Attachments Flashcards
Can you give examples of infant-caregiver interactions?
Reciprocity an interactional synchrony
Can you identify 4 key behaviours that are associated with attachment?
- seeking proximity to PCG
- distress on separation
- pleasure when reunited
- general orientation of behaviour towards PCG
Can you state what is meant by reciprocity?
How interactions between infant and mum are shown by responses to each others signals to each other and how these responses are drawn out
Can you give examples of studies that demonstrate reciprocity?
- Tronick et al:
- Lab study
- mum asked to stop interacting with her baby
- found that babies wld get upset when mum failed to respond
- demonstrates importance of interaction for baby’s happiness and that reciprocity essential to attachment formation - Papousek et al:
- cross-cultural evidence
- mothers tend to use rising tone to signal turn taking with baby
- as occurs universally and in the same way (through turn taking) (across all human societies) suggest attachment = innate process
Can you state what is meant by interactional synchrony?
Tendency for listener to move in time w speech of a speaker. There is some evidence that baby’s do this w mothers speech patterns.
Can you give examples of studies that demonstrate interactional synchrony?
- Condon and sander:
- hypothesis that babies demonstrated interactional synchrony
- supported by filming babies in cots while mum speaking
- found w slow motion playback seen coordinating movements w mums speech
- inference (therefore researcher bias as could not be observed by naked eye - comprises validity) - Conden and Ogston
- finely synchronised features in adult convos
- non-verbal cues that guided interactions
- suggest rooted in early interactions particularly non-verbal aspects of communication
Evaluate importance of reciprocity and interactional synchrony to attachment
- evidence synchrony does exist and more easily observed in slightly older infants who move in time to music as well
- maybe Conden and Sander to optimistic occurring so early
- Interactional synchrony provide foundation for effective reciprocal behaviour btw baby and mother
- through coordinating movements w mothers speech, baby learns mums habitual speech pattters
- enabled to predict when mum stops talking in anticipation fo a response
- forms effective turn taking (reciprocity)
Can you describe the stages of attachment, as identified by Schaffer & Emerson?
(An Idiot Shot Me)
- Asocial (0-6 weeks)
- pre attachment
- babies will respond to any stimulus in exact same way (no preference +equal enthusiasm) - Indiscriminate (6 weeks - 6months)
- same but only humans - Specific (7-8 months)
- preference expressed by behaviour (difference in response) - Multiple (9-10months)
- relationships w variety of people within everyday encounters
- does show preference for specific attachment figure
Can you evaluate Schaffer & Emerson’s study?
AO1:
- 60 Glasgow babies - investigate formation of attachments until 18 months old
Observational and interview techniques to observe babies behaviour to stranger and interview about various situations e.g babysitting (0-3 ‘no protest shown’ - ‘ cries everytime’)
Found:
- most show separation anxiety around 6-8 months (indicating attachment formed)
- fear of strangers a month later
- after first attachment most developed multiple
People first attachment:
65% - mother
3% father
27% joint attachment
Almost 40% cases attachment figure not main carer
Therefore attachments loosely linked to age
AO3:
- High eco validity as observed in homes under normal circumstances; presence of stranger not unusual due to visitors
- High internal val - babies dont respond to demain characteristics so genuine behaviour; BUT l’audit carers may alter behaviour when observer present and use rating scale in relation to what think researchers want to see - compromising
- Self-report measures - rating scale may provide confounding variable as subjective - some mothers may rate same experience differently to other
Can you evaluate Schaffer & Emerson’s stages of attachment theory?
- multiple attachments doesn’t necessarily imply shallower feeling toward each one
- Carpenter show 2 awkward old belies look away in distress when mothers face and voice don’t match - suggest don’t respond equally (question asocial stage)
- Bushnell et al - 2 day old babies looked longer at mother face - suggest innate ability to recognise mothers face but don’t know why
Can you outline the role of the father in the development of attachment?
- increasing tendency for both parents to work and share childcare in West - interest to research if child attachment different from mother
- father usually the first joint attachment figure
- behavioural style of fathers:
More likely to encourage risk taking
Encourage children to be brave
Structure talk around active play - these suggest different factors involved that would accounts for differences in attachment type to mother and to father
Can you evaluate the role of the father in the development of attachment?
- Heerman et al:
- less sensitive to infant cues
(Frodi et al - physiological response same (anxiety) - observing behaviour may not provide accurate account of how parent feels)
BUT Roopnarine:
- found not true in all societies
- cultural stereotypes that affect male behaviour - White and Wollet:
- lack of sensitivity from father = positive as encourages to respond to challenges and allow to learn through trial and error, independently and in a safe environment
- suggest why toddlers for more secure attachment to fathers - Verisimilitude et al:
Quality of relationship w father more important in later popularity at school
- suggest children learn more abt positive interactions from father
Can you describe Lorenz’s imprinting study
- establish if imprinting innate or learned
- Greylag Goslings
- give half goose eggs to goose mother and half hatched in incubator - making sure Lorenz first moving object goslings encountered
-imitated mother ducks quack sound - to ensure imprinting occurred - put all goslings together in box (allowed to mix) when box removed, 2 groups separated half to goose and half to Lorenz
- imprinting cannot be reversed
- suggests critical period (36hrs) and if did not occur, survival was impossible
Can you describe Harlow’s study on the theory of love (and privation)?
- reasons why babies form attachments
- orphaned rhesus monkeys, raised in cages by themselves
- soft surrogate mothers: always preferred compared to wire even if had food/ if fear object introduced (bear banging drum); clung onto harder and for longer to in abuse condition (jet of compressed air)
- if no soft surrogate, cower in corner
- heated pad (warmth) not factor in clinging behaviour
Conclude: - attachments for reasons other than physical survival
- formed because like contact comfort - find more reassurance when frightened
- abusing mothers provide more comfort though
Can you evaluate Lorenz’s imprinting study and the outcomes of this?
- Guitton:
- fed chicks using yellow rubber gloves during critical period (which they imprinted on)
- suggests imprint on any moving thing present during
- chick later found trying to mate w glove
- suggests long term consequences of sexual imprinting - provides guidance in rearing of endangered species of animals (not compromised and no negative impact of carrying on of species) - this can be achieved using costumes and puppets
- imprinting is a survival mechanism - Hess
- ducklings prefer male mallard to silent adult female
- suggests imprinting mechanisms more complex than first suggested - involving sound and movement
- visual not as important - Research conducted into imprinting on animals only yields insights into v basic mechanisms of human attachmetn formation
- sexual imprinting as LT consequence lead to suggestion that attachment and experience of it of early childhood provides blueprint for future relationship development
- BUT human experience involves far more complex influences than animal imprinting. Therefore invalidated as lack this. Phylogenetic scale
Can you evaluate Harlow’s study on the theory of love and the outcomes of this?
- Evolutionary continuity:
- more insights into human attachments as further up phylogenic scale
- more valuable than just imprinting
- however still limited as behavioural preparedness (e.g monkeys do not understand language like human babies so that level of interaction cannot be studied) - Ethical issues:
- so unethical that cannot be replicated
- however positive impacts: e.g death rate reduced in hospitals and children’s homes as carers make sure children not only supplied with basics but also exposure to socialisation and opportunities to play e.g chat to premature children in incubators - Social sensitivity
- although unethics - provided enough insights into effects of abuse
- social workers - extra clinging as indicator of potential abuse rather than safe attachment for child
Can you describe the process of classical conditioning?
- bond formation based of ASSOCIATION of satisfaction with a stimulus as children born w reflex reactions of hunger, thirst and desire to be fed - link to provider
Stage 1. UCS -> UCR response)
Stage 2. NS (neutral) + UCS -> UCR
Stage 3. CS -> CR (stop crying)
BUT over simplified:
- association can not be with food e.g cuddles, familiar w mums voice (womb)
- feeding produced good feeling so also involves element of reward
Can you describe the process of operant conditioning?
- learning through consequences of own behaviour
Positive reinforcement: performing of behaviour results in reward e.g baby cried for attention/ food, mum does this, baby learns to cry for this
Negative reinforcement: performing of behaviour results in removal of unpleasant state e.g baby cries as has sore tummy as it is hungry, mum feeds, baby will cry to stop sore tummy
Punishment: behaviour results in unpleasant outcome/ no change e.g baby cries, ignored so doesn’t cry again (explains why babies where famine usually passive even though dying)
Can you link operant conditioning to the drive reduction theory?
Dollard and Miller:
- biological need for food
- satisfaction of drive produces reward
- accompanied w mum - secondary drive through association w drive reduction.
- this links both to explain development of attachments
Can you describe social learning theory?
Behaviour seen to be rewarded copied whereas behaviour seen to be punished not
Direct instruction: reinforcement when child behaves in required way (e.g give mummy a kiss)
Modelling: child imitate affectionate behaviour shown by parent (e.g giving child hug)
Social facilitation: parents watch behaviour then correct/ change (e.g if hits then explain why should not do it)
Can you evaluate ‘Learning Theory’ as an explanation of why attachments form?
- cupboard love (physical survival) and Harlow’s research
- research suggests cannot be used to explain all attachments
- monkeys only went to wire ‘food’ surrogate for food and then returned to soft
- can forms for reasons other than cupboard love
- contact comfort suggests of their sources of reinforcement for infants of more complex species - Reductionism:
- Reduce sources of behaviour to stimulus response = work well as response for basic
- fail when applied to learning of complex behaviours and feeling e.g those that come w attachment btw baby and mum
- only works for children w level of cognitive processing that v tiny babies do not have - Nature/ Nurture debate
- reject any innate influences as sources of behaviour
- attachments formation like behaviours - learned through environmental influences and processes associated w classical, opperant and social learning.
- goes agains Bowlby’s theory (suggested innate process)
Can you describe Bowlby’s monotropic attachment theory (why & how attachments form, the consequences of attachment)?
Why and how:
Innate social releasers: innate mechanisms babies capable of performing and adults instinctively respond by providing care e.g big eyes, cooing, crying
Consequences:
Monotropic: attachment to single person (mother)
Internal working model: quality of first bond w PGC results in formation of this. Blueprint which all relationships based . Good relationship w mum results in healthy strong friendships and romantic relationship
Can you evaluate ‘Monotropic Attachment Theory’ as an explanation of why attachments form?
- Innate social releasers:
Brazleton et al (reciprocity research):
- supports because found even newborns could participate in reciprocal communications w adult caregiver
- unlikely any time to learn behaviours as so young
BUT, Conden and Sanders (Learning Theory):
- found babies demonstrate interactional synchrony w mums speech patterns (womb)
- suggest some influence of learning before birth - Monotropy:
Bowlby:
- 44 thieves study
- found children who had PCG attachment disrupted before 5 years old
- more likely develop serious mental disorder and end up breaking law than not been separated
- highlight importance of attachment to mum
BUT: shaffer and Emerson
- found babies formed multiple attachments by age 11 months
However… babies also seemed to have one preferred attachment figure SO not monotropic but one particular attachment preferred - Hasan, shaver, black, schutte:
- found early attachment positively correlated to romantic love style
BUT: Erickson (appendix 2)
- concept too deterministic
- human relationships too complex and flexible than suggested
- bad can be modified by good experiences later e.g adopted child w poor relationship w PCG can recover if adoptive parents provide warm, caring environment
Can you describe the stages of Ainsworth’s ‘Strange Situation’?
- categorise children’s behaviour with their caregiver
Strange situation: 7 episodes lasted 3 mins each
- mother and infant enter room
- stranger enters room
- mother leaves
- mother returns, stranger leaves
- mother leaves
- stranger returns
- mother returns, stranger leaves
- measured child’s response when mother left room, response to stranger, reaction when mother returns
