Lecture 6: Attachment

Question 1

Normative Processes

Answer 1

Those we all go through as a species.

Contingent on ABS and doesn’t account for individual differences.

Question 2

ABS

Answer 2

Attachment Behavioural System (Bowlby, 1969)

Not dependent on learning - is innate.

Universal.

Question 3

Other behavioural systems

Answer 3

Sexual system

Care-giving system.

Question 4

Interaction of ABS and other behavioural systems

Answer 4

ABS encourages proximity seeking and will only be switched off through felt-security.

Other behavioural systems can’t be switched on at same time as ABS is activated so feeling threatened and insecure can interfere with ability to give care etc.

Criticism - sexual behavour can be used as proximity seeking.

Question 5

Activation of ABS

Answer 5

Via interaction bids - negative emotions, explicit requests etc.

Adults have symbolic representations so can seek psych proximity to an attachment figure without them being there. E.g. imagining what someone would say to comfort you.

Question 6

Psychological goals of ABS

Answer 6

FELT SECURITY => switching off of ABS

Hug from someone after a bad day = “I feel supported, I can cope, i am worthy of love”

Question 7

Felt Security

Answer 7

Feelings of being safe and worthy of love.

Feeling secure allows for exploration e.g. safe base, insecure children cling to parents.

Question 8

Cognitive processes in normative attachment x 3

Answer 8

1) Monitor and appraise viability of our own behaviour (e.g. is crying or anger responded to more readily).
2) Monitor threat in environment.
3) Monitor and appraise attachment figure responses (to know how to behave next).

Question 9

Biological / adaptvie function of ABS

Answer 9

Ensures survival via proximity to others.

Crying most important behaviour in babies.

Question 10

ABS triggers x 3

Answer 10

1) Danger / threat to self
2) Cues of danger - dark, loud noises, isolation (innate fears).
3) More subtle cues can be learn - e.g. threat to relationship with close attachment figure.

Question 11

Early attachment

Answer 11

Crittenden (1997)

Development of attachment styles.

Attachment style dependent on responses of attachment figures to primary attachment behaviours e.g. crying.

Positive response => secure (normative)

Negative response => Avoidant (deactivation of ABS)

Intermittent reinforcement => Anxious-ambivalent (hyper-activation of ABS).

Question 12

Strange Situation

Answer 12

Ainsworth

Children that showed avoidance behave like they don’t care when mother leaves or returns, however phys data shows arousal. By age 7/8 this has stopped too suggesting that have learnt to suppress the ABS.

Question 13

Secondary Attachment Processes

Answer 13

Individual differences in attachment

Quality of interactions with others predicts IDs.

Question 14

Bolwby and Adult Attachment

Answer 14

“Lasting psychological connectedness between human beings”

Attachment behaviour determined by mental models (working models) of themselves and attachment figures based on experiences from childhood.

Individuals will either see themselves as worthy or unworthy of love and support and see others as either dependable or undependable.

Question 15

Misunderstandings about Bowlby

Answer 15

Bolwby poorly understood and often misquoted.

Discredited at time as it was an evolutionary theory.

People misinterpreted his ideas to mean that women would damage their children by leaving them to go to work. He actually defined the concept of a ‘good enough’ mother and we are able to form attachments with many care-givers as long as the care is good and consistent.

Bowlby said attachment behaviour is cradle to grave, meaning we form attachments throughout our lives, NOT that we have the same AO throughout.

Question 16

Social Cognitive Approaches

Answer 16

Attachment seen as based on cognitive .

Primary attachment experiences become chronically accessible.

Other relationship schemas can be constructed from diff experiences and can be situationally primed.

Activated attachment related cognitive structures => attentiveness to certain forms of interaction.

Can use methodology to find out whether attachment processes are automatic vs controlled, subject to biases, organised in schemas and affected by accessibility and availability.

Question 17

Attachment dimensions

Answer 17

An alternative to viewing attachment as orientations.

Question 18

Brenan, Clark, Shaver (1998)

Answer 18

Dimensions of anxiety and avoidance.

Being low on both = secure. High on both = fearful avoidant (rare).

Question 19

Collins & Read (1990) x 3 dimensions

Answer 19

3 dimensions of attachment:

1) Comfort with closeness
2) Ability to depend on others
3) Anxiety over being unloved or abandoned.

Question 20

Cognitive Constructs x 4

Answer 20

1) Model of self
2) Model of others
3) Interaction scripts (what we expect from others)
4) emotion recognition patterns.

Question 21

Multiple Mental Models

Answer 21

Baldwin (1996)

Most likely rather than 1 way of relating to others.

Evidence: Infants have been shown in strange situation to behave diff to father and mother.

AO therefore dependent upon the variety of secure, avoidant and anxious-avoidant relationships a person has had.

Question 22

Bretherton (1990)

Answer 22

Relationship expectations as scripts…

Of typical interaction patterns between self and attachment figure e.g. “When I hurt myself mummy always comforts me”.

Memories are combined to form higher order expectations about specific relationships.

Question 23

Availability

Answer 23

Whether an exemplar, construct or schema is present in memory for potential use in processing info (whether it was stored in memory in the first place).

E.g. someone who had never experienced a trusting relationship would not have a positive mental model of relationships to draw on.

Over-simplified example - people have multiple experiences of second-hand experiences via others and media etc.

Question 24

Accessibility

Answer 24

Ease of recall…

Chronically accessible concepts are those that have become automatic through continued use e.g. The trait dimensions a person uses to categorise others.

In attachment it is thought to be the way that a person’s AO arises as a chronically accessible mental model for perceiving relationships (Bowlby)

Varies moment to moment - explains some variation in self-reports.

Motivational states or recent experiences can influence.

Priming can encourage temporary accessibility.

Question 25

Semantic priming

Answer 25

Can have positive personal and interpersonal benefits.

Priming security => attenuates negative reactions to out-group members, increases empathy and altruism.

Question 26

Carnelley & Rowe (2007)

Answer 26

Repeated primes over 3 days (secure / neutral).
Self-views did not differ at start but by end of experiment, secure prime condition had higher self-views, more positive relationship expectations and higher attachment security. Perhaps what happens in a normal healthy relationship?

Question 27

La Guardia et al (2000)

Answer 27

Self-determination theory approach.

3 innate psych needs:

1) Autonomy
2) Competence
3) Relatedness

A healthy relationship should satisfy these needs.

Found the degree to which these 3 things were satisfied by various attachment figures predicted within person variance across 3 studies.

Question 28

Baldwin et al (1996)

Answer 28

AOs reflect accessible relationship schemas rather than triat-like tendencies. So they can be primed and made more accessible depending on context and AO of that particular relationship.

34% pps had diff AO with mother than father.

37% had different AO in their current relationship than with mother.

Some results not very robust,
Mostly 19 y/o UGs. WEIRD. Female /male ratio not equal.
Self-reports.

Question 29

Hazen & Shaver (1987)

Answer 29

Idea of one AO throughout life is wrong. Studies showing AO as an ID:

1) poor test-re-rest reliability.
2) self-reports and interviews do not always match up
3) People report different AO in diff relationships.

First to apply Bowlby’s ideas to adults;

3 ASs
Secure (60%)
Anxious Ambivalent (25%)
Avoidant (20%)

Parallels found between ASs in children and how those adults behaved in romantic relationships.

Same prevalence of ASs in adults and children,

Securely attached individuals have more positive beliefs about themselves and others.

Question 30

Carnelley, Rowe and Otway (2015)

Answer 30

Attachment anxiety and avoidance associated with depression and social anxiety. Wanted to discover causal direction.

Used semantic priming.

Individuals have both relationship specific cognitive representations as well as more general chronically activated AO.

Study 1
After being primed with 1 of the 3 styles by writing about a personal example of each, felt security was subsequently higher for secure group and lowest for avoidant, Depressed mood lowest for secure and higest for anxious. Anxious mood ratings lowest for secure and highest for anxious.

Study 2
Repeated primes with lab meetings and text messages. Felt security was highest and stayed highest in secure group vs control. Depressed mood decreased with secure vs control. Anxious mood lower at start with secure but increased again between 4 & 5 (suggesting priming effects not long lasting).

Question 31

Depression

Answer 31

Anxious-ambivalent and avoidant more associated with depression.

Question 32

Adult attachment anxiety

Answer 32

Relationship preoccupation
Define life in terms of close relationships
Worry about abandonment and rejection
Negative self-view
Jealous tendencies.
Hyper-activation of ABS

Question 33

Adult Avoidance

Answer 33

Positive sense of self
Dismiss value of close relationships
Self-reliant
Mistrust
Deactivation of ABS = defends self from pain of rejection.

Question 34

Attachment based family therapy

Answer 34

Used for adolescent depression.

Time consuming work with whole family.

Poor attachment history of parents predicts insecure attachment style of teenager. Parents work on attachment history to help child.

Good clinical outcomes.

Secure attachment associated with reduction in depression (70%).

Question 35

Summary

Answer 35

For exam:

Need to be clear about definition / terminology of attachment. I.e. are you talking about AO, AS or relationship?

Only at surface of understanding of mental models and how they impact our daily lives.

Attachment research has important clinical implications - moving people towards more positive relationships and improving psych health.

Question 36

Differences between child and adult pair bonds.

Answer 36

Adult A relationships are recipricol.
Adult relationships are sexual.

They therefore involve ABS as well as care-giving and sexual systems.

Question 37

Secure

Answer 37

Easy to come by emotionally close to others.

Comfortable depending on others and having others depend on me.

Positive views of self and others.

Comfortable with intimacy and independence.

Question 38

Anxious- preoccupied.

Answer 38

Overly dependent.

Less positive views about themselves.

Contact with partner leaves anxiety.

Question 39

Dismissive avoidant

Answer 39

Self-sufficient.

Deny needing others.

Avoid attachment altogether.

View their partners less positively that they view themselves.

Question 40

Fearful avoidant

Answer 40

Often results from abuse or trauma in childhood.

Desire to have close relationShips but feel uncomfortable in them.

Suspicious of partners.

View themselves as unworthy of love.

Question 41

Working models (children)

Answer 41

Bolwby and others.

Children’s thoughts about caregivers are combined with how worthy of love they are to form working models of attachment.

Adaptive as allows children to plan and know what to expect from caregivers.

Children tend to interpret experiences in light of working models. These can be modified if existing model doesn’t accommodate a new experience.

Question 42

Relational schemas

Answer 42

Baldwin (1992)

Contain info about the way partners interact with each other.

Thoughts about self combined with thoughts about other and interaction scripts.

Help people to plan for how they expect partner to behave in a given situation.
Schemas are organised in a hierarchy with the highest being the most general and the lowest applying to specific relationships (general working model vs relationship specific working models).

Question 43

Stability of working models

Answer 43

70-80% people report stable styles over time.

Those that change can do over a period of just weeks to months.

Suggests they are not fixed personality traits (use as evidence for personality too).

Question 44

Relationship outcomes

Answer 44

Satisfaction:
Secure = most satisfaction (perhaps due to better communication and more intimate self-disclosure, more expressive emotionally, perceive partners more positively).

Duration:

Secure = longer duration. May be due to more relationship satisfaction.

Anxious preoccupied also have long relationships but tend to be less happy due to anxiety about abandonment and low self-worth.

Question 45

Emotion processing

Answer 45

Attachment style could influence emotional experiences due to working models of self and other helps determine response in social and other situations.

Secure = secure base for exploring world, positive view of self and others.

Anxious-preoccupied - untrusting of others, and feel unworthy of love.

Avoidant styles - avoid getting close to others. May no longer feel distress about situation as ABS has been deactivated as a self-preservation bid.