Development of Attachments

Question 1

Define Attachment

Answer 1

An emotional tie between two people that endures over time.

Question 2

Define Reciprocity

Answer 2

Where the actions of one partner elicit a response from the other partner.

Question 3

Define Interactional Synchrony

Answer 3

When interacting with each other people tend to mirror each others facial and body movements, emotions as well as behaviours can be imitated

Question 4

Research Into Attachment - Meltzoff and Moore : A P F

Answer 4

A: To investigate the beginnings of interactional synchrony in infants as young as two weeks old.
P: An adult displayed one of three facial expressions or one of the three distinctive gestures.
F: An association was found between the expression or gesture the adult had displayed and the actions of the babies.

Question 5

Research Into Attachment - Meltzoff and Moore : Aim

Answer 5

To investigate the beginnings of interactional synchrony in infants as young as two weeks old.

Question 6

Research Into Attachment - Meltzoff and Moore : Procedure

Answer 6

An adult displayed one of three facial expressions or one of the three distinctive gestures.

Question 7

Research Into Attachment - Meltzoff and Moore : Finding

Answer 7

An association was found between the expression or gesture the adult had displayed and the actions of the babies.

Question 8

Schaffer and Emerson: Stages Of Attachment - A P F C

Answer 8

A: To investigate the formation of early attachments.
P: The study involved 60 babies - 31 male, 29 female. The babies and their mothers were visited at home every month for the first year and again at 18 months. The researchers asked the mothers questions about the kind of protest their babies showed in seven everyday separations, e.g adult leaving the room (a measure of separation anxiety). The researchers also assessed stranger anxiety - the infant’s anxiety response to unfamiliar adults.
F: Between 25 and 32 weeks of age 50% of the babies showed signs of separation anxiety towards a particular adult, usually the mother. By the age of 40 weeks 80% of the babies had specific attachment and almost 30% displayed multiple attachments.
C: Most babies become attached to their mother first (around 7 months) and within a few weeks or months formed secondary attachments to other family members, including the father.

Question 9

Schaffer and Emerson: Stages Of Attachment: Aim

Answer 9

To investigate the formation of early attachments.

Question 10

Schaffer and Emerson: Stages Of Attachment: Procedure

Answer 10

The study involved 60 babies - 31 male, 29 female. The babies and their mothers were visited at home every month for the first year and again at 18 months. The researchers asked the mothers questions about the kind of protest their babies showed in seven everyday separations, e.g adult leaving the room (a measure of separation anxiety). The researchers also assessed stranger anxiety - the infant’s anxiety response to unfamiliar adults.

Question 11

Schaffer and Emerson: Stages Of Attachment: Findings

Answer 11

Between 25 and 32 weeks of age 50% of the babies showed signs of separation anxiety towards a particular adult, usually the mother. By the age of 40 weeks 80% of the babies had specific attachment and almost 30% displayed multiple attachments.

Question 12

Schaffer and Emerson: Stages Of Attachment: Conclusion

Answer 12

Most babies become attached to their mother first (around 7 months) and within a few weeks or months formed secondary attachments to other family members, including the father.

Question 13

Schaffer and Emerson - Stages Of Attachment Evaluation: Unreliable Data

Answer 13

Schaffer and Emerson’s Data may be unreliable as it was based on mothers reports of their infants. Mothers who are less sensitive to their infants protests may be less likely to report them. This would create a systematic bias which would challenge the validity of the data.

Question 14

Schaffer and Emerson - Stages Of Attachment Evaluation: Biased Sample

Answer 14

The Unique characteristics of the families included in the sample may have biased the sample. A Working- class sample from the 1960s may not apply to other social groups in modern society. Today more women work, meaning children are cared for outside of the home. There has also been a rise in stay at home fathers in the past 25 Years.

Question 15

Schaffer and Emerson - Stages Of Attachment Evaluation: Culture Variation

Answer 15

The stage model might only apply to individualistic cultures.
Sagi Et Al. compared attachments in infants raised in a kibbutz with infants raised in family-based sleeping arrangements. Closeness of attachment with mothers was almost twice as common in family-based arrangements than the communal care of the kibbutz. In collectivist cultures multiple attachments are made more common

Question 16

Stages in the Development of Attachment

Answer 16

Indiscriminate Attachment : Birth - 2 months
The Beginning of attachment: Around 4 months
Discriminate Attachment : From 7 months
Multiple attachments: 9-11+ Months

Question 17

Describe Stage One Of Development Of Attachment

Answer 17

Indiscriminate Attachment : Birth - 2 months:

Infants produce similar responses to inanimate and animate objects. Towards the end of this period try begin to show greater preference for social stimuli and tend to be more content when with people. Reciprocity and interactional synchrony help establish relationships with others.

Question 18

Describe Stage Two Of Development Of Attachment

Answer 18

The Beginning of attachment: Around 4 months

Infants show general sociability (enjoyment of being with other people)preferring human company over inanimate objects. They are able to distinguish between familiar and unfamiliar people but do not show stranger anxiety : they can be easily comforted by anyone

Question 19

Describe Stage Three Of Development Of Attachment

Answer 19

Discriminate Attachment : From 7 months

Infants show separation anxiety. They show joy when reunited with that particular person and are most comforted by that person.
Infants also show stranger anxiety during this period. Have a primary caregiver usually 65% of the time it is the mother. as found by Schaffer and Emerson.

Question 20

Describe Stage Four Of Development Of Attachment

Answer 20

Multiple attachments: 9-11+ Months

Soon after the primary attachment is formed the infant develops a wider circle of multiple attachments. By around 1 year old most infants would have developed multiple attachments,with 1/3rd of infants forming five or more secondary attachments.
Displaying separation anxiety with their secondary attachments

Question 21

Describe The Role Of The Father

Answer 21

Schaffer and Emerson found fathers were more likely to be a joint first attachment figure (27%) This may be because fathers spend less time with their infant. However studies have shown little relationship between father accessibility and attachment.

Fathers may lack the emotional sensitivity needed to form an intense attachment. However it is shown that there is still a strong attachment with the father as he plays and interacts with the infant better or more than the care the mother provides.

Question 22

Evaluate The Role Of The Father: Gender Differences May Not Exist

Answer 22

While Some Research Suggests men are less sensitive to infant cues compared to mothers other have found no gender differences. For example Frodi et al reported no differences in the physiological reactions of men and women when exposed to videos of infants crying

Question 23

Evaluate The Role Of The Father: Men do form secure attachments

Answer 23

Despire possible differences in sensitivity there is evidence that men do form secure attachments with their children, as in the case of single male parent families. Frank et al. found that in two parent families where the father is the primary caregiver, the mother and father are joint primary attachment figure

Question 24

Evaluate The Role Of The Father: Fathers Play An Important Role As Secondary Caregivers

Answer 24

Fathers play an important role as a secondary caregiver. Fathers have consistently been found to be more playful, physically active and better at providing challenging situations. A Lack of sensitivity may play a positive role in development as it fosters problem-solving by making grater communicative and cognitive demands on children.

Question 25

Name Two Psychologists and The Animals They Studied

Answer 25

Lorenz - Geese

Harlow - Monkey

Question 26

Lorenz - Research Into Imprinting : Aim

Answer 26

To investigate the mechanisms of imprinting where the youngsters follow and form an attachment to the first large, moving object that they meet.

Question 27

Lorenz - Research Into Imprinting :

Answer 27

Lorenz (1935) split a large clutch of greylag goose eggs into two batches. One batch hatch naturally with the mother, the other batch hatched in an incubator with Lorenz making sure that he was the first moving object the goslings encountered.
The gosling’s behaviour was recorded.
Lorenz marked the goslings so that he knew whether they had hatched naturally or whether they had hatched in the incubator.
He placed all the goslings under and upturned box. The box was then removed and the gosling’s behaviour was recorded.

Question 28

Lorenz - Research Into Imprinting : Findings

Answer 28

After birth, the naturally hatched baby goslings followed their mother about whilst the incubator hatched goslings followed Lorenz around.
When released from the upturned box, the naturally hatched goslings went straight to their mother whereas the incubator hatched goslings went straight to Lorenz (showing no bond to their natural mother).
These bonds proved to be irreversible (the naturally hatched goslings would only follow their mother; the incubator hatched goslings would only follow Lorenz).
Lorenz noticed how the process of imprinting occurred only a short period of time after birth (between 4 and 25 hours).

Question 29

Lorenz - Research Into Imprinting : Conclusion

Answer 29

Imprinting is a form of attachment, exhibited mainly by birds who have to leave the nest early, whereby close contact is kept with the first large moving object encountered.

Question 30

Lorenz - Research Into Imprinting : Strength

Answer 30

A strength of Lorenz’s study is that its findings have been highly influential within the field of developmental psychology.
For example, the fact that imprinting is seen to be irreversible (as suggested in Lorenz’s study) suggests that attachment formation is under biological control and that attachment formation happens within a specific time frame.
This is a strength because it lead developmental psychologists (such as Bowlby) to develop well recognised theories of attachment suggesting the attachment formation takes place during a critical period and is a biological process. Such theories have been highly influential in the way child care is administered today.

Question 31

Lorenz - Research Into Imprinting : Weakness

Answer 31

A weakness of Lorenz’s study is that it can be criticised for extrapolation.
Lorenz conducted his study on imprinting on animals – the greylag geese.
This is a weakness because humans and animals (in this case, greylag geese) are physiological different. The way a human infant develops an attachment with their primary caregiver could be very different to the way a greylag geese forms an attachment with their primary caregiver, therefore the findings cannot be generalised.

Question 32

Harlow - Research Into Contact Comfort : Aim

Answer 32

To test Learning theory by comparing attachment behaviour in baby monkeys given a wire surrogate mother producing milk with those given a soft towelling mother producing no milk.

Question 33

Harlow - Research Into Contact Comfort : Procedure

Answer 33

Two types of surrogate mother were constructed – a harsh wire mother and a soft towelling mother. 16 baby monkeys were used, 4 in each condition.

• A cage containing a wire mother producing milk and a towelling mother producing no milk.
• A cage containing a wire mother producing no milk and a towelling mother producing milk.
• A cage containing a wire mother producing milk
• A cage containing a towelling mother producing milk.

The amount of time spent with each mother was recorded, as well as feeding time was recorded. The monkeys were also frightened with loud noises to test for mother preference during times of stress.

Question 34

Harlow - Research Into Contact Comfort : Findings

Answer 34

Monkeys preferred contact with the towelling mother when given a choice of surrogate mother (regardless of whether she produced milk).
He monkeys even stretched across to the wire monkey to feed whilst still clinging to the towelling mother (providing comfort).
Monkeys with only the wire surrogate suffered from diarrhoea (a sign of stress).
When frightened by a loud noise monkeys clung to the towelling mother (when this was available).
In the larger cage conditions, monkeys with the towelling mothers explored more and visited their surrogate mother more.

Question 35

Harlow - Research Into Contact Comfort : Conclusion

Answer 35

Rhesus monkeys have an innate, unlearned need for contact comfort, suggesting that attachment concerns emotional security more than food. Contact comfort is associated with lower levels of stress and a willingness to explore, indicating emotional security.

Question 36

Harlow - Research Into Contact Comfort : Strength

Answer 36

A strength of Harlow’s study is that it was conducted in a controlled, laboratory setting. EXAMPLE: Harlow was able to control potential extraneous variables such as the monkeys being taken away from their mothers straight after birth, the baby monkeys not being exposed to any love or attention from their biological mothers.EVALUATION: This is a strength because it means that Harlow was measuring what he intended to measure (i.e. factors that can affect the formation of attachment) and therefore, the study can be seen to have high internal validity allowing a cause and effect relationship to be established.

Question 37

Harlow - Research Into Contact Comfort : Weakness

Answer 37

A weakness of Harlow’s study is that it was conducted in a controlled, artificial laboratory setting.
The highly controlled laboratory setting that Harlow used is not reflective of the real life situations and may cause the monkeys to behave in an artificial manner. This is a weakness because it means that Harlow wasn’t necessarily measuring the real-life attachment formation and therefore the study can be criticised for lacking ecological validity.

Question 38

Animal Study Evaluation: Research Support For Imprinting In Animals

Answer 38

Guiton (1966) found leghorn chicks imprinted on yellow rubber gloves used for feeding, and male chickens later tried to mate with the gloves. This implies animals are born with a predisposition to imprint on a moving object within a critical period and that early imprinting is linked to later reproductive behaviour.

Question 39

Animal Study Evaluation: Generalising Animal Studies to Human Behaviour

Answer 39

Much more human behaviour is governed by conscious decisions, but a number of studies have found observations of animal attachment are mirrored in studies of humans. For example Schaffer and Emerson found feeding does not form the basis of attachment.

Question 40

Animal Study Evaluation: Imprinting is no longer seen as irreversible

Answer 40

Guiton (1966) found that by spending time with their own species, chickens who had initially tired to mate with the rubber gloves were able to engage in normal sexual behaviour. Imprinting is now thought of a more plastic and forgiving mechanism

Question 41

Animal Study Evaluation: Confounding variables in Harlow’s Study

Answer 41

As the two heads of the wire monkeys were different it is possible that the infant monkeys preferred the cloth -covered mother as it had a more attractive head. Harlow’s Conclusion may lack internal validty

Question 42

Animal Study Evaluation: Ethics of Harlow’s Study should be questioned

Answer 42

As the infant monkeys showed later difficulties forming relationships with other monkeys it could be said the study created lasting emotional harm. However, some may argue that the knowledge gained can be used to improve care for human(and primate) infants, making it more ethically acceptable