The infant avoids all social interaction - they show little response when the carer leaves and returns

Question 21

What is insecure-resistant

Answer 21

The child seeks and rejects attention from the carer e.g. distress at separation but resists at reunion

Question 22

Evaluate the strange situation

Answer 22

Strength- a reliable measure of attachment - Main, Caplan and Cassidy assessed infant in the strange situation. before 18months with cater then again at 6 years. 100% of securely attached infants remained that way, 75% of avoidant babies remained. However Melhuish argued the differences occurred due to changes in care

Limitation- Does not have ecological validity as in an artificial setting which may change participants behaviour. Bronfrenbrenner found infants show stronger attachments types in a lab. Although Smith and Noble argued strange situation mimicked natural situations like being with a babysitter.

• Does not have cross cultural validity as it was devised in the USA a westernised culture so may have a different meaning to a child from a different culture. If Ainsworth assumed that the SS can be applied to all cultures they would be accused of imposed on etic. Although SS is the most widely used tool for measuring attachment.

Question 23

What is Ainsworth’s maternal sensitivity hypothesis? And evaluate

Answer 23

That a mother’s sensitivity to an infants needs determines how strong the attachment is. This came as a result of the strange situation.

Raval argued that it was maternal reflective functioning - the understanding of the infants needs.

Question 24

What is a culture?

Answer 24

All the rules, customs and morals and ways of interacting that bind together members of a society

Question 25

What is a sub-culture?

Answer 25

A group within a country that although it shares many dominant cultures characteristics it may have different characteristics too.

Question 26

What did Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg do?

Answer 26

Conducted a meta-analysis on 32 studies in 8 different countries looking into inter-cultural differences (differences between cultures) and intra-cultural differences (differences within the same culture)

Question 27

What did Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg find?

Answer 27

Intra-cultural differences were 1.5x greater than the variation between cultures and secure attachment was the most common classification in every country.

Question 28

What is meta-analysis?

Answer 28

When a researcher gathers multiple pieces of data from precious studies and analyse the findings.

Question 29

Evaluate Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenbergs meta-analysis

Answer 29

Strength- Meta-analysis has a wide range, one overall picture from a vast amount of data.

Limitation- Meta analysis means the research was all carried out by different people so they are conducted in a slightly different way so it is not a fair comparison.

Issues with cross cultural research - they all use the SS which may not be a valid tool for all attachment across cultures. It may seem as though Japanese children are insecurely attached according to western criteria - but they may be securely attached by Japanese criteria.

May not have been comparing cultures but instead countries - they compared Japan with the US, within each country there are many different sub-cultures and each may have a different childcare practice. (Takahashi vs findings from urban Tokyo). Caution needs to be exercised when using the term ‘cultural variations’.

Question 30

What happened in Takahashi’s study?

Answer 30

He used the strange situation to study 60 middle class Japanese infants, they showed no evidence of insecure-avoidant and high rates of insecure-resistant attachments. The response was so extreme that for 90% of the infants of the study the study was stopped when they were left alone.

Question 31

What in the Grossman Grossman study?

Answer 31

Found they were more likely to be classified as insecurely attached than securely attached, may be due to different childrearing practices - may not engage in proximity-seeking behaviours and therefore appear to be insecurely attached.

Question 32

What criticisms can you raise about Takahashi’s study?

Answer 32

Ethical issues - caused infants major distress. 
Only used middle class people - sample bias potentially and can't be generalised to the rest of Japan - another study in the urban Tokyo found similar findings as the rest of Europe.

Question 33

What is Bowlby’s theory of maternal deprivation?

Answer 33

Focuses on importance of a continuous relationship, particularly before the child is 2 and a half. Relationships that are discontinuous disrupt the development and lead to emotional disturbance. Long term negative effects on their social, emotional and intellectual development, can lead to affectionless psychopathy.

Question 34

What happened in the study the 44 thieves?

Answer 34

The participants were 88 children ranging from 5 to 16. 44 were children who had been referred to the clinic because of stealing (16 of which were identified as affectionless psychopaths) and the other 44 were a control group. Bowlby interviewed them and their families. He found 86% of the affectionless thieves had experienced separation, 17% of the other thieves and 4% of the control group.

Question 35

Evaluate Bowlby’s theory of maternal deprivation.

Answer 35

Support from the 44 thieves study.

etc.

Question 36

What did the Robertson’s do?

Answer 36

Carried out a number of naturalistic observations between 1948-52 and one of the children studies was john who was left whilst his mother was in hospital having a baby, the nurses spent more time with demanding children and John was left out, his behaviour changed then changed again when the separation neared its end. They suggested the nursery should have separated him from the aggressive children and spent more time with him.

Question 37

What did Rutter and Sonuga-Barke do?

Answer 37

Used 165 Romanian children during their early years, 111 were adopted before 2yrs old and 54 were adopted by the age of 4. Their physical, cognitive and social development was tested at 4,6,11 and 15. This was compared with 54 English children who were adopted before the age of 6 months. Their progress was behind that of the English adoptees and were classified as mentally retarded at age 2 and some caught up. Later studies found that those adopted after the age of 6 months had significant deficits such as disinhibited attachment and problems with peer relationships.

Question 38

What is disinhibited attachment?

Answer 38

A child who does not discriminate between anybody in seeking an attachment figure, so they display over-friendliness and attention seeking behaviours.

Question 39

Evaluate Rutter and Sonuga-Barke.

Answer 39

Real life application of research - improved care of children in institutions, children now adopted asap to include sensitive period for attachment to occur. A study in 1980 found adopted infants and mothers (with early adoption) were as securely attached as non-adopted controls.
Strength of longitudinal studies - allows us to see long-term effects (short-term may disappear over time with high quality care), shown we should not assume institutional care leads to negative effects.
Issues of confounding variables - orphans had experienced malnourishment, lack of cognitive stimulation and bad conditions - could have been a combination of influences which impacted on their development, not just deprivation.

Question 40

What are the other studies of Romanian orphans?

Answer 40

Le Mare and Audet - used 36 Romanian orphans who were adopted in Canada and a control group, measured physical growth and heath. Found that the effects of insititutionalisation can be recovered from, the Romanian orphans were smaller at 4 1/2 than the control but the difference disappeared at the age of 10 1/2.

Question 41

What did Hazan and Shaver do?

Answer 41

A correlational into Bowlby’s internal working model, printed a quiz in a local publication which asked about current attachments and childhood attachments. Findings were 56% secure attachment, 25% insecure-avoidant and 19% insecure resistant. A positive correlation was found between attachment type and love experienced, securely attached participants described their experiences as happy and trusting and also intended to have a positive internal working model.

Question 42

What is the internal working model?

Answer 42

Template for future attachment - depends on childhood friendships, poor parenting, romantic relationships and mental health.

Question 43

What are the effects of institutional care on emotional development?

Answer 43

Disinhibited attachment (Rutter and Sonuga-Barke)
Physical underdevelopment (deprivation dwarfism)
Intellectual underdevelopment
Poor parenting (Harlow)

Question 44

Criticism of Hazen and Shaver

Answer 44

Can’t establish cause and effect because it is a correlation - relationship not a correlation

Uses retrospective data

Socially sensitive data - social desirability bias in self reports

Question 45

What behaviours are influenced by the IWM

Answer 45

Childhood friendships - Sroufe
Poor Parenting - Harlow
Romantic relationships - Hazen and Shaver
Mental health - Disinhibited attachment (Rutter and Sonuga Barke) and Reactive attachment disorder (Can’t make relationships)