Attatchment Flashcards
What is the definition of attachment?
“The formation of a strong, reciprocal,
emotional bond between an infant and
a primary caregiver, it serves the
function of protecting an infant”
What is the case study of Maccoby (1980)?
Finds behaviour that indicates attachment
- proximity seeking (especially when stressed)
- separation distress
- pleasure when reunited
- general orientation towards specific individuals
What is the study of Schaffer and Emerson (1964)?
- longitudinal study in natural environment
- observations and diary records
- measured attachment via separation distress; stranger anxiety
Findings: first attachment usually formed by 8 months. - stranger anxiety usually 1 month later
- 60 babies from Glasgow
What are the four stages of attachment?
Stage 1 - asocial attachments
Stage 2 - indiscriminate
Stage 3 - specific (discriminate) attachments
Stage 4 - multiple attachments
What is stage 1 (asocial attachments)?
- 0 - 6 weeks
- babies respond in a similar way to animate or inanimate objects
- towards the end babies respond more to a smiling face
What is stage 2 (indiscriminate)?
- 2 - 6 months
- babies prefer human company to inanimate objects
- they can distinguish between familiar and unfamiliar people
- easily comforted by anyone. No stranger anxiety
- enjoyment of being with people
What is stage 3 (specific (discriminate) attachments)?
- 7 - 8 months
- separation anxiety - e.g. distress when one person puts the down. Joy when reunited with that person
- stranger anxiety develops
- 65% odd attachments were to mother, 30% of the time mother was joint objects of attachment
What is stage 4 (multiple attachments)?
- 8+ months (from a month after the first attachment) 1/3rd
- by a year most have multiple
- babies start to build multiple attachments, e.g. Dads, grandparents, siblings, etc.
-secondary attachments
What is good about shaffron and Emerson study?
- It has good external validity.
• Most observations were made by parents during ordinary activities and reported to the researchers. The
alternative would have been to have researchers present more to record observations.
• This might have distracted the participants or made them feel anxious. In this way they are more likely to have behaved naturally. Internal validity. No demand characteristics. Babies (0-18 months) unlikely to change behaviour as a consequence of the observations – unlike adults.
❖ External validity –Population validity. All families from the same district (Glasgow) and same class. It is possible that child rearing practices may differ with other groups. Different findings?
❖ External validity –Temporal validity. Child rearing practices have changed over time (since 1964). This might mean that more than 3% of infants would have an attachment to their father now. This
means we cannot generalise well to other social and historical contexts.
✓ Longitudinal design (rather than cross sectional). Better internal validity as no confounding variables of individual differences.”
What’s the aim of the Shaffron and Emerson (1964)?
To investigate the age at which infants become attached, who they
become attached to, and whether it is possible to develop multiple
attachments.
What is the procedure of the Shaffron and Emerson (1964)?
Rudolph Schaffer and Peggy Emerson conducted a longitudinal study on 60 Glaswegian
infants over the first 18 months of their lives.
They visited the children at monthly intervals in their own homes and observed their
interactions with their caregivers. In addition, the caregivers were interviewed about the
infant’s behaviour.
Evidence for the development of an attachment was that the baby showed separation
anxiety after a carer left.
What are the results of Shaffron and Emerson (1964)?
• The first attachment was usually formed between 6 and 8 months of age.
• The mother was the main attachment figure for 65% of the children at 18 months old,
whilst only 3% of the infants studied developed a primary attachment to their father.
In 27% of cases fathers were the joint first attachment figure with mothers.
• By 18 months old, 75% of the infants had formed attachments to their fathers.
What are the conclusions of Shaffron and Emerson (1964)?
The results of the study indicated that attachments were most likely to form with those who responded accurately to the baby’s signals, not the person they spent most time with.
Schaffer and Emerson called this ‘sensitive responsiveness’.
They concluded that the most important factor in forming attachments is not who feeds and changes the child but who plays and communicates with him or her.
This study also shows that a significant number of infants form multiple attachments.
What’s a negative about shaffron and Emerson’s study?
- Counterpoint - Validity
• On the other hand mothers are unlikely to be objective ‘observers’.
• They might be biased in what they notice and report.
• This means even if the baby acted naturally, they may not have accurately recorded the behaviour.
What are the positives about Shaffron and Emersons study?
It has good external validity.
• Most observations were made by parents during ordinary activities and reported to the researchers. The
alternative would have been to have researchers present more to record observations.
• This might have distracted the participants or made them feel anxious. In this way they are more likely to have behaved naturally.
✓ Internal validity. No demand characteristics. Babies (0-18 months) unlikely to change behaviour as a consequence of the observations – unlike adults.
❖ External validity –Population validity. All families from the same district (Glasgow) and same class. It is possible that child rearing practices may differ with other groups.
✓ Longitudinal design (rather than cross sectional). Better internal validity as no confounding variables of individual differences.
What is sensitive responsiveness?
attachments were most likely to form with those who responded accurately to the baby’s signals, not the person they spent most time with.
What is aim of the study of Grossman (2002)?
- to compare the contribution of fathers and mother to attachment representation
What is the study of Grossman (2002)?
- longitudinal study
- 44 families
- infancy - 16 years
- play sensitivity assessed in toddlerhood - the sensitive and challenging interactive play scale (SCIP)
What are the findings of the Grossman study (2002)?
• Quality of infant-father attachment wasn’t related to the infants’ later relationships. The mother-infant attachment was!
• Quality of infant—father play was related to the quality of adolescent attachments (later relationships).
• This suggests that… fathers have a different role to play – stimulation, not nurturing.
• Conclusion: Both parents are important, but different role.
What is the opposition to the Grossman study (2002)?
- children without fathers are no different
- it is possible that fathers do have different roles, as it is often seen in the animal kingdom. Therefore, biology or bias.
What is the study by Tiffany Field (1978)?
- filmed 4 month old babies interacting with their parents
- compared primary caregiver mothers with primary and secondary caregiver fathers.
What are the findings of the Tiffany Field study (1978)?
Primary caregiver fathers acted more like mothers. E.g. more time holding and smiling at the child than secondary attachment fathers.
What is the conclusion of the Tiffany Field study (1978)?
The key attachment is the level of responsiveness, not the gender.
X Evaluation: gender is unimportant.
Point: challenge the idea that a particular gender have specific roles in attachment.
Evidence: Schaffer and Emerson they found that mothers were usually the person infants formed an attachment to, they found that gender was unimportant in forming attachment.
Explain: Instead they argued that sensitive responsiveness to the child’s needs was the most important and this could be met by either fathers or mothers.
Link: This questions whether father’s have a distinct role as suggested by Grossman and aligns with Tiffany and Field.
A03 - economic implications
• Identify – The research has important economic implications.
• Specific – Mothers feel pressured to stay at home because of research that says mothers are vital for healthy emotional development (Grossman).
• Elaborate – In some families this may not be economically the best solution – for them or for society in general.
• But? – Alternatively research may be of comfort to mothers who feel they have to make hard choices about not returning to work.
X Evaluation A03 - no clear answer about primary attachment
• Identify – Research fails to provide a clear answer about why fathers aren’t usually primary attachments.
• Specific – The answer could be related to traditional gender roles, in which women are expected to be more caring and nurturing than men
• Elaborate – Therefore, fathers simply don’t feel they should act in a nurturing way.
• Justify – Or it could be that female hormones (e.g. oestrogen) create higher levels of nurturing and therefore women are biologically predisposed to be primary attachment figures.
What is reciprocity?
Infants from 3 months coordinate their actions with caregivers, taking turns as if they are in a conversation, e.g. one person leans forward and ‘speaks’ then the other reacts.
• Each partner responds to the other, and elicits a response in a sustained way.
• This is known as reciprocity.
• This could be an important precursor to attachment later”
- Tronick
What is interactional synchrony?
- Primary caregiver and infant mirror each others actions and emotions, at the same time time.
Research: - meltzoff and Moore (1977)
Showed this occurs from a few weeks old - Isabella et al (1989)
High levels of synchrony at 3 months is associated with better quality attachment at 9 months.
What was the procedure of meltzoff and Moore (1977)?
An adult displayed 4 different stimuli (three facial expressions and a hand gesture) and observed the behaviour of an infants in response. The observation were recorded and an obese river watched video tapes of the infants behaviour (slowed down and frame by frame). The video was then judged by independent observers who have no knowledge of what the infant had seen. The they had to use behavioural categories to note all the instances of the actions.
Each observer scored the tapes twice so that both intra observer and inter observer reliability could be calculated.
What does intra observer mean?
The degree to which a single observer is consistent in their findings over time.
What does inter observer reliability mean?
The degree to which different observers agree.
What are the findings of the meltzoff and Moore (1977)?
They found there was a clear association between the infant behaviour and the adult model. All scores were greater than 0.92, higher than 0.80 is considered reliable.
What are the strengths of interactional synchrony and reciprocity research?
- no demand characteristics, babies don’t know they are being observed so their behaviour does not change in response to being filmed.
- controlled observations capture fine detail which allows researchers to be confident that their findings are accurate and therefore valid.
- there is clear evidence to support the existence and value of reciprocity.
- brazleton et al (1975) instructed primary attachment figures to ignore babies social releases. Babies were previously shown to be normally initially showed some distress, but eventually some curled up and lay motionless.
- this demonstrates the significance of infant social behaviour eliciting caregiving from adults.
- value to society - could be used to improve mother - infant interactions in at risk groups.
What are the weaknesses of interactional synchrony and reciprocity research ?
- research into mother infant interactions is socially sensitive, this is because it suggests that children may be disadvantaged by particular child rearing practices.
- observations don’t tell us the purpose of interactional synchrony and reciprocity.
- Feldman (2012) points out that interactional synchrony simply describes behaviour occurs at the same time.
- it is hard to investigate infant behaviour - practical difficulties - can’t tell if behaviour has meaning
- purpose of synchrony and reciprocity not fully considered.
What is the alert phase?
When babies signal when they are ready for interaction, which mothers respond to about two thirds of the time.
Konrad Lorenz
He was interested in how young
animals attach to their mothers, and
how this gave them an increased
chance of survival.
Procedure of Konrad Lorenz; imprinting
•Lorenz carried out an experiment with
grey lag geese.
•He set TWO experimental conditions.
CONDITION 1: He was the first moving
object seen by the goose chicks after they
hatched.
CONDITION 2: The mother goose was the
first moving object seen by the chicks after
they hatched.
Sexual imprinting
When the geese became mature… they tried to mate with Konrad.
Critical period
Important window of time, if they didn’t form a bond in first few hours they wouldn’t have formed a bond and the geese would have died.
Guiton et al 1966
Guiton et al.’s study showed that chickens who had imprinted on yellow rubber gloves showed courtship behaviour towards gloves at first (and tried to mate with them), but then learned to mate with other chickens. This suggests Lorenz overstated the effects of imprinting.
Harlow’s monkeys
• Harlow wanted to test the learning
theory of attachment, whether or not
food was the main cause of
attachments forming.
Procedure of Harlow’s monkeys
• In the original, he used 16 infant rhesus monkeys.
• They had a choice of two wire surrogate (model). A wire one and a cloth covered one. In different variations milk was dispensed from one or other.
• Recorded the time spent with each (their
preference) was recorded (DV)
• As a further measure of attachment, the monkeys’ were frightened with loud noises and machines to test mother preference (who they ran to)
• He put them in unusual situations (e.g. large cage with random objects) with or without surrogate mothers and measured their response
• He studied these monkeys into adulthood.
Recording long term effects.
Bonus monkey procedure
4 conditions, 4 monkeys in each.
• Wire mother with milk and cloth mother no milk.
• Wire mother no milk and cloth mother with milk
• Wire mother producing milk
• Cloth mother producing milk
• Baby monkeys spent longer and cuddled soft mother in preference to wire mother every time.
• When frightened baby monkey went to cloth covered mother, not wire mother.
• Long term maternal deprivation led to negative effects, aggressive, problems mating
• They have a critical period of 90 days. If have bond develop well, no bond leads to irreversible consequences
• Conclusion: ‘Contact comfort’ – not food – is key for attachment
Findings of Harlow’s monkey procedure
• Baby monkeys cuddled soft objects in preference to wire ones, regardless of which dispensed milk. The monkeys sought
comfort from cloth wire mother when frightened.
• Therefore, CONTACT COMFORT was more important than food to attachment.
• Long term effect- Maternal deprivation led to severe consequences in adulthood– Aggressive, less sociable, issues mating. They also neglected their own offspring or even killed them.
• Critical period of 90 days. After this time consequences became irreversible.
Issues of Harlow’s study?
- ethical issues - suffering of infant monkeys (they’re human like), but balanced against benefit from academic conclusions.
- generalising monkeys to humans - but we must generalise with caution as human communication may influence attachment.
- low internal validity - faces of model mothers were different in early experiments. Not just IV affecting results.
Strengths of Harlow’s study?
- real life applications - showed importance of attachment, e.g. abuse has long term effects. We must meet all a child’s needs, not just physical.
- generalising monkeys to humans - monkeys have the same brain structure as humans, only smaller with fewer connections (green, 1994)
What is classical conditioning?
Learning through association
What is operant conditioning ?
Learning through punishment and reinforcement
Dollars and miller (1950)
Learning theory of attachment
• The main assumption behind the learning theory explanation of attachment is that children learn to become attached to their caregiver because they give them food.
• This is sometimes referred to as ‘cupboard
love’.
• Learning can be due to associations being made between different stimuli (classical conditioning) or behaviour can be altered by patterns of reinforcement/reward (operant conditioning)
Operant conditioning; a learning theory of attachments
According to learning theory, the baby has to learn to form an attachment with his mother.
In the process of operant conditioning, the mother rewards. The infant by feeding him,
so the infant associates the mother with the reward, and repeats any action that brings
her close.
This happens because food brings a feeling of pleasure (= reward) to the baby.
Food is a primary reinforcer: by removing discomfort, it reinforces the behaviour
that led to its arrival.
But food never comes without the mother bringing it, so the mother becomes
the secondary reinforcer – even without bringing food, the presence of the
caregiver reduces discomfort and brings a feeling of pleasure. The baby will
therefore repeat any actions, e.g. crying, which brings the caregiver close.
Classical conditioning; a learning theory of attachments
According to learning theory, the baby has to learn to form an attachment with his
mother because of food. Dollard and Miller call it cupboard love as food is stored in a
cupboard.
By the process of classical conditioning, the baby forms an association between the mother (a neutral stimulus) and the feeling of pleasure that comes from being fed (an innate, unconditioned response).
At first, the baby simply feels comforted by food. However each time he is fed, the
Mother is there too. He quickly associates the mother with the pleasure of being fed.
Before long, the mother stimulates a feeling of pleasure on her own, even without food.
This means the baby feels happier when the mother is near. It is the beginning of attachment.
What is a strength of the learning theory
Some elements of conditioning could still be involved.
The problem with learning theory as an explanation for attachment is mostly the idea that feeding provides the unconditioned stimulus, reinforcement or primary drive. However, we know conditioning is involved in human learning. Therefore, it is possible learning is involved just not for food. For example, Ainsworth says other things could be reinforces, such as responsiveness, attentiveness and comfort could build attachment.
What is a weakness of the learning theory
Learning theory ignores other factors associated with forming attachments: Oversimplification Research into early infant—caregiver interaction suggests that the quality of attachment is associated
with factors like developing reciprocity and good levels of interactional synchrony (e.g. Isabella et al. 1989). It is very hard to reconcile these findings with the idea of cupboard love. If attachment developed
purely or primarily as a result of feeding, there would be no purpose for these complex interactions and we would not expect to find relationships between them and the quality of infant—caregiver
attachment.
A newer learning theory explanation
Dale Hay and Jo Vespo (1988) have proposed a newer explanation for infant—caregiver attachment based on social learning theory. Social learning theory is based on the idea that social behaviour is acquired largely as a result of modelling
and imitation of behaviour.
Hay and Vespo suggest that parents teach children to love them by modelling attachment behaviour, e.g. by hugging them and other family members, and
instructing and rewarding them with approval when they display attachment behaviour of their own; ‘that’s a lovely smile/hug’, etc.
Natural selection
where organisms that are better adapted to an environment will survive and reproduce.
Sexual selection
a type of selection that occurs when individuals choose mates based on certain traits, such as size, color, or song.
Evolution
It is the change of characteristics, happens over several generations
Evolutionary theory
•Animals with traits that help them survive (natural selection) and reproduce (sexual selection) are more likely to live longer and have offspring.
• Offspring inherit the helpful traits from
their parents, and over many generations,
the species changes, becoming better
suited to its environment.
•These traits are therefore said to be
adaptive.
Monotropic theory
Bowlby put forward an important theory of
attachment, based on the work of the ethologists.
He saw humans as being just like other
animals – we have an INNATE tendency to
form attachments with a caregiver.
This tendency gives us an ADAPTIVE
ADVANTAGE, i.e., makes it more likely that we will survive.
He adopted the idea of a CRITICAL PERIOD
from ethologists like Lorenz and Harlow, and applied this to his explanation of how human infants form their attachments.
Innate
We are born with he need to form attachments
Adaptive
Adaptive – Gives an ‘adaptive advantage’,
making us more likely to survive because if an infant has an attachment To a caregiver, they are kept safe, given food, and kept warm.
Mono-tropic theory abbreviation
I ASC MIC
INNATE
ADAPTIVE
SOCIAL RELEASERS
CRITICAL PERIOD
MONOTROPHY
INTERNAL WORKING MODEL
CONTINUITY HYPOTHESIS
Social releases
Babies have social releasers which unlock the innate tendency of adults to care for them
These social releasers are both:
1. Physical: the typical baby face features an body proportions
2. Behavioural - e.g. crying, cooing
Critical period
There is a specific age period which an attachment can be formed. Once this period passes, the opportunity to form an attachment is lost
Birth - 2 1/2 years old (-30 months)
First 5 years are important
Infants need continual care within this critical period to develop healthy bonds.
Separation leads to emotional and intellectual problems later in life
Monotrophy
Bowlby believed that a single attachment was important for the well-being of the child.
Infants form one very special, intense attachment (usually with mother) called
monotropy. Father’s role is just economic (work/job)
Internal working model
• Bowlby suggested that the mono-tropic attachment allows the infant to create an internal working model (mental framework) of the monotropic bond and what relationships should be like.
• The infant gets a sense of their role in the relationship and expectations of themselves and others, i.e. they develop
ideas/schema about their relationship with PCG.
Continuity hypothesis
IWM will be applied in future, giving a template for relationships influencing them well into adulthood. Influence their relationships with peers, romantic partners and even their own parenting styles
(continuity)
e.g. parenting positive internal working model - will become a consistent sensitive caregiver
negative internal working model - will become inconsistent or neglectful caregiver
What are strengths of Bowlby monotrophic theory ?
- support from animal studies - critical period seen in animals. Lorenz geese, 12 hours. Harlow’s monkeys, 90 days. Separation of monkeys in critical period from mother caused harm.
- support for social releasers - Brazelton et al (1975) showed importance of social releasers. Distress when SR’s ignores.
- support for IWM - Hazan and shavers ‘love quiz’. Correlation between early bond and later relationship expectations.
Weaknesses of bowlbys monotrophic theory
- IWM impacts on parenting - bailey et al (2007) assessed 99 mothers. Poor attachment in their childhood correlated with poor attachment in their children
- Schaffer and Emerson (1964) - gender unimportant responsiveness mattered. Multiple attachments. Bowlby overestimated importance of one bond
- Grossman - father has an important role (play) in development, not just economic
- monotropy is socially sensitive - implication for others lifestyle choices more than fathers. Law of accumulated separation (separation from mother has negative consequences)
