Attachment Theories

Question 1

What is attachment?

Answer 1

A strong enduring emotional bond between a child and their primary caregiver

Question 2

What did Harlow aim to find with his study?

Answer 2

Aimed to look at how attachment is developedin infant monkeys by offering options of fake mothers providing food or comfort.

Question 3

What were Harlows methods?

Answer 3

Rhesus monkey babies were separated from their mothers and “reared” by fake surrogates. One covered in cloth (provided warmth/ comfort). The other only wire mesh with a baby bottle (provided food).

Question 4

What were Harlows findings?

Answer 4

The monkeys would cling to the cloth mothers, only moving to the wire mesh mothers for feeding.

Question 5

What were Harlows conclusions?

Answer 5

Harlow concluded that ‘contact comfort’, provided by the cloth mother, was more important than feeding in the formation of an infant’s attachment to its mother. Harlow generalised his findings to suggest that ‘contact comfort’ was most likely a crucial factor in human infant-parent attachment.

Question 6

What were criticisms of Harlows study?

Answer 6

The study was unethical and inhumane and would not stand up to modern scrutiny as it resulted in life long issues for the monkeys involved. The monkeys never fully developed social skills to bond with other monkeys.

Question 7

What is the evolutionary perspective?

Answer 7

Mothers have a biological need to be close to their child. Children who are close to their mothers would have avoided predators/stayed safe.

Question 8

What is a monotropy?

Answer 8

The primary bond (usually formed with the mother) is the most important bond.

Question 9

What is the sensitive peroid and when does it occur?

Answer 9

The optimum time when an infant becomes imprinted by early contact with a mother.
Critical period of bond is within the babies first 12 months.

Question 10

Explain Bowlby’s maternal deprivation hypothesis.

Answer 10

Maternal deprivation is the failure to develop attachment to a primary caregiver – possibly due to the loss, separation, or neglect of a mother. If the early attachment bond of a child is broken (during sensitive period), serious long term consequences can result.

Question 11

What could happen in result of maternal deprivation?

Answer 11

Creates intellectual, social, and emotional issues, affectionless psychopathy (the inability to show affection or concern for others), increased aggression

Question 12

What did Bowlbys theory include?

Answer 12

Combined biological (innate drive for attachment) and cognitive (mental representations of attachment)

Question 13

What is an internal working model and which theorist suggested it?

Answer 13

We develop a model of what relationships should look like in the future based off our primary caregivers as a child. (Bowlby)

Question 14

What are the 3 internal models?

Answer 14

1. Model of others
2. Model of self being valuable to others
3. Model of self being effective when interacting with others

Question 15

What are streangth of Bowlby’s theory?

Answer 15

• Bowlby was the first to consider the pair and not just the infant.
• It is considered the dominant explanation of how and why attachment develops.

Question 16

What are criticisms of Bowlby’s theory?

Answer 16

• Many argue the idea of a “primary” caregiver, as it is common that a child feels attachment to multiple people.
• Evolutionary perspective has good face validity, but are very difficult to test and therefore, difficult to prove or disprove.

Question 17

Who is Ainsworth and what did she do?

Answer 17

Experimented on Blowby’s work, challenged the theory that attachment is an all or nothing concept. She developed an experimental procedure to observe types of attachments between infants and mothers.

Question 18

What was the aim of the strange situation?

Answer 18

Aimed to look at how infants reacted to a mothers presence and absence, with a stranger present in order to determine their attachment.

Question 19

What was the method of the stange situation?

Answer 19

• Parent and infant alone.
• Stranger joins parent and infant.
• Parent leaves infant and stranger alone.
• Parent returns and stranger leaves.
• Parent leaves; infant left completely alone.
• Stranger returns.
• Parent returns and stranger leaves.

Question 20

What did researches observe from the infant during the stragnge situation?

Answer 20

Exploration: to what extent does the child explore his/her environment?

Reaction to departure: what is the child’s response when the caregiver leaves?

The stranger anxiety: how does the child respond when alone with the stranger?

Reunion: how does the child respond when the caregiver returns?

Question 21

What were the findings of Ainsworth’s strange situation?

Answer 21

Ainsworth considered that the type of attachment formed between mother and child depended on how sensitive and responsive the mother was to her child’s signals, shown through the infant’s responses to the stresses of the Strange Situation.

Question 22

What are Ainsworth’s types of attachment?

Answer 22

Type A: Insecure avoidant attachment
Type B: Secure attachment
Type C: Insecure resistant attachment

Question 23

Explain insecure avoidant attachment in relation to the strange situation

Answer 23

• 25% of infants
• React to strangers similar to their caregiver, rarely becomes upset when stranger enters
• Show little apparent distress when separated from their mothers
• Only becomes upset when left alone.
• Avoid contact, ignore or seem indifferent when their mothers return

Question 24

What are 3 characteristics in adults in the result of insecure avoidant attachment?

Answer 24

• May have problems with intimacy
• Invest little emotion in social and romantic relationships
• Unable or unwilling to share thoughts and feelings with others

Question 25

Explain secure attachment in relation to the stange situation

Answer 25

• 65% of infants
• Infant actively explores the room when alone with their mother, touching base with caregiver periodically for security as they serve as a secure base.
• When his mother is present, the securely attached child is outgoing with a stranger.
• May or may not cry when separated, but when caregiver returns, crying ceases quickly.

Question 26

What are 4 characteristics in adults in the result of secure attachment?

Answer 26

• Have trusting long lasting relationships
• Have good self esteem
• Comfortable sharing feelings with friens and partners
• Seek out social support

Question 27

Explain insecure resistant attachment in relation to the stange situation

Answer 27

-Clings to caregiver, probably because she is not a secure base for exploration.

• Likely does not venture off to play even when his mother is present.
• Wary of strangers
• After caregiver returns, they first seek them, but does not calm down or show joy at return, they may resists or rejects offers of comfort by pushing or kicking them away.

Question 28

What are 3 characteristics in adults in the result of insecure resistant attachment?

Answer 28

• Reluctant to become close with others
• Worry their partner doesn’t love them
• Become distraught when a relationship ends

Question 29

What are strengths of Ainsworth’s experiment?

Answer 29

Proposed the association between mother’s behaviour & infants attachment type, suggesting the mother’s behaviour may help to determine attachment type. Controlled observation (laboratory setting) thus easily replicated increasing reliability.

Question 30

What are criticisms of Ainsworth’s experiment?

Answer 30

Critics of the strange situation question whether this method is really measuring attachment or is it measuring the “strangeness” of the situation. And the variation in cultral backgrounds.