Attachment: Influence Of Early Attachment (L10-12)

Question 1

Procedure of Harlows’ (1959) Animal Study?

Answer 1

• created 2 wire ‘mothers’
• one wire mother wrapped in soft cloth
• 8 infant rhesus monkeys separated from mums at birth and studied for 165 days
• they were placed in a cage with 2 wire mothers
• 4 monkeys received milk from cloth mother
• other 4 received from exposed wire mother
• during the 165 days time monkeys spent with each of the 2 mothers was measured
• observations made of the monkey’s responses to being frightened by mechanical teddy bear
• and how they coped with exploring a new room full of unfamiliar toys

Question 2

Findings of Harlows’ Monkey Study?

Answer 2

• all 8 spent most time on the soft cloth mother regardless of whether this was the feeding wire mother or not
• those fed by exposed wire mother only stayed on it long enough to get milk then returned to soft mother
• when frightened my mechanical teddy all monkeys clung to soft cloth mother
• when playing with new objects monkeys kept one foot on soft cloth mother
• when placed in new env not confident enough to explore unless soft cloth mother was with them

Question 3

Long Term Effects of Harlows’ Study?

Answer 3

• Harlow continued to study the 8 monkeys as they grew up
• they grew up abnormally, froze or fled when approached by other monkeys
• did not show normal mating behaviour, did not cradle their own babies
• if monkeys spent time with other monkeys then they could recover but ONLY if this happened before they were 3 months olf
• more than 3 months with only wire mother cannot be recovered from

Question 4

+ve Evaluation Harlows’ Monkey Study:

Answer 4

• has implications for theories for attachment
• suggestion that comfort/sensitive responsiveness is more important than food contradicts learning theory
  = highlights implications of early neglect and long term consequences of poor attachment in childhood for future relationships
  = fits with Bowlby’s maternal deprivation theory but in humans this may be more of a sensitive period as studies show children have been able to recover from early deprivation (Romanian orphan study)
• Schaffer + Emerson (1964) found food is not necessary for attachments to form
• discovered babies are often attached to people who play with them rather than people who feed them
• 39% of cases found even though baby was fed by mother the baby was still more attached to someone else

Question 5

-ve Evaluation Harlows’ Monkey Study:

Answer 5

• could be considered unethical
• monkeys removed from their mothers, could have been traumatic
• also then deliberately scared in order to get reactions
• led to long term emotional harm as when older they would freeze or flee when approached by other monkeys
• also had difficulty caring for their own young, they didnt cradle them as they had not been cared for themselves

Question 6

What is imprinting?

Answer 6

• the instinct in several species of animals to attach to the first moving thing they see after they are born

Question 7

Procedure of Lorenz’s Study (1939) ?

Answer 7

• wanted to investigate imprinting
• took a clutch of goose eggs and divided into 2 groups
• one group left to hatch with their natural mother present
• other eggs placed in an incubator
• when eggs in the incubator hatched the first moving thing they saw was Lorenz
• Lorenz marked the 2 groups to distinguish betwen them then placed them all together again

Question 8

Findings of Lorenz’s Study?

Answer 8

• goslings quickly divided themsleves up
• one group followed the mother, the other following Lorenz
• goslings from incubator showed no recognition of natural mother
• Lorenz found that this process of imprinting is restricted to a very definite period of a young animals life, called a critical period
• if young animal is not exposed to moving object furing early critical period then it will not imprint
• animals imprint on consistently moving object during their first 2 days
• imprinting similar to attachment as it binds an animal to a caregiver in a special relationship
• Lorenz had to teach goslings how to swim and they would return to him when he called

Question 9

Long Term Effects of Lorenz’s Study?

Answer 9

• noted several features of imprinting, process is irreversible and long lasting
• one of the geese that imprinted on him would sleep on his bed evert night
• found this early imprinting also had an effect on later mate preferences, this is called sexual imprinting
• animals (especially birds) will choose to mate with the same kind of object upon which they were imprinted

Question 10

+ve Evaluation Lorenz’s Study:

Answer 10

• imprinting similar to the idea of a critical period in Bowlby’s maternal deprivation theory
• both cases have a ‘window of opportunity’ in which attachments must be formed otherwise there will be negative long term consequences
  = oher studies support the idea that animals are born with an instinct to attach to the first moving object they see
  = Gutton (1966) demonstrated that chickens exposed to yellow rubber gloves during feeding in their first few
  weeks of life imprinted on the gloves

Question 11

-ve Evaluation Lorenz’s Study:

Answer 11

• imprinting is more reversible than Lorenz thought
• Gutton (1966) found that he could reverse the imprinting in chickens that had initially tried to mate with the yellow rubber gloves
• after spending time with their own species they were
  able to engage in normal sexual behaviour with other chickens
  = problematic to extrapolate the findings from animal studies to attachment in human infants
  = what applies to a non-human species does not
  necessarily apply to human infants
  = humans are physiologically very different from monkeys/geese as well as having several other influences that monkeys/geese do not have, such as culture, society, peers, upbringing etc
  = attachment bond between human infants and their attachment figures is far more complex than it is in monkeys/geese
  = for instance, there are several different types of attachment styles that human infants can have (e.g. secure,
  avoidant, resistant)
  = argument that, of the two, Harlow’s study may be more relevant to human experience as it uses a mammalian species

Question 12

What did Sroufe et al. do?

Answer 12

• carried out a study called the Minnesota Parent-Child Project
• to see the influence of early attachment on childhood relationships

Question 13

Procedure of the Minnesota Parent-Child Project, Sroufe et al?

Answer 13

• since 1975 the mothers’ and the childrens’ behaviour has been assessed using questionnaires and observations
• e.g the mothers and children were videotaped, intra-observer reliability, while playing for a period of 10-15 mins at home
• mothers were aware that they were being videotaped so possible social desirability bias
• 2 observers then analysed the recordings, inter-observer reliability