Attachments L9 - 11 Flashcards
What does culture refer to?
Norms and values that exist within any group of people
What does subculture refer to?
Group within a country that may have special different characteristics
What is one key difference between cultures, what is this and what countries often display this?
- Individualistic (Western countries) = Value independence + importance of individual
- Collectivist (non-Western countries) = Value interdependence + importance of grp
What are the key cultural variation studies, where were they done and in what years?
- Ainsworth (1967) in Uganda
- Simonella (2014) in Italy
- Jin et al (2012) in South Korea
- Tronick et al (1992) in Africa
- Takahashi (1990) in Japan
- Grossman and Grossman (1991) in Germany
Ainsworth (1967) in Uganda:
- 1954 –> 2 yr naturalistic observation of mother-infant interactions
- 26 mothers + infants
- Living in 6 villages around Kampala
- More sensitive mothers tended to have securely attached infants
Simonella (2014) in Italy:
- Sample of 76
- 1 yr olds
- Strange Situation
- 50% securely attached, 36% insecure-avoidant
- Increase in women in work + using professional childcare
- Caused lower rate of securely attached infants
Jin et al (2012) in South Korea:
- 87 children
- Strange Situation
- Proportion of secure infants to insecure similar to most countries
- Insecurely attached children mainly insecure resistant
- Only 1 child was insecure avoidant
- Similar to Japan (due to similar child-rearing)
Tronick et al (1992) in Africa:
- African tribe Efe in Zaire where babies are looked after + breastfed by other women
- Slept w/ mother at night
- At 6 months –> Babies still showed one primary attachment (monotropy)
Takahashi (1990) in Japan:
- Strange Situation
- 60 middle class Japanese infants + mothers
- Similar rates of attachment to Ainsworth
- No insecure-avoidant, 32% insecure-resistant
- Distressed when left alone –> study had to be stopped for 90% of infants
- Due to child-rearing practices –> rarely experienced separation from mothers
Grossman and Grossman (1991) in Germany:
- Insecurely attached rather than securely attached
- Due to child-rearing practices –> Parents and children maintained interpersonal distance
Procedure of Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonberg (1988):
- Meta-analysis of 32 studies of attachment behaviour
- Over 2000 Strange Situations
- 8 diff countries –> China, Netherlands, UK, Japan, Israel, Sweden, USA, West Germany
Findings of Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonberg (1988):
- Secure attachment was most common
- China had lowest amount of secure attachments (50%) + equal insecure-avoidant and insecure-resistant
- Insecure-avoidant next common in all countries but Japan and Israel –> particularly high in West Germany
- Insecure-resistant most common in collectivist cultures eg. Israel + Japan
- Variance between results within same country was greater (150%) than between countries –> one study found only 46% securely attached comapared to 90% in another sample
Conclusion of Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonberg (1988):
- Regardless of culture, most babies will from secure attachment
- Supports argument that secure attachment is best for social and emotional development + attachments are innate
- Cultural practices can have a sig impact on whether an infant is insecure-avoidant/resistant
Strengths and weaknesses of research into cultural variations:
+ Large samples
- Sample tend to be unrepresentative
- Biased methodology
Give examples of the studies that had a large sample and why this is a strength:
- Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonberg (2000 infants), Simonella et al (76), Jin et al (87)
- Increased internal validity as impact of anomalous results are reduced
In what way are samples unrepresentative of culture?
- Comparisons were between countries and not cultures
- Many subcultures w/in a country
- Japan –> Children reared in urban setting more likely to show same attachments as Western countries than a rural sample
- Variance between results within same country was greater (150%) than between countries –> one study found only 46% securely attached compared to 90% in another sample
What ideas does cross-cultural psychology include and what are these?
- Emic = Uniqueness of each culture
- Etic = Cultural universality
Give two examples of an imposed etic:
Using Strange Situation in a non-Western culture:
- Designed by American researcher on British theory
- Questioned whether Anglo-American theories can be applied to other cultures
Connotations of separation anxiety and lack of pleasure
- Referred to as insecure avoidant in Strange Situation
- In Germany, these behaviours are seen as independence than avoidance
- Not a sign of insecurity
Who argued that attachment research is not relevant to other cultures, why and what major differences did they consider?
- Rothbaum et al (2000)
- Rooted in American culture
3 major differences:
1) Sensitivity hypothesis –> Individualist: sensitivity promotes independence, Collectivist: sensitivity promotes dependence
2) Continuity hypothesis –> Individualist: Emotionally competent = Discussing + showing emotions, Collectivist: Not expected to share + share emotions
3) Secure-base hypothesis –> Individualist: promotes independence, Collectivist: promotes dependence
What did Bowlby say about mother-love in infancy and childhood and when?
- 1953
- “mother-love in infancy and childhood is as important for mental health as are vitamins and proteins for physical health”
What is the maternal deprivation hypothesis, when was it formed and by who?
- Bowlby (1951)
- Suggested a young child should experience warm, intimate and continuous relationship w/ his mother/mother substitute otherwise they may suffer long term damage
What is the difference between separation and deprivation?
- Child not being in presence of primary attachment fig
- Only becomes deprivation if element of their care is lost
What period did Bowlby see as critical for psychological development and what would happen if not?
- 30 months
- Inevitable and lasting
What are the two ways in which maternal deprivation is harmful?
1) Intellectual development
2) Emotional development
Which study showed the impact of maternal deprivation on intellectual development?
- Goldfarb (1947)
- Children who had been in institutions from a very young age had much lower IQs than their fostered counterparts
What could maternally deprived children become and what is this?
- Affectionless psychopaths
- Inability to experience guilt or strong emotion
What study was conducted to support the Maternal Deprivation Hypothesis?
- Juvenile Thieves study (1944)
Procedure of Juvenile Thieves study:
- Thieves interviewed for signs of affectionless psychopathy
- Families interviewed to establish whether teenager had prolonged early separations from mother
- Control grp of non-criminal but emotionally disturbed teenagers to compare if they had also suffered maternal deprivation
Findings of Juvenile Thieves study:
- 14/44 thieves were affectionless psychopaths
- 12/44 thieves (86%) had experienced prolonged separations from mother during critical period
- Out of remaining thieves (30) only 5 (17%) had experienced separations
- Control grp: 2/44 (5%) experienced long separations from mother
Conclusion of Juvenile Thieves study:
Maternal deprivation causes affectionless psychopathy
Strengths and weaknesses of Maternal Deprivation Hypothesis:
+ Animal studies show effects of maternal deprivation
- Counter evidence
- Effects of maternal deprivation are reversible
- Failure to distinguish between deprivation and privation
- Poor evidence
How is evidence for MDH poor?
- Used children orphaned during WW2, children growing up in poor quality orphanages, Juvenile Thieves
- Affected by other factors that may have caused the psychological damage like trauma of war
- Children in poor quality orphanages deprived all care not just maternal
- Juvenile Thieves had major design flaws –> Bowlby himself carried out interviews, showing bias
What evidence is there against MDH research?
- Lewis (1954) partially replicated study on larger scale
- 500 young people
-Early prolonged separation from mother did not predict criminality/difficulty forming close relationships
What study shows the effects of maternal deprivation to be reversible?
- Kulochova (1976) reported twin boys who were isolated from 18 months to 7 yrs
- Stepmother locked them in cupboard
- Recovered fully after being looked after by 2 loving adults
What animal studies show effect of maternal deprivation?
Levy et al (2003) showed separating baby rats from mother for as little as a day had permanent effect on social development but no other aspects of development
How does MDH fail to distinguish between deprivation and privation?
- Michael Rutter (1981) claimed Bowlby was confusing deprivation and privation
- Deprivation = Loss of attachment fig after attachment has developed
- Privation = failure to form attachment in first place
- Claimed long term damage associated with maternal deprivation is likely to be result of privation
What is institutionalisation?
- Place where people live for a period of time as they are unable to be looked after by parents
- Could be waiting adoption/fostering
What are two negative effects of institutionalisation?
1) Child adopts rules + norms of institution that could impair functioning
2) Leads to deindividuation (loss of personal identity)
What country and what events in this country gave psychologists the opportunity to study institutionalisation?
- 1966 –> Romanian gov, under a dictatorship, tried to boost pop by encouraging parents to have large families + banning abortion
- Many babies could not be cared for by families ‘
- 1989 –> Regime collapsed, so world became aware of 100,000 orphans in 60 state-run orphanages
What were the conditions of the institutions in Romania?
- Spent days alone in crib
- Very little stimulation
What study explored the effects of instutitionalisation and what was it called?
- Rutter and Songua-Barke (2010)
- ERA (English and Romanian orphans)
Procedure of ERA study:
- 165 children who spent early lives in institutions
- Adopted by British families
- Age grps: 54 adopted before 6 months, 57 between 6 months and 2 yrs, 54 between 2 and 4 yrs
- Tested at regular intervals (4, 6, 11 and 15 yrs) to assess physical, cognitive and social development
- Interviews w/ parents + teachers
- Control grp of 52 British children adopted before 6 months
Findings of ERA study:
- Lagged behind British counterparts on all measures of development eg. severely malnourished + mentally retarded
- By 4 yrs, some had caught up, esp children adopted before 6 months
- After 6 months, children were more likely to suffer social, emotional and cognitive deficits eg. mean IQ for grp 1 is 102, grp 2 is 86, grp 3 is 77
- IQs stayed same when children were 16
- Children adopted between 2 and 4 yrs more likely to suffer mental health issues
- Any child adopted after 6 months showed signs of ‘disinhibited attachment’
What is disinhibited attachment?
- Attention-seeking
- Clingy
- No stranger anxiety/ Equally affectionate w/ everyone
How does Rutter explain disinhibited attachment and when?
- Rutter (2006)
- Adaptation to living w/ multiple carers during critical period
- In Romania, a child may have 50 carers
Conclusion of ERA study:
- Institutionalised children can recover from the effects of institutionalisation esp when adopted before 6 months
- Earlier a child is adopted, the better
- Appalling conditions can lead to long term consequences
Limitations of ERA study:
- Conditions of orphanages before entering UK is unknown
- Consent is an issue as they are too young
- Difficult to generalise findings as only some children received detailed clinical investigations
- Many EV affecting findings like quality of care as this is a natural experiment
What are the other studies done on Romanian orphans?
- Le Mare and Audet (2006)
- Zeanah et al (2005), also known as Bucharest Early Intervention Project
Le Mare and Audet (2006) study:
- Longitudinal study
- 36 orphans adopted to families in Canada
- Studied orphans’ physical growth and health
- Adopted orphans were physically smaller than control grp aged 4 and a half yrs
- This difference had disappeared by age 11 (same for physical health
- Recovery is possible
Bucharest Early Intervention Project:
- 95 Romanian children who had spent around 90% of lives in orphanage
- Control grp of 50 children who had never been in an institution
- Aged between 12 and 31 months
- Assessed using Strange Situation
- 19% of orphans were securely attached, compared to 74% of control
- 65% of orphan grp classified as Type D (disorganised attachment)
- Disinhibited attachment applies to 44% of grp compared to less than 20% of control
Effects of instutionalisation:
- Physical underdevelopment
- Mental retardation
- Disinhibited attachment
- Poor parenting
What study has shown physical underdevelopment to be an effect of institutionalisation?
- Gardner (1972)
- Deprivation dwarfism is caused by lack of emotional care , rather than poor nourishment
What study has shown mental retardation to be an effect of institutionalisation?
- Skodak and Skeels (1949)
- Children scored poorly on intelligence tests
- When sent to a diff institution, where emotional care was better, scores improved by up to 30 points
- Shows cognitive development is also affected by emotional deprivation
What studies have shown poor parenting to be an effect of institutionalisation?
- Harlow (1965) showed monkeys raised in isolation to be poor parents
- Quinton et al (1984) compared 50 women raised in institutions to those who had not
- In 20s, the institutionalised were struggling to be good parents as many of their children also spent time in care
Strengths and weaknesses of research into institutionalisation:
+ Real life application
+ Value of longitudinal studies
+ ERA has fewer EV than other studies
- Ethical issues
- Individual differences
How does research into institutionalisation have real life application?
- Improvements in way children are cared for in institutions (Langton, 2006) eg. only 1 or 2 people working w/ each individual (key worker)
- Chance to develop normal rather than disinhibited attachment
- Shows that adoption must occur as soon as possible and w/in critical period
How does Rutter’s research have fewer EV than other orphan studies?
- Other studies involve children who had experienced loss/trauma before institutionalisation
- Difficult to observe effects as there are many confounding variables interfering
- Rutter’s research was not like this
What ethical issues are present in research into institutionalisation?
- Consent of the adoptees + parents
- Psychological harm to parents + children –> longitudinal study may have created pressure that affected findings
- Issue of social sensitivity –> Can have unforeseen consequences if research is used to make generalisations about adoptions
What individual differences are there in the research into institutionalisation?
- Some children are not as affected by institutionalisation as much as others
- Some may have received better care due to being more cute than other babies (social releasers)
