Attachment- AO1 Flashcards
What is attachment?
An emotional, loving and reciprocal tie between a child and caregiver
Involves seeking to gain and maintain a degree of proximity to object of attachment
Stressed on separation
Joy on reunion
What is reciprocity?
When infants coordinate the actions with caregivers an interaction flows both ways
Responding to parents’ behaviour
Matching actions
What is interactional synchrony?
Emphasis on emotional factors rather than behaviour
Parent’s speech and infants behaviour become synchronised–> direct response, mirroring
Sustain communication as if they are one person
What does interactional synchrony/symbolic exchnages result in?
Results in coordination of their social behaviour
What hypothesis did Melzoff develop after his research?
‘Like me’ hypothesis
Imitation is innate and understanding of other’s mental state is consequence
Reciprocity and interactional synchrony key for development
Who carried out observational research into stages of attachment?
Schaffer
What is the first stage of attachment?
Asocial (pre attachment)
What age is asocial attachment?
0-6 weeks
What is asocial attachment?
Similar responses to all people
No preference for parents
Preference for humans over non humans
What is second stage of attachment?
Indiscrimnate attachments
What age is indiscrimnate attachment?
6 weeks - 6 months
What is indiscriminate attachment?
Ability to distinguish between people
Comforted indiscriminately (no fear of strangers)
Stronger bonds with familiar adults develop
What is third stage of attachment?
Discriminate attachment
What age is discriminate attachment?
7-10 months
What is discriminate attachment?
One primary attachment figure
Separation anxiety when away from primary attachment
Fear of strangers
What is final stage of attachment?
Multiple attachments
What age is multiple attachments?
10 months onwards
What is multiple attachments?
Attachment with primary carer grows
Increased interest in developing bonds with others (e.g. grandparents, siblings)
What is a longitudinal method of research? (used in Schaffer and Emerson)
Gathers a singular group and takes a lot of measurements over a long time
Why do psychologists use animals to contribute to understanding of human behaviour?
Considered practical and ethical
Based on evolutionary theory
What are advantages of using animals?
Reduces demand characteristics due to lack of self awareness from animals
More controlled and easier to control
What are problems of using animals to contribute to understanding of human behaviour?
Animal rights, animals can’t give consent
Specieism
Cannot generalise from animal experiments to humans, extrapolation issues
What are the 2 explanations of attachment?
The Learning Theory
Bowlby’s Monotropic Theory
What are the two parts of the learning theory?
Classical conditioning
Operant conditioning
Who proposed classical conditioning?
John Watson
What is classical conditioning simple explanation?
Learning through association or linking things together
What is classical conditioning in attachment?
Baby will naturally react positively to food –> unconditioned stimulus
Repeated association with food and primary caregiver will become a conditioned stimulus –> basis of attachment bond
Associate caregiver with joy as have learnt they are associated with food then eventually caregiver alone provides happiness
What is operant conditioning (general)?
Focusses on importance of consequences (reward and punishment)
Rewarded behaviours repeated by individuals –> positive reinforcement
Behave in such ways to avoid negative outcomes –> negative reinforcement
Who linked operant conditioning and attachment?
Dollard and Miller (1950)
What is operant conditioning in attachment?
Baby’s reward for crying = food
Baby realises that crying is rewarded with food so is likely to repeat behaviour as it is positively reinforced
Baby will cry or seek to be with caregiver to receive the food
What is the primary caregiver’s role in operant conditioning?
Primary caregiver = secondary reinforcer
Caregiver alleviates hunger and is linked to reward
What is the primary reinforcer?
Food
What is the secondary reinforcer?
Caregiver
What is ‘cupboard love’ expression?
Refers to affection that is given purely to gain a reward
What is the psychodynamic approach?
Focusses on importance of early childhood relationships with parents
Abnormalities created if relationships not positive
What two approaches is Bowlby’s Monotropic Theory?
Evolutionary (biological)
Psychodynamic
What does Bowlby’s theory state?
That attachment is biologically pre-programmed into children to aid survival
Adaptiveness
Innate
Why is attachment good for both baby and caregiver?
Baby –> survival, food, love, relationship
Carer –> purpose, mental wellbeing, care for when elderly
What is adaptiveness?
Attachment is an advantageous trait as it enables us to survive better
How does Bowlby’s theory link to Lorenz?
Bowlby also thought that humans must develop attachments in a set time (critical period)
What did Bowlby say the critical period for attachment was?
Approx. up to 2.5 years of age
What did Bowlby claim happens if attachment is not formed or is broken within the critical period?
That attachment will never be formed correctly and will be too late for a normal attachment to ever form
Negative consequences for development and all future relationships
What is the sensitive period?
Bowlby’s revised, extended period of 5 years in which attachments can be formed
What are the psyhodynamic principles of Bowlby’s theory?
Emphasises the importance of relationship between child and one primary caregiveer during critical period
What does monotropy mean?
Infants form attachment with one main person (usually the mother)
Monotropic relationship supersedes all other’s in importance
What did Bowlby claim happens if mother-child bond was missing, incomplete or negative?
Lead to development issues for child –> delinquency, poor mental health, poor future relationships
Maternal deprivation hypothesis –> permanent and irreversible
What is the internal working model?
Bowlby’s claim that early attachments form a schema/blue print for all future attachments
Socialisation is acquired
What is the continuity hypothesis?
Idea that all future relationships will take on the qualities of the primary attachment relationship due to the schema guiding our relationship expectations and behavioural style
What are social releases?
Innate behaviours that infants emit which adults are biologically attuned
Crying, gripping, smiling, physical appearance
What did Bowlby say about multiple attachments?
Believed that other attachments were of minor importance compared to main attachment bond which should be mother
What did Schaffer and Emerson say about multiple attachments?
Equal importance
Attachments combine to help form a child’s internal working model
Babies form attachments with whoever responds sensitively to their needs
When did Schaffer and Emerson propose infants can form multiple attachments?
By 10 months old with wider family members
What is traditional view of fathers role in attachment?
Seen to play a minor role in parenting
Biologically unsuitable
Father went out to work and mother raised children
What did this traditional view of fathers create in society?
Cultural/social expectations that childbearing is stereotypically feminine
Deterred males from role even if they wanted to
What did Bowly claim about the role of the father?
Not possible for father to have role
Attachment bond created within critical period should be monotropic and with mother for normal development to take place
Father more likely to engage in physical active play and tends to be child’s preferred play companion
What does sosiety now claim about the role of the father?
That they can demonstrate sensitive responsiveness and can form string attachments
Now norm for mothers to have a job
Who was Mary Ainsworth?
Carried out naturalistic observations in Uganda
Wanted to develop a more valid and reliable way to test quality of attachment
Devised an assessment technique called the Strange Situation Classification to investigate how attachments may vary between children
What were the behaviours which were assessed in strange situation?
Willingness to explore
Separation anxiety
Stranger anxiety
Reunion behaviour
What were the 3 attachment types?
Secure
Insecure avoidant
Insecure resistant
What behaviour is recorded with secure attachment?
Separation anxiety –> some distress, normal
Stranger anxiety –> upset/wary, stranger able to provide some comfort
Reunion behaviour–> runs to mother, greets her enthusiastically, calm infant easily
Willingness to explore–> caregiver as secure base in unfamiliar room
What behaviour is recorded with insecure avoidant attachment?
Separation anxiety –> no sign of distress
Stranger anxiety –> plays normally with stranger present
Reunion behaviour–> little interest when mother returns
Willingness to explore–> confident explorer
What behaviour is recorded with insecure resistant attachment?
Separation anxiety –> intense distress
Stranger anxiety –> very wary of stranger, stays away
Reunion behaviour–> approaches mother, resists contact, pushes her away, cannot find comfort
Willingness to explore–> explores less, cries more
What is the caregiver sensitivity hypothesis?
Idea that less sensitive mothers who did not respond to infants needs and did not interact enough –> result in anxious, insecurely attached children
Based on upbringing/nuture determining adult personalities
What is ethnocentrism?
Using one’s own culture as benchmark to judge behaviour of those in other cultures
View that one’s own group is centre of everything against which all other groups are judged
What does ethnocentrism often lead to?
Overestimating importance and worth of people in own group
Underestimating importance and worth of people not I own group
Psychologists ignoring views and culture of another society when conducting research
What does ethnocentrism often lead to?
Overestimating importance and worth of people in own group
Underestimating importance and worth of people not in own group
Psychologists ignoring views and culture of another society when conducting research
What is predominant view in psychology?
White, male, mainly USA
Led to bias against other groups who share different values
What is imposed etic?
Used to describe act of using methods developed in one culture to test another culture where method may not actually be relevant, useful or valid
What is strange siuation link to ethnocentrism?
Issue of imposed etic with SS as tool to measure attachment
May make it appear that other culture are worse due to having more insecurely attached children than USA but actually due to different child-rearing practices
Judged against American standards
What are strengths of cross cultural research?
Removes cultural bias
Discovers differences between cultures
Reduces ethnocentrism of a theory as uses culturally diverse and wider sample
What are weaknesses of cross cultural research?
Time consuming
Expensive
Researchers may be subjective, language barriers, different cultures
Imposed etic –> results in invalid results
What is meta anyalysis?
Results from large number of studies that have focused on same hypothesis and same method combined together
Create an overall conclusion/comparison
Type of secondary data –> uses data not collected for purpose of study itself but exists already for another purpose
What are strengths of meta analysis?
Increases sample size so improves generalisability of findings
Less time consuming
Less expensive
Can identifiy trends across large number of studies
What are weaknesses of meta analysis?
Many studies used may have small sample sizes so not representative of target population
May not be existing studies available in certain areas
Cannot be sure studies were carried out in same way, unreliable, may be errors in original studies
What is deprivation?
When attachment which has been formed has been broken/lost in short term or long term (e.g. hospitalisation) or permanently (through death)
Bowlby –> harmful to a child’s development
What is Bowlby’s theory of maternal deprivation?
Due to importance placed on monotropic relationship for all future development and relationships, that if this mother-child bond was missing, incomplete or negative it would lead to development issues
What did Bowlby believe about effects of maternal deprivation?
Permanent and irreversible due to fixed window of critical/sensitive period
What did Bowlby believe were the possible effects of maternal deprivation on a child’s development?
Delinquency
Depression
Being an affectionless psychopath- lack of emotion/empathy
Social maladjustment- issues with interactions
Low IQ
Aggression
Dwarfism
What is privation?
Failure to ever form an attachment
Can be caused by extreme neglect where children are raised in isolation or by death of both parents and children being raised in institutions
What is institutionalisation?
Living arrangements outside of family/family home, results in either deprivation or privation
No opportunity to form monotropic attachment bond within critical period
Negative effects of deprivation and privation
Child adapts to rules and norms of institution, loss of personal identity due to deindividuation, can impair functioning
What are examples of institutions?
Children’s homes
Hospitals
Orphanages
Hostels
What are some of the specific effects of institutionalisation?
Low IQ
Delayed language development
Quasi-autsim
Dishinibted attachment
Disorganised attachment
Delayed physical growth
Impaired adult relationships
What is quasi-autism?
Poor communication
Poor socialisation
Lack of understanding other’s emotion
Lack of eye contact
What is disinhibited attachment?
Actively approaches, interacts and shows affection to unfamiliar adults
What is disorganised attachment?
Lacks strategy to deal with separation anxiety and behaves unpredictably
Why is the internal working model important?
Forms a schema/blueprint from the monotropic attachment to help form future relationships and healthy attachments
Aids survival if healthy attachment
What is the reactive attachment disorder?
Consequence of not developing schema of healthy relationships
No internal working model of relationships, child behaves inappropriately in relationship situations
Shy and withdrawn OR over friendly and attention seeking
What is a longitudinal study?
Take measurements over many years
Opposite of cross sectional
Looks at long term impacts, assessed without changing participants, no problem of individual differences
Take a lot of planning and time
Why are natural experiments the main source of information about the effects of privation?
Only way to research it as would be highly unethical to create these scenarios
Natural experiments all study of real problems, high in mundane realism
What is the continuity hypothesis?
Sees children’s attachment types being reflected in their later relationships
Continuity between early attachment and later relationships
Due to formation of internal working model- forms our expectations for all future relationships, schema/blueprint
What is an example of the continuity hypothesis?
A child whose first experience is of a loving relationship with a reliable and sensitive caregiver will assume that this is how relationships are meant to be
Will seek out functional relationships
What would happen to a child who had bad experiences of their first attachment?
Would seek out dysfunctional relationships (unconsciously)
Similar experience to first attachment
Less likely to have successful peer relationships
Less romantic relationships as an adult
