Attachment AO3 Flashcards
Evaluation
Caregiver infant interactions filmed in a laboratory! (Strength)
- Other activity that might distract a baby can be controlled
- Using films= behaviour can be analysed later
- More than one observer can record data and establish inter-rater reliability of observations
- Behaviour is likely to be natural, high external validity
What is the benefit of filming behaviour?
It can be observed and analysed later to avoid missing key details.
Why is it hard to interpret a baby’s behaviour?
- young babies lack coordination and much of their bodies are immobile
- it is difficult to be sure whether a baby is smiling or passing wind
- difficult to determine what is happening from baby’s perspective
What is a further limitation of observing behaviour?
- It does not tell us its developmental importance
- Feldman points out that synchrony and reciprocity give names to patterns of behaviours
- may not be particularly useful in understanding child development as it does’t tell us the purpose of behaviours
Who contradicts Feldman’s observation and how?
Isabella
- Isabella found that interactional synchrony predicted the development of good quality attachment
How is research into caregiver-infant interaction socially sensitive?
It can be used to argue that when a mother returns to work soon after having a baby, this may risk their baby’s development
How does Schaffer and Emerson’s study have good external validity?
- Most of the observations were made by parents during ordinary activities and reported to the researchers
- Highly likely that participants behaved naturally
What is the issue with asking the mothers to be the observers?
- They were unlikely to be objective observers
- May have been biased in terms of what they noticed and what they reported
- may have misremembered or not noticed things
What is the problem with the measures Schaffer used to assess the asocial stage?
- Young babies have poor coordination and are fairly immobile
- if babies less than 2 years old felt anxiety they may have displayed this very subtly
- difficult for mothers to observe
How can Schaffer and Emerson’s stages of attachment be used in daycare?
- In asocial and indiscriminate day care is likely to be straight forward as babies can be comforted by any skilled adult
- Starting daycare may be problematic during the specific attachment stage
- use of daycare can be planned around the stages
How do researchers interested in different questions affect research into the role of fathers?
- Some want to understand the role of fathers as secondary attachment figures
- others are concerned with a PAF
- the former have tended to see fathers as behaving differently to mothers
- latter= take on a maternal role
- difficult to answer
Explain conflicting evidence into the role of the father
- Longitudinal studies have suggested that fathers as secondary AF’s have an important role in development, including play and stimulation
- If they had a distinctive role, children growing up in single-mother and lesbian families would turn out differently, but they don’t
- unclear if they do have a distinctive role
Is evidence really conflicting (role of the father)
- it could be that fathers take on distincitve roles in two parent heterosexual families
- parents in single-mother and lesbian families adapt to accommodate the role played by fathers
- when fathers are present they adopt a distinctive role but families can adapt to not having a father
Describe existing support for the concept of imprinting
- Regolin and Vallortigara
- chicks exposed to simple shape combinations that moved
- a range of shape combinations were moved in front of them and they followed the original most closely
- supports view that young animals are born with an innate mechanism to imprint
What is the issue with generalisability for Lorenz’s study?
- Mammalian attachment system is different and more complex than birds
- E.g mammals show emotional attachment to their young (2-way process)
How has imprinting explained human behaviour?
- Seebach suggested that computer users exhibit ‘baby duck syndrome’
- this is the attachment formed to their first computer operating system, leading them to reject others
How does Harlow’s research have real world value?
- It helped social workers and clinical psychologists understand that a lack of bonding experience may be a risk factor in child development
- they can intervene and prevent poor outcomes
What is the issue with generalisability in Harlow’s research?
- Rhesus monkeys are similar to humans than Lorenz’s birds
- all mammals share common attachment behaviours
- The human brain is still more complex
Explain ethical concerns regarding Harlow.
- long term distress to monkeys
- Called the mothers ‘iron maidens’ which is a medieval torture device
- knew that he was traumatising the monkeys
Explain how there is a lack of support from animal studies for learning theory
- Lorenz’s geese imprinted on the first moving object they saw regardless of food
- Harlow= monkeys sought after contact comfort despite both mothers dispensing milk
- others factors are more important than food
How do human studies not support learning theory?
- Schaffer and Emerson found that babies form their main attachment to their mother regardless of whether she fed them
- Isabella = high levels of interactional synchrony predicted the quality of attachment
How does social learning theory explain learning theory?
- Hay and Vespo suggest that parents teach children to love them by demonstrating attachment behaviours
- Reinforce loving behaviours by showing approval when babies display attachment behaviours
How could conditioning be involved in attachment?
- A baby may associate feeling warm and comfortable with the presence of a particular adult
- may influence their choice of their main attachment figure
Explain the validity of Bowlby’s theory.
- Monotropy lacks validity
- Schaffer + E found that although babies attached to one person at first, a significant minority formed multiple at the same time
- Although first attachment appears to influence later behaviour it may simply mean it is stronger and not different in quality from the child’s other attachment
How does the validity of monotropy challenge Bowlby?
- Means that Bowlby may be incorrect that there is a unique quality and importance to a child’s primary attachment
Explain how Brazelton supports the role of social releasers
- Observed that babies trigger interactions with adults using social releasers
- instructed the babies’ PAF to ignore social releasers
- babies became distressed and lay motionless
How does Bailey’s research support the internal working model?
- assessed attachment relationships in 99 mothers and their one year old babies
- measured the mothers’ attachment to their own primary attachment figure
- mothers with poor attachment to their own PAF were more likely to have poorly attached babies
How can genetics affect social behaviour?
- Genetic differences in anxiety and sociability affect social behaviour in babies and adults
- these differences could impact parenting ability
- Bowlby may have overstated the importance of the IWM
Describe the predictive validity of the strange situation
- A large body of research has shown that babies and toddlers assessed as secure tend to have better outcomes than others
- includes better achievement in school, less involvement in bullying
- Type B go on to have better mental health
- Resistant and avoidant have worst outcomes
What does Kagan suggest about the thing the strange situation measures?
Genetically influenced anxiety levels could account for variations in attachment behaviour in the strange situation and later development
- strange situation may not actually measure attachment
How was inter-rater reliability assessed in the strange situation?
- Bick tested IRR for a team of trained observers and found agreement on attachment type in 94% of cases
- high level of reliability may be because of controlled conditions
- and some large, easy to observe behaviours like proximity seeking
What does good IRR conclude about the strange situation?
We can be confident that attachment type assessed by the strange situation does not depend on subjective judgements.
Describe the generalisability of the strange situation
- The test may be culture bound
- Developed in Britain and the US
- Babies have different experiences in different cultures and this may cause a difference in responses to the strange situation
What did Takahashi suggest about being culture bound?
- Takahashi= babies displayed separation anxiety due to the unusual nature of the experience in Japan where separation is rare
What can we say about the people who conducted studies on cultural variation?
- Conducted by indigenous psychologists
- E.g Kroonenberg and Takahashi
- Many potential problems in cross cultural research can be avoided (misunderstandings of language, difficulty communicating, bias)
- very valid
How does confounding variables in findings affect meta-analyses?
(variation of culture)
- studies in other countries not usually matched for methodology
- simple characteristics like poverty and social class can confound results
- environmental variables may differ between studies (e.g size of the room, attractive toys)
What does looking at attachment behaviour in non-matched studies tell us?
cultural variation
They may not tell us anything about cross cultural patterns of attachment
What is imposed etic?
Occurs when we assume an idea or technique that works in one cultural context will work in another.
How does imposed etic affect cultural variation?
- In US and Britain a lack of affection on reunion may indicate avoidant attachment but in Germany this would be interpreted as independence rather than insecurity
- behaviours measured by the strange situation may not have the same meaning
What is another study that contains flawed evidence?
(bowlby)
- Goldfarb’s research on the development of deprived children in orphanages.
- had problems of confounding variables because the children had experienced early trauma and institutional care as well as prolonged separation
Explain how Bowlby confused deprivation and privation
Deprivation= refers to the loss of the primary attachment figure after attachment has developed
Privation= the failure to form any attachment in the first place
Rutter pointed out that the long term severe damage Bowlby associated with deprivation is actually privation
What does Bowlby’s confusion tell us about the effects of deprivation in development?
He may have overestimated the seriousness of the effects
What is the conflicting evidence for the 44 thieves study?
- Lewis looked at 500 young people and found no association between early separation and later psychopathy/ criminality
- More recent research has partially supported by showing that poor quality maternal care is associated with high rates of psychopathy in adults
How could romanian orphanage studies be used to improve conditions for children?
- Studying the romanian orphans has improved psychologists’ understanding of the effects of early institutional care and how to prevent the worst of these effects
- this has led to improvements in the conditions experienced by children in the care system
- care homes avoid having large numbers of caregivers for each child
What can we say about confounding variables in romanian orphanage studies?
- There is a lack
- Many orphan studies before the orphans became available to study
- Many children in orphanages exprienced varied degrees of trauma and it is difficult to disentangle the effects of neglect from those in care
- Romanian orphans had been handed over by loving parents who could not afford to keep them
- results were less likely to be confounded by other negative early experiences
How are the romanian orphan studies socially sensitive?
The results show that late adopted children have poor developmental outcomes
Results have been published while the children have been growing up, meaning that their peers may have lowered their expectations and treated the adopted children differently
Self fulfiling prophecy
How does evidence support attachment and later relationships?
- Reviews of evidence have concluded that early attachment consistently predicts later attachment, emotional wellbeing and attachment to own children
- The quality of early attachment predicts later development based on the strength of the relationship between attachment type and the aspect of later development
- Whilst insecure avoidant attachment conveys mild disadvantages for development, disorganised attachment is associated with later mental disorder
How does the Regensberg logitudinal study contradict links between early attachment and later development?
Followed 43 individuals from one year of age
At age 16 attachment was assessed using the adult attachment interview and there was no evidence of continuity
Shows that there may be other important factors
How do confounding variables affect research into early attachmetn studies?
Some studies do assess attachment in infancy which means that the assessment of early attachment is valid
However these studies may have validity problems because associations between attachment + later dev affected by CV’s
E.g parenting style may influence attachment quality and later dev, genetically influenced personality
