Attachment Alevel Psychology Flashcards
Reciprocity definition
Behaviour is mimicked by baby during an interaction (EX smiling back)
Feldman (2007) Reciprocity
Reciprocity can be seen since 3 months. Supported by Meltzoff + Moore (1997) babys as young as 12 days showed signs of reciprocity
Interactional synchrony
How parent’s speech and infant behaviour becoms synchronised. Feldman (2007) It sevres as a critical role in development and outcomes for a child.
Isabella and Belsky (1991)
Caregivers with secure attachment would have more signs of synchrony compared to those with insecure relationships.
Stages of attachment was made by…
Schaffer and Emerson
Stages of attachment (4)
Asocial stage (first few weeks)
Indiscriminate stage (6 weeks to 7 months)
Discriminate stage (7-9 months)
Multiple attachment (10 months onward)
Animal studies of attachment: Harlow
Used baby monkeys to study attachment. He wanted to see if they valued food or comfort and warmth more (plain wire monkey with food, other monkey in cloth with no food) and then measured how long the baby monkeys stayed with each mother.
Harlow animal study findings
Findings concluded that they only went for food when needed and stayed with cloth mother for comfort for the remaining time.) This can be seen as unethical due to not being necessary. The monkeys also suffered emotional harm, fear and depression. Later caused the monkey’s to be harmful parents.
Animal studies of attachment: Lorenz
Helped with imprinting theories. He divided up gosling eggs and half of them when hatched saw him as their first moving object. The time when first hatched (he believed) was the critical period which was when they would imprint on the first moving object. 12–17-hour critical period after hatching. Imprinting and attachment was then thought to be an innate feature in animals.
Learning theory of attachment
Classical conditioning = Mother can be associated with food as they are consistently there each time a baby is fed in the first few months. This is a neutral stimuli.
Once the neutral stimuli which in this context is the mother present while the child is eating is consistently associated with an unconditioned stimulus and will eventually produce the same response.
The mother then becomes a learned conditioned stimulus and produces a conditioned response. This then results in the mother once seen by the infant gives the child a sense of pleasure which is a conditioned response.
LT of attachment EVAL
Strength:
Scientific and realistic
Weakness:
Reductionist, Harlow did research on humans, how can this be generalised?
Bowlby’s monotropic theory of attachment
Attachment is important for survival, this was done through natural selection. Infants are biologically programmed with innate behaviours to make sure attachment occurs in a critical period (the period of time where an infant makes an attachment.)
MONOTROPY - one primary attachment (mother usually)
Attachment definition (psychology)
Attachment = deep and enduring emotional bond between two people in which each seeks closeness to each other.
Ainsworth’s strange situation (1970) method
Assessed quality of attachment. 8 stages.
AInsworth’s strange situation stages (8)
1 - Enter playroom
2 - child is encouraged to explore
3 - stranger enters and tries to interact with baby
4 - mother leaves, stranger stays
5 - mother comes back, stranger leaves
6 - mother leaves
7 - stranger returns
8 - mother returns and interacts with child
Ainsworth and Bell findings SS
100 middle class american infants into 1 of 3 catagories (attachment types)
Findings were
70% secure
15% avoidant insecure
15% resistant insecure
EVAL strange situation
Strengths:
replicable as it is highly operationalised with criteria and catagories so it can be replicated
high inter-observer reliability
weaknesses
low population validity: only researched 100 middle class american infants, isnt representative of the whole world. the criteria was also based on american children and their values, so this will differ culturally.
Bowlby’s theory of maternal deprivation
A relationship with a mother figure is essential for a healthy psychological and emotional development.
Consequences of maternal deprivation
Inability to form attachments
Deliquency
Problems in cognitive development
Bowlby 44 thieves study (1944)
44 Thieves were compared with 44 Non-thieves from a delinquency centre. Bowlby collected data via interviews and questionnaires from the 88 juveniles and found that 17/ 44 thieves had experienced early prolonged separation from their mothers before 5 years.
Effects of institutionalisation on attachment
Children who are raised in these institutions often suffer from a lack of emotional care, which means that children are unable to form attachments.
Effects of early attachment on later relationships
According to Bowlby, early attachments influence the ability to form relationships later in adulthood. Bowlby suggested that the internal working model formed by a child becomes a template for future relationships and this predicts the continuity between early relationships with caregivers and later relationships in adulthood.
Bowlby’s theory of attachment
Attachment is innate, is needed for survival. Critical period (need to form attachment between 3-6 months like Lorenz) and needs to last for the first 2 years. Monotropic attachment, one main bond for survival. Usually the mother but not always. Internal working model, infant forms a mental representation of the relationship to be a template for later relationships.
Supoorting Bowlby research
Lorenz (1935) Definite critical period, Lorenz’s geese evolutionary theory of attachment and imprinting. It is innate.
Hazan + Shaver (1987) Positive correlation between attachment type and later love experiences.
