Attachment - Done Flashcards
What is attachment?
A deep strong emotional bond between an infant and its primary caregiver
What is reciprocity?
- Turn-taking during an interaction
- Infants send out alerts phases through facial or vocal expressions showing they are ready for interaction
- Interaction flows both ways
What is interactional synchrony?
- Interactions and emotions between caregiver and infant ‘mirror’ each other
- Act as if they were one person
What was the aim of Meltzoff and Moore 1977 experiment?
To investigate interactional synchrony
What was the Procedure of Meltzoff and Moore 1977 experiment? (caregiver interactions)
- Researcher sat in front of a 12-21 day old infant producing facial expressions such as mouth opening, tongue protrusion etc
- Infants behaviour was videotaped and played to independent observers who recorded the behaviour they saw
What was the findings of Meltzoff and Moore 1977 experiment? (caregiver interactions)
Infants imitated adults facial expression and hand movements
What are the strength of caregiver-infant interactions?
- ## Supporting evidence (Tronicks research mother stops responding)
What are the weaknesses of caregiver-infant interactions?
- Don’t occur in all cultures (Kenyan mothers)
- Difficulties with reliably testing infant behaviour (infant conscious of movement?)
What was the aim of the Schaffer and Emerson experiment
To investigate the formation of early attachments
What was the procedure of the Schaffer and Emerson experiment
- 60 infants from working class homes in Glasgow studied
- Babies and their mothers visited every month for the 1st year and then once at 18 months
- Observation conducted in homes and interviews with mothers
What was the findings of the Schaffer and Emerson experiment
The researchers found evidence hat attachments develop in 4 stages
What are the 4 stages of attachment according to Schaffer and Emerson?
- Asocial
- Indiscriminate
- Discriminate
- Multiple
What occurs at the asocial stage of attachment?
- Form attachments with anyone
- Prefers humans over toys
What occurs at the indiscriminate stage of attachment?
- Can tell people apart
- Stronger bonds with familiar people
- No fear of strangers
What occurs at the discriminate stage of attachment?
- Separation anxiety
- Distress with stranger
- They have strong reunion behaviour with PCG
What occurs at the multiple stage of attachment?
- Attachment with PCG grows
- Form attachments with other people
- Around 5 strong attachments
What was the conclusion of Schaffer and Emerson experiment?
There are clear stages of attachment and the most important factor in forming attachments is those who plays and communicates with the infant not who feeds them.
What is a strength of Schaffer and Emmersons stages of attachment?
- High ecological validity (in own homes)
What is a weaknesses of Schaffer and Emerson stages of attachment?
- Biased, unrepresentative sample (all middle class from Glasgow)
- Asocial stage difficult to test (not enough observable behaviour)
What is Bowlby’s view in multiple attachments section?
- Infants have a special and unique bond to one PCG (monotropic theory)
- Attachments to other people are different in quality to that of the primary attachment figure - secondary attachments
- There is a hierarchy of attachment figures
What is Rutters view in the multiple attachments section?
- All attachments are equivalent
- Infants can form multiple attachments that are the same in quality as the main attachment figures attachment
- Attachments are integrated to produce the infants attachment type
- Different attachments are formed for different reasons e.g play, food etc
What is the strengh of multiple attachments?
- Supporting evidence
- Schaffer and Emerson found that 31% of infants at the age of 18 months had 5 or more attachments and only 13% were attached to one person
- Increases validity of multiple attachments
What is the weaknesses of multiple attachments?
- Difficulty measuring multiple attachments
- Schaffer and Emerson used behaviours such as separation anxiety or smiling as indicators but infant show this with playmates
- May not be reliable in evidence for multiple attachments
Why does Schaffer and Emmersons study support the idea of attachments with fathers?
75% of infants had formed an attachment with they father by 18 months
Why may a father be a secondary attachment figure in regards to biological factors?
Males have low levels of hormones such as oestrogen and oxytocin that biologically predispose us to be more nurturing and caring in attachment formation
Why may a father be a secondary attachment figure in regards to social factors?
Traditional gender roles in society mean that males adopt a secondary role. Child rearing is stereotypically a female role
What are the strengths of the discussion of role of the father?
- Evidence to support as secondary figure (Geiger: male interaction more exiting compared to mothers but mothers more affectionate and nurturing)
- Evidence showing the importance of the role (Sethna: Two year olds performed better on cognitive tasks if fathers engaged with child by 3 months)
- Evidence that contradicts gender difference in sensitive responsiveness (no differences physiplogically in response in Frodi et all experiment)
What are the weaknesses of the discussion of role of the father?
- Fathers not equipped to provide a sensitive and nurturing attachment (Hrdy: less able to detect low levels of infant distress compared to mothers)
What was the aim of Lorenz experiment
To investigate the mechanisms of imprinting
What is the procedure of Lorenz experiment?
- At point of hatching the goosling eggs split in half
- Half placed under a mother goose and half placed in incubator
- Lorenz was the first movement object for incubator eggs
- First phase of testing: Incubator eggs followed Lorenz and mother goose eggs followed mother
- Next phase involved testing if innate bond could be broken
- All goslings placed in a upside down box for a prolonged period of time before releasing and recording who they followed
What is the findings of Lorenz’ experiment?
- In both phases of testing the goslings followed the figure they had been imprinted onto
What is the conclusion of Lorenz’ experiment?
Animals behaviour is an innate drive in attachment
What are the strengths of Lorenz’ research?
- Supporting evidence: Leghorn chicls exposed to yellow gloss for feeding developed a strong bond for the gloves and tried to mate with gloves (Guiton)
What are the weaknesses of Lorenz’ research?
- Some observations have been questioned : Guitton reversed importing in chicks which contradicts Lorenz idea that has an effect on later sexual behaviour
- Issues with generalising to humans (different critical period)
- Animal bonds less easily disrupted than human attachment
What is the aim of Harlow’s experiment?
To test the importance of comfort and security in attachment
What is the procedure of Harlows experiment?
Harlow studied attachment using 16 new born Rhesus monkeys
What happened in trial 1 in Harlows research?
- Separated new borns from mothers and raised them in cages where they had the choice of two substitute surrogates
- One was a wire monkey which provided food and the other was a cloth monkey which did not provide food
- The monkeys were exposed to a scary object
- Amount of time with each surrogate observed
What happened in trial 2 in Harlows research?
- Monkeys were separated and only given one surrogate mother
- Half were placed with the wire mother and half provided the cloth (cloth surrogate fed by other means)
What were the findings of Harlows research?
- In first trial infant monkeys spent most time with cloth surrogate ( up to 22 hrs a day). When frightened clung to cloth monkey and only when went to wire monkey when needed food
- In second trial Harlow observed several behavioural differences between those raised with surrogate and those raised with normal mothers : more timid, didn’t know how to act, inadequate mothers, difficulty mating and easily bullied
What are the weaknesses of Harlows research?
- Ethical issues (separation causes long-lasting social and emotional damage)
- Extraneous variables (surrogate mothers different in looks)
What are learnt behaviours in learning theory of attachment?
- Wanting to be close to a caregiver (proximity seeking)
- Distress at seperation
How do we learn attachment according to learning theory
Classical conditioning
What is the formula for classical conditioning?
NS = NR
UCS = UCR
UCS + NS = UCR
CS = CR
What is the classical conditioning formula for learning attachment?
NS (mother) = NR
UCS (food) = UCR (pleasure)
UCS + NS= UCR
CS (mother) = CR (pleasure)
What is operant conditioning in attachment?
Attachments are learnt through consequences
What is the process of attachment according to operant conditioning?
- The discomfort of being hungry makes an infant cry
- The mothers response to crying is to feed the infant which the infant finds rewarding
- When the infant gets hungry it repeats the behaviour and the mother will feed them
What is a primary reinforcer (learning theory)?
Something that satisfies a basic need or drive. E.g. food
What is a secondary reinforcer (learning theory)?
Something that becomes associated with the primary reinforcer. E.g primary attachment figure
What are the weaknesses of learning theory of attachment?
- May be considered reductionist
- Research that challenges it (Harlow)
- Research shows sensitivity more important (Schaffer and Emerson)
What is the strength of learning theory of attachment?
Some parts can explain how attachments form through association and reinforcement
Why do infants form an attachment according to Bowlby’s monotropy theory?
- Babies have an innate drive to form attachments
- The attachment is adaptive (increases survival)
- Helps infants develop a internal working model for future relationships
- Continuity hypothesis: link between early attachment and later relationships
When do infants form an attachment according to Bowlby’s monotropy theory?
- There is a critical period for attachment
- 6 mth to 2.5 years
- Have difficulty forming attachments if they don’t
who do infants form an attachment to according to Bowlby’s monotropy theory?
- Monotropy
- Infants only have one special emotional bond and its with the primary attachment figure
- Other people are secondary attachment figures - not as important
How do infants form an attachment according to Bowlby’s monotropy theory?
- Pre programmed to perform social releasers
- These cause a response from caregiver to ensure survival
- These are met by an instinctive parental response
What is a strength of Bowlby’s monotropic theory?
- Some supporting evidence - Sroufe et al shows quality of infants attachments affected subsequent relationships
- Lorenz theory supports
What are the weakness of Bowlby’s monotropic theory?
- Contradictory evidence against continuity hypothesis (Zimmerman et al)
- Evidence against critical period (Hodge and Tizard)
- Contradictory evidence about monotropy (Schaffer and Emerson)
Who conducted the strange situation experiment?
Mary Ainsworth
What was the aim of the strange situation experiment
To investigate the security of a child’s attachment to it’s caregiver
What was the procedure of the strange situation experiment?
- Controlled observation with a 2-way mirror
- 8 stages each lasting 3 minutes
- Infants were aged 9 to 18 months