evaluation: Attachments Flashcards
What is a strength of the effects of early attachments on later relationships?
Strength: Research support
Reviews of evidence linking attachment to later development, (e.g. Fearon and Roisman, 2017) have concluded that early attachment consistently predicts later attachment, emotional well-being and attachment to own children.
- How strong the relationship is depends on both the attachment type and the aspect of later development.
- Whilst insecure avoidant attachment seems to convey fairly mild disadvantages of any aspect of development,
disorganised attachment is strongly associated with later
mental disorder.
This means that secure attachment as a baby appears to convey advantages for future development while disorganised appears to seriously disadvantage children.
What is a weakness of research into the effects of early attachments on later relationships?
Limitation : Not all evidence supports the idea of a link between early attachment and later development
Becker-Stoll et al.
- 43 individuals from 1 year old
Assessed at 16 using an adult attachment interview and no evidence of continuity was found.
The extent to which early attachment predicts later outcomes is not clear, other factors may be involved.
What is a weakness of research into the effects of early attachments on later relationships?
Limitation : Most of the research into this field is the use of retrospective data
- Not Longitudinal
- Ask participants lo look, back.
- Requires honesty a accurate perception
- We don’t know if we are assessing childhood or adult attachment.
- Internal validity issues
The measures of early attachment used in most studies may be confounded by other factors, making them meaningless.
What is the limitation of the research into the effects of early attachments on later relationships?
Limitation : Socially sensitive- Balancing opportunity and risk
The research is probabilistic - nothing is set in stone. (Clarke and Clarke, 1998)
- No one is doomed to be bullied or to have a string of failed relationships. It makes it more likely, but it is not a certainty.
- On the one hand it provides opportunities lo intervene and
support their development.
On the other hand we don’t want to become too pessimistic and create a self-fulfilling prophecy.
What is a strength of the Romanian orphan studies?
Strength : Real world application
Research helps authorities to improve the conditions for children growing up outside the . family home.
- Improved understanding of the effects → prevention.
(Langdon, 2006) - Improved conditions in the care system.
- One or two key workers.
- Institutional care is deemed undesirable → foster care or adoption is preferred.
This increases the chances of children in care developed normally.
What is a strength of the Romanian orphan studies?
Strength : A lack of confounding variables
Previous orphan studies used orphans who had experienced varying degrees of
trauma.
- E.g. War orphans.
- Very difficuit to disentangle the effects of neglect, physical abuse and bereavement from those of institutional care.
- Romanian orphans were in the main handed over by loving parents who couldn’t afford to keep them
→ Results are less likely to be confounded by other
negative early experiences.
→ Higher internal validity.
What is a weakness of the Romanian orphan studies?
Limitation : Studies from Romanian orphanages my have introduced other confounding variables
- Remarkably poor care in the orphanages.
- Very little intellectual stimulation
- Very little emotional care
- Very little comfort.
→ Effects of institutionalization may in fact the effects of poor institutional care rather than institutional care in general
What is a weakness of the Romanian orphan studies?
Limitation: Socially insensitive research
The results from the research have been published while the orphans were growing up.
- Results show that late adopted children typically have poor developmental outcomes.
- Could result in lowered expectations ( self-belief)
- Different treatment / expeciations.
Self-fulfilling prophecy.
Should the results have been published at all?
REMEMBER the study is still ongoing.
- We still don’t have answers to the majorty of the questions.
What is a weakness of the maternal deprivation hypothesis?
Limitation : Maternal deprivation hypothesis is the poor quality of the evidence is based on
- Bowlby carried out the interviews himself in the 44 thieves study.
- Bias
- Goldfarb (1943)
- Wartime orphans
- Confounding variables - lots of trauma.
What is a weakness of the maternal deprivation hypotheisis?
Counterpoint : Levy et al (2003)
Separating rats from their mother can have serious consequences for social development.
However…animal studies lack generalisability..
What is a weakness of the maternal deprivation hypothesis?
Limitation : Bowlby may have confused the different types of early experiences. Ritter (1981) distinguishes between deprivation and privation
- Losing an attachment after it’s formed vs. never forming an attachment
- Long-term damage describe by Bowlby is more likely to be the result of privation.
- E.g. Goldfarb’s wartime orphans.
- Many of the 44 thieves had disrupted early lives e.g. spells in hospital - may have never formed attachments.
The seriousness of deprivation in children’s development may have been overestimated.
What is a weakness of the maternal deprivation hypothesis?
Limitation : Bowlby may have overestimated the critical period
- Koluchova (1976) - Czech twins.
Experienced extreme abuse and neglect between the ages of 18 months and 7 years.
- Rickets
- No language
- IQ about 40.
- Were eventually adopted and received excellent aftercare and were completely “normal” by the time they were teenagers.
What is the strength of maternal deprivation hypothesis?
Strength : Real world application
Research such as the Maternal Deprivation Hypothesis highlights the importance of positive attachment experiences and maintaining a monotropic bond in the first five years, which have been instrumental in the developments of good childeare practices.
• Greater stability in childcare practice has been developed through daycare centres assigning caregivers to children and hospital visiting hours have been reviewed so that children can maintain contact with their parents.
• Some national governments offer more financial support for young families in terns of maternity and paternity leave. For instance, Sweden offers 480 days parental leave, clearly highlighting its commitment to support children’s early attachment experiences.
• Bowlby suggested that his research could help those working in child psychiatry and psychology and in social work, and some also of those in paediatrics and sick children’s nursing (1988).
What is a strength of the research into cultural variations in attachment?
Strength : Large samples
- In van lizendoor and Kroonenberg’s study there was a total of almost 2000 babies and the primary attachment figure.
- Having large sample sizes increases the internal validity of the study by reducing the impact of anomalous results caused by a bad methodology or very unusual participants.
What is a weakness of the research into cultural variations in attachment?
Limitation : confounding variables
- A limitation with a cross-cultural research are confounding variables on the findings
- Certain characteristics were not accounted for, such as poverty, social class, and urban/rural
- Some of the environmental variables were not necessarily controlled between studies, i.e. size of the room
Therefore it is difficult to compare results on non-matched studies, as there may not tell us anything about cross-cultural patterns of attachment.
What is a strength of the research into cultural variations in attachment?
Strength: Indigenous Researchers
The individual studies that van lizendoor and Kroonenberg’s meta analysis looked at used indigenous researchers from the same background as the participants.
- For example Takahashi studying Japanese attachment and Grossman studying German attachment
- This means that many of the potential issues that come from misinterpreting or difficulty understanding indigenous language/behaviour are reduced
- Increases validity of data collected
What is a weakness of the research into cultural variations in attachment?
Limitation : Culture bias
A problem with a lot of cross-cultural research is that it suffers from imposed etic. This means that the tools being used are often designed in one culture and then imposed on another.
- The Strange Situation was created by an American and is based on the assumptions that the researcher has.
- E.g. the willingness to explore is a sign of secure attachment.
- However, in Germany a lack of separation anxiety and pleasure on reunion might be seen as independence and security by German standards rather than insecurity by American (Grossman and Grossman, 1990)
- Infants are not being measured by the standards of their own culture and so may be being incorrectly categorised.
- Strange Situation may lack validity.
What is a weakness of the research into cultural variations in attachment?
Limitation: Alternative explanations for similarities
Universal similarities in how attachments form (and for the majority of secure attachments) is because of an innate drive for survival → (Bowlby).
- Van ljzendoorn and Kroonenberg suggest that at least some similarity can be attributed to the effects of mass media e.g. books, TV, internet etc.
- These spread ideas about ideal parenting techniques across the globe and so children all over the world are potentially being exposed to similar influences.
→ Similarity could be down to our increasing global culture rather than down to innate biological influences.
What is the strength of the strange situation?
Strength : Good inter-rate reliability
When testing inter-rater reliability for a team of observers, Bick et al. (1978) found 94% agreement between observers.
- This could be because the observations took place under strict and controlled methods (including video recording) using predetermined behavioural categories that were easy to observe e.g. separation anxiety.
- High inter-rater reliability means that findings are considered more meaningful because we can be confident that an attachment type identified in the strange situation does not depend on subjectivity.
What is a weakness of the The strange situation?
Limitation : The strange situation is culture Bound
The Strange Situation was developed in Britain and the US and therefore may only be valid for use in certain cultures.
- This is because different babies have different experiences in different cultures and these experiences may affect their responses to the Strange Situation.
- Takahashi (1986) found that in one Japanese study babies displayed very high levels of separation anxiety and so a disproportionate number of them were classified as insecure resistant.
- However Takahashi suggests that this was not due to attachment insecurity, but rather because of the unusual experience in Japan, where mothers and babies are rarely separated.
What is a strength of the strange situation?
Strength : Attachment types as defined by the Strange situation are highly predictive of future development
- Babies assessed as secure generally go on to have better outcomes than insecure babies in many areas.
- In chidhood better achievement in school and less involvement in bullying (McCormick et al. 2016)
- Securely attached babies tend to go on to have better mental health in adulthood (Ward el al. 2006).
- Bables assessed as Type C tend to have the worst outcomes.
What is a limitation of the strange situation?
Limitation : Another Attachment type
Main and Solomon (1986) identified a fourth category of attachment - disorganised (Type D), a mix of resistant and avoidant behaviours.
- The addition of an extra attachment type appears to be a huge problem for Ainsworth’s classification, as it shows that Answorth’s categorisation of types is incomplete.
- On the other hand Type D children are unusual and Type D behaviour appears to be the result of experiencing some kind of severe neglect or abuse.
- Therefore Type D attachment does not appear to be a normal variation in attachment.
- In conclusion Ainsworth’s classification of attachment types holds up well as a description of normal variations in altachment.
However Type D attachment adds something useful to her classification in the form of an abnormal attachment type.
What is a strength of Bowlby’s theory of Attachment?
Strength : Research support for Internal Working Model
• Bailey et al. (2007) tested the idea that parents attachment are passed on through generations due to the internal working model
- Measured the mother’s attachment to their own primary allachment figure and also the altachment qualty of the babies.
- They found that mothers with poor attachments to theur own primary altachment ligure were more likely to have poorly attached babies.
This supports Bowlby’s idea that mother’s ability to form attachments to their babies is influenced by their internal working model.
What is a weakness of Bowlby’s theory of Attachment?
Limitation: there are other possible factors
However, it must also be said there are probably other important influences on social development.
- Some psychologists believe that genetic differences in anxiety and social ability affect social behaviour in both babies and adults.
- These differences could also impact the parenting ability (Korienka, 2016).
This means that Bowlby may have overstated the importance of the internal working model in social behaviour and parenting at the expense of other factors.
What is a limitation of Bowlby’s theory of attachment?
Limitation : Evidence for Monotropy is unclear
Bowlby believed that this first attachment was special and unique.
- Schaffer and Emmerson (1964) found a significant minority formed multiple attachments at the same time.
- The first aftachment does appear to have a particularly strong influence on later life; however, this could simply mean it is stranger, rather than diflerent in quality.
This means that Bowlby may be incorrect about the unique quality/importance to the primary attachment.
What is a strength of Bowlby’s theory of Attachment?
Strength : Support for social releasers
There is clear evidence that cute baby behaviours are designed to elicit interaction from caregivers.
- Brazelton et al. (1975) observed babies trigger interactions with adults using social releasers.
- The researchers instructed primary atfachment figures to ignore their babies’ social releasers.
- Previously responsive babies became incressing y distressed and some eventually curled up and laid motionless on the fioor.
This illustrates the role of social releasers in emotional development and suggests that they are important in the process of attachment development.
What is a limitation of the learning theory of attachment?
Limitation : counter-evidence from animal studies
- Lorenz’s geese attached to him before they had been fed - suggests the process is innate and not dependent on food.
- Harlow’s monkeys spent 18-19 hours per day on the cloth mother and only 1 hour on the wire mother that provided food.
- Monkeys also gained comfort when frightened from the cloth mother.
Suggests that contact comfort is far more important that food when forming meaningful attachments.
What is a limitation of the learning theory of attachment?
Limitation : Counter-evidence from Human studies
• In their research Schaffer and Emerson (1964) found that babies tended to form their main attachment to the mother regardless of whether she was the one who fed them.
• Furthermore in another study, Isabella et al. (1989) found that high levels of interactional synchrony predicted the quality of attachment.
• These factors do not relate to food and this again suggests that it is not the main factor in the formation of human attachments.
What is a strength and limitation of the Learning theory of attachment?
Strength : Supports for the importance of conditioning
Although it seems unlikely that food plays a central role in attachment, it is possible that conditioning may have a part to play.
- For example a baby may associate feeling warm and comfortable with the presence of a particular adult.
- Could influence the babies choice of their main attachment figure
This means that learning theory may still be useful in understanding the development of attachments.
Limitation : Both classical and operant conditioning see the baby as passive in attachment development
- There is plenty of research showing the very active role that babies play in the production of attachments.
- Feldman and Eidelmen, 2007
- Meltzhoff and Moore.
- Isabella. 1989
What is a strength of Lorenz’s research?
Strength : Research support
- One strength of Lorenz’s research is the existence of support for the concept of imprinting
- Regolin and Vallortigara (1995)
- Chicks were exposed to simple shape combinations that moved e.g. a triangle with a rectangle in front.
- When exposed to a range of combinations they followed the original one most closely.
Supports the view that young animals are born with an innate mechanism to imprint on a moving object present in a critical window of development.
What is a limitation of Lorenz’s research?
Limitation : Generalisability to humans
*Lorenz only studied non-human animals so it is difficult to assume that humans would act in the same way.
- The attachment formation in mammals appears to be very different to that of bird species.
- Parents, specifically mothers, show more emotional reactions to their ofispring with the added ability of being able to form attachments beyond the first few hours after birth.
So, whilst some of Lorenz’s findings have greatly influenced our understanding of development and attachment formation the results and conclusions can’t necessarily be extrapolated to a human population.
What is a strength of Harlow’s research?
Strength : Real world application
- Harlow’s research has practical value since it provides insight into attachment formation.
- For example, Howe (1998) reports that the knowledge gained from Harlow’s research has helped social workers and clinical psychologists understand that a lack of binding experience may be a risk factor in child development, which can then serve to prevent it occurring or, at the very least, recognise when to intervene.
- In addition, there are practical applications which are used in the care of captive wild monkeys in zoos or breeding programmes to ensure that they have adequate attachment figures as part of their care.
This means that the value of Harlow’s research is not just theoretical but can also be used in a practical sense in the real world.
What is a limitation of Harlows research?
Limitation : Animal studies
Animal studies are practical in many ways, but are also very unethical.
- The monkeys suffered greatly in terms of emotional separation from their biological mother at such an eany age due to the procedure Harlow used.
- If the primates are considered to be sufficiently human-like to generalise the results beyond the sample used then it stands to reason that the effects of psychological harm that they will have endured are similar to that of a human baby also.
- There is, however, the question of whether the insight obtained was sufficiently important to psychologists’ understanding of attachment that Harlow was justified in his approach.
What is the limitation research into the role of the father?
Limitation : confusion over the research question
A big issue with the research into the role of the fathers is the lack of clarity over the question being asked.
- “What is the role of the father?” is much more complicated than it sounds.
As we’ve just seen some research is interested in their role as a secondary attachment whilst others as a primary attachment figure. - The findings also vary depending on the question.
- Some research find the fathers behaving like a primary carer and others find the father in a distinctive role, as a secondary carer.
This makes it difficult to offer a simple answer to the question, as it really depends what specific role that is being discussed.
What is the limitation research into the role of the father?
Limitation : Conflicting evidence
A further limitation into the role of the fathers is that there is a lot of conflicting evidence.
- Longitudinal studies (Grosman et al.) have suggested that fathers are a secondary attachment figures have an important and distinct role in the children’s development.
- We would therefore expect that children growing up in single-mother and lesbian-parent families to tum out different in some way. However this is not the case (McCallum and Golombok, 2004).
This means that the question as to whether fathers have a distinctive role remains unanswered.
What is a strength of research into the role of the father?
That being said, it could be that fathers typically take on distinctive roles in two-parent heterosexual families, but that parents in single-mother and lesbian-parent families simply adapt to accommodate the role played by the fathers.
- That means that the question of a distinctive role for fathers is clear after all.
- When present, fathers tend to adopt a distinctive role, but families can easily adapt to not having a father
What is a strength of research into the role of the Father?
Strength : Real world application
One strength of research into the role of the father is that it can be used to offer advice to parents.
- Agonizing decisions over roles can cause a lot of pressure and confusion, to the point where prospective parents could start considering whether or not to have a child at all.
- Research can be used to offer reassuring advice to parents
- For example, fathers are more than capable of becoming primary attachment figure and also, not having a father around at all doesn’t affect a child’s development
This means that parental anxiety over the role of fathers can be reduced.
What is the strength of Schaffer’s research into the stages of Attachment?
Strength: External validity of Schaffer’s Research
One strength of Schaffer and Emerson’s research is that it has good external validity.
- Most of the observations were made by parents during everyday activities and reported to the researchers.
- The alternative would have been to have research at present to record observations.This might have distracted babies or made him feel anxious.
This means it is highly likely that the participants behaved naturally whilst being observed and that the results can be generalised to everyday situations.
What is the limitation of Schaffer’s research?
Limitation : The mothers were unlikely to be objective observers
- They might have been biased in terms of what they noticed and what they reported, for example they might not have noticed when their baby was showing signs of anxiety or may have mis-remembered it.
This means that even if babies behave naturally their behaviour may not have been accurately recorded.
What is the limitation of Schafers research into the stages of Attachment?
Limitation : Problems studying the asocial stage
One limitation of Schaffer and Emerson’s stages is the validity of the measures used to assess attachment in the asocial stage.
- Young babies lack coordination and are fairly immobile. If babys less than two months old felt anxiety in everyday situations they might have displayed this in quite a subtle, hard-to-observe ways.
- This may have made it difficult for mothers to observe and report back to researchers on signs of anxiety and attachment in this age group.
This means that babies may actually be quite social, but because of flawed methods they appear to be asocial.
What is a strength of Schaffers research?
Strength : Real world application
Another strength of Schaffer and Emerson’s stages is that they have practical application in day care.
- In the asocial and indiscriminate attachment stages day care is likely to be straightforward as babies can be comforted by any skilled adult.
- However, Schaffer and Emerson’s research tells us that day care, especially starting day care with an unfamiliar adult may be problematic during the specific attachment stage.
This means that parents use of daycare can be planned using Schaffer and Emerson’s findings.
What is the strength of the caregiver-infant interactions?
Strength : Filmed observations
• Filmed in a laboratory.
• Great for many reasons:
• Other activities that might distract a baby can be controlled.
• Observations can be recorded and analysed later. Therefore it is unlikely that researchers will miss seeing key behaviours.
• More than one observer can record data and establish the inter-rater reliability of observations
• Finally, babies don’t know they are being observed, so their behaviour does not change in response to observation, which is an advantage compared to other overt observations.
• Therefore the data collected in such research should have good reliability and validity.
What is a limitation of caregiver-infant interactions?
Limitation : Difficulties observing babies
• It is hard to interpret baby’s behaviour.
• Lack of coordination
• Immobile
• Observations are mainly of hand movements or subtle changes in expression → hard to know what is going on / what the meaning is and what is going on from the baby’s perspective.
• Therefore we can’t be sure that the behaviours observed in caregiver infant interactions have any special meaning.
What is the limitation of the caregiver-infant interactions?
Limitation: Developmental Importance
Observing a behaviour does not tell us its developmental importance.
• Feldman - Synchrony and reciprocity are just names given to patters of behaviour.
• They clearly exist but are not particularly useful in understanding development because we don’t know the purpose of the behaviours.
• Observational research alone can’t tell us whether they are important for an infant’s development
• COUNTERPOINT - ISABELLA from outline.
what is a weakness of the strange situation?
Limitation : The strange situation measured something important with later development
- Not all psychologists beleve it is attachment
- Kagen (1982) suggests that genetically influenced anxiety levels could account for variations in attachment behaviour.
- The temperament hypothesis.
