P1 - Attachment

Question 1

what is meant by attachment

Answer 1

Close emotional relationship between two people characterized by mutual affection and a desire to maintain proximity

Question 2

How do we know a baby has formed an attachment? (3)

Answer 2

1. crying upon separation from mother ( distress upon separation)
2. seeking proximity
3. happiness upon re-union

Question 3

when does attachment take place? (3)

Answer 3

1. when there is food involved
2. via classical conditioning
3. it is innate

Question 4

what is meant by reciprocity?

Answer 4

caregiver interaction is a two-way mutual process. Interactions between carers and infants result in similar behavior, with both parties being able to produce responses from each other.

Question 5

what is meant by Interactional Synchrony?

Answer 5

Mother and infant reflect the actions and emotions of the other and do this in a coordinated way. E.g. infants move their bodies in tune with the rhythm of carer’s spoken language to create a kind of turn taking, as seen with 2 way vocal conversations

Question 6

Study to support interactional synchrony?

Answer 6

Condon and Sander (1974)

analyzed video recordings of infants movement and found that they coordinated their actions with adult’s speech to form turn taking conversation.

This supports the idea of interactional synchrony as there is a co-ordination and a two way communication between the infant and the care giver

Question 7

evaluation of studies into interactional synchrony (3)

Answer 7

Every baby is different

Demand characteristics – try to display the best behavior

Can’t communicate with the child and find out if the behavior is deliberate or not

Question 8

practical application of research into CGI?

Answer 8

hospitals decided to keep the caregiver with the baby after it is born and try to keep as much interaction as possible, caregivers are allowed to visit whenever they want and interact with the baby

Question 9

explain research into stages of attachment? (who? method? findings?)

Answer 9

Rudolph Schaffer and Peggy Emerson (1964)

stranger anxiety
seperation anxiety
social referencing

asocial (0-6 weeks)
indiscriminate attachments (6 weeks to 7 months)
specific attachments (7-9 months)
multiple attachments (10 months and onwards)

METHOD:
conducted a longitudinal study on 60 babies at monthly intervals for the first 18 months of their life.

The children were all studied in their own home and a regular pattern was identified in the development of attachment.

The babies were visited monthly for approximately one year, their interactions with their carers were observed, and carers were interviewed.

Evidence for the development of an attachment was that the baby showed separation anxiety after a carer left.

FINDINGS:

They discovered that baby’s attachments develop in the following sequence:

Up to 3 months of age -The newborn is predisposed to attach to any human. Most babies respond equally to any caregiver. - biologically attached to anyone

After 4 months - Preference for certain people. Infants they learn to distinguish primary and secondary caregivers but accept care from anyone (strangers);

After 7 months - Special preference for a single attachment figure. The baby looks to particular people for security, comfort and protection. It shows fear of strangers (stranger fear) and unhappiness when separated from a special person (separation anxiety). Some babies show stranger fear and separation anxiety much more frequently and intensely than others, but nevertheless they are seen as evidence that the baby has formed an attachment. This has usually developed by one year of age.

After 9 months - Multiple attachments. The baby becomes increasingly independent and forms several attachments.

Question 10

implication of schaffer and emerson study?

Answer 10

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.

Question 11

evaluation of the schaffer and emerson study?

Answer 11

Good External Validity, Longitudinal Design, Limited Sample Characteristics

GOOD EXTERNAL VALIDITY

Behavior will be more reflective of their day to day experiences – ecological validity

Doesn’t take place in a lab – studied in own home

LONGITUDINAL STUDY

Weakness – may get drop outs over a long period of time

Strengths – less individual differences in little children
Internal validity is better as it is the same kids over a long period of time

LIMITED SAMPLE CHARACTERISTICS (2)

Negative - All babies are from one location, not from a range of areas and social classes

Negative – temporal - very long time ago, parenting has changed a lot over the time

Question 12

strength and weakness of a longitudinal study?

Answer 12

W - may get drop outs over long period time

S - less individual differences as same people used over long period of time

Question 13

explain schaffer and emerson’s stages of attachment? (4)

Answer 13

based on the evidence they gathered in the previous study they proposed that attachments develop in 4 stages

Asocial stage, Indiscriminate stage, discriminate attachments, Multiple attachments

ASOCIAL/PRE - ATTACHMENT (Birth to 3 months)
Attracted to other humans, prefer them to objects and events. This is demonstrated by them smiling at people’s faces

INDISCRIMINATE STAGE (4 - 7 months)
 Infants begin to discriminate between familiar and unfamiliar people, smiling more at known people. Though they will still allow strangers to handle and look after them 

SPECIFIC / DISCRIMINATE ATTACHMENTS (7 - 8 months)
Infants begin to develop specific attachment, staying close to particular people and becoming distressed when they are separated from them. They avoid unfamiliar people and protest if strangers try to handle them.

MULTIPLE ATTACHMENTS (9+ months)
Strong emotional ties with other major caregivers eg grandparents, such as other children. Fear of strangers weakens. Attachment to mothers remains the strongest.

Question 14

1 study as to why men are not primary caregiver

1 study against contrary to this

Answer 14

Heerman, et al. 1994

men seem to lack the emotional sensitivity to infant cues that women offer spontaneously and this could be due to the fact that women produce a hormone, oestrogen which increases emotional response to other’s needs.

However Lamb (1987)

found that fathers who become main carer seem quickly able to develop this sensitivity.

Question 15

study about the importance of father in attachment

Answer 15

Grossman (2002)

carried out a longitudinal study and found it was the quality of the infant attachment with the mother (not father) that was related to children’s attachment in adolescence, suggesting that father attachment was less important. However the quality of father’s play with infants was related to adolescent attachments, suggesting that they have a different role related to play rather than nurturing.

Question 16

If fathers do have an important role - then children without fathers should be different….

study to contrast with this

Answer 16

MacCallum and Golombok (2004)

found that children growing up in single or same sex parent families do not develop any differently from those in two-parent heterosexual families

This suggests children only need 1 main attachment

Question 17

Animal study of attachment

Answer 17

Harlow also followed the monkeys who had been deprived of a ‘real’ mother to see if maternal deprivation had a permanent effect. Monkey’s reared with wire mothers were the most dysfunctional, more aggressive, less sociable and unskilled at mating. As mother’s some of the deprived mothers then neglected their young. Harlow suggested there was a critical period – a mother figure had to be introduced to the monkey within 90 days for an attachment to form – and after this damage done by early deprivation was irreversible.

Harlow’s study into attachment in animals came through the form of separating monkeys from their mothers. He used a cloth and wire surrogate mother after separating the monkey from their real mother and found that the monkeys still spent more time with the cloth mother even when it provided no nutritional benefit.

Despite being fed, isolated monkeys failed to develop functional social behavior, which would suggest that animals have greater needs that just the providing of food.

Question 18

evaluation of animal studies into attacthment (2)

Answer 18

ETHICS

It could be argued that animals have a right not to be researched on

It is questionable as to if the results can be generalized to humans or not

HOWEVER

Has important practical applications to the upbringing of children and making use of this critical period

Humans and monkeys are generally similar in terms of brain functioning of attachments therefore the results found are helpful

Question 19

explain Ainsworth station in terms of : AIM / MEASUREMENTS / STAGES / FINDINGS

Answer 19

AIM - To access the quality of attachment between child and caregiver

METHOD - 100 middle-class American infants and their mothers took part. 
It involves a researcher observing a child and its caregiver interacting in a lab through a one-way mirror. It consists of several stages (episodes) each lasting 3 minutes. What type of RESEARCH METHOD is The Strange Situation?

BEHAVIOR MEASURED -
Proximity seeking 
Exploration and secure base 
Stranger anxiety 
Separation anxiety 

THREE ATTACHMENT TYPES -
SECURE
INSECURE-AVOIDANT
INSECURE-RESISTANT (AMBIVALENT)

SEE FILE FOR TABLES OF FINDINGS AND PROCEDURE

Question 20

criticism of the stranger situation internal validity and study to support this point (3)

Answer 20

lack of internal validity

the research is not measuring all attachment types and instead the attachment being studied is specific to between child and mother and therefore the results cannot be generalized to all attachment types

Further, this is reinforced by Kagan,

as he suggests that extraneous variables may have had an effect on the behavior in the stranger situations. The temperament of the children is a genetic factor and cannot be controlled by the research

However, despite these problems the SS has good predictive validity.

Further research has shown that the predictions made from the results were accurate and has led to problems in later life in the form of mental health and bullying later in childhood.

Question 21

criticism of the stranger situation external validity (1)

Answer 21

One criticism of SS is that the research is highly artificial

This means that the results found may be different to that of in the real life situations that they are used to like their own home and therefore the results will be specific to that of a lab rather than the real world and lack ecological validity. When in a new location, the babies may demonstrate more separation anxiety due to not feeling completely secure in their new environment. This may affect results and the degree to which the babies demonstrate separation anxiety.

Question 22

study into cultural variations of attachments in terms of AIMS / PROCEDURE / FINDINGS / CONCLUSIONS

Answer 22

Aims:

Assess weather within separate samples there was a pattern in the distribution of different attachment types

Assess the extent of inter and intra cultural differences in attachment types in separate samples

Assess similarities and differences In the amount of type A, B and C attachment types in separate samples

Procedure:

Meta-analysis of 32 studies from 8 countries that used SS to assess mother-child attachments using type A, B and C
All studies comprised of at least 32 mother-infant pairs with infants below 2 years of age

Findings:

Overall attachment: A=21% B=67% C=12%
In samples from all cultures (except one from Germany) the modal attachment was B
Highest proportion of A was found in German samples
Intra-cultural differences were often greater than inter cultural differences
A was found more in western cultures, while C was found more in Israel, China and Japan
150% greater variation within the countries than inter countries

Conclusions:

Data suggests there is a differences in the pattern of cross cultural attachment types across cultures
Intra-cultural differences in attachment types are often greater than inter cultural ones
Overall patterns of attachment types were similar to what Ainsworth found

Question 23

nature vs nurture argument of attachment

Answer 23

Nature: secure attachment has the highest % across many cultures

Nurture: The argument that it is dependent on the way the child is raised as to their attachment type

Question 24

explain bowlby’s maternal deprivation hypotheis

Answer 24

Bowlby’s explanation suggests that attachment is essential for healthy social and emotional development and Ainsworth (Strange Situation) showed that physical separation from the parent causes an infant distress.

It follows then, that any ‘disruption’ of attachment might have a negative effect on social and emotional development.

Question 25

what is the difference between separation and deprivation

Answer 25

separation - A short term distancing from the mum

deprivation - Deprivation is when the attachment is broken long term

Question 26

explain bowlby’s idea of monotrophy (3)

Answer 26

suggests Mother love is as important for a child’s emotional development as vitamins are for a child’s physical development.

Separations from the mother (or caregiver) when a child is within the critical period of 0 – 2.5 years of age causes emotional irreversible damage to the child and can lead to affectionless psychopathy (an inability to experience guilt or care about others).

This prevents the person having normal relationships and is associated with criminality as they lack remorse for their actions

Question 27

explain the link between maternal deprivation and intellectual development (3)

Answer 27

Maternal deprivation can also affect children’s intellectual development.

If children were deprived in critical period, they would suffer mental retardation characterized by low IQ.

This has been demonstrated by adoption studies, for example Goldfarb (1947) found lower IQ in children who had remained in institutions as opposed to those who had been fostered and thus had a higher standard of emotional care.

Question 28

Explain Bowbly’s main study in terms of WHAT HE DID, FINDINGS AND CONCLUSION

Answer 28

WHAT DID HE DO?

Studied 44 criminal teenagers accused of stealing
The families were also interviewed in order to find out if the teens had experienced prolonged separation from their mothers

A control group of non-criminal emotionally disturbed children was also taken to see how often maternal deprivation had occurred in the group

WHAT DID HE FIND?

14/44 could be described as emotionless psychopaths
Of the 14, 12 had experienced prolonged separation from their mothers

Of the control group Only 2 of the 44 had experienced long separations

BOWBLYS CONLUSION:

Prolonged early separation has caused affectionless psychopathy, supports emotional deprivation

Question 29

another study to support bowblys research

Answer 29

Harlow
also followed the monkeys who had been deprived of a ‘real’ mother to see if maternal deprivation had a permanent effect. Monkey’s reared with wire mothers were the most dysfunctional, more aggressive, less sociable and unskilled at mating. As mother’s some of the deprived mothers then neglected their young. Harlow suggested there was a critical period – a mother figure had to be introduced to the monkey within 90 days for an attachment to form – and after this damage done by early deprivation was irreversible

Question 30

evaluation of bolwby (good)

Answer 30

EVIDENCE MAY BE POOR – refer to 44 thieves and war orphans
The children were orphans of the war in 1994 and therefore the research was of war orphans rater than normal orphans

ISSUES WITH CRITICAL PERIOD - Rutter (2011) conducted a study on 165 orphans. When they first arrived in UK around half showed signs of mental retardation. If they were adopted before 6 months, mean IQ was 102, whereas after 2 years was only 77. Those adopted after 6 months showed signs of disinhibited attachment, symptoms including attention seeking and clingy behavior. However if adopted before 6 months, rarely showed these signs

EXAGGERATION - He suggested that damage from prolonged separation was inevitable. Plenty of research suggests that whilst long-term damage becomes more likely, it is not inevitable.
Robertson and Robertson (1971)
took children facing short-term separations into their own home, providing them with an alternative attachment and found that this prevented severe psychological damage as seen with John. This shows if adequate care is provided we do not see the negative effects that Bowlby had suggested.

PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS - Bowlby’s MDH had a huge impact on post-war thinking about childcare.
Langton (2006)
Research enhanced understanding of negative effects – establishment of key workers in institutions
Key workers spend one to one time with the child in an institution
This did not occur before Bowlby’s research

FAILURE TO DISTINGUISH BETWEEN DEPRIVATION AND PRIVATION -
Rutter claimed that when Bowlby talked of deprivation, he was muddling 2 concepts together.
Rutter drew a distinction between deprivation, loss of an attachment figure after attachment has formed, and privation, failure to form an attachment.
The long term damage that Bowlby associated with deprivation is actually more likely to be a result of privation.

Question 31

evaluation of bowlby (practical application - good)

Answer 31

PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS - Bowlby’s MDH had a huge impact on post-war thinking about childcare.
Langton (2006)
Research enhanced understanding of negative effects – establishment of key workers in institutions
Key workers spend one to one time with the child in an institution
This did not occur before Bowlby’s research

Question 32

what is institutionalization

Answer 32

In terms of attachment it refers to children who grow up in an orphanage or children’s home. Children raised in these environments often end up with a lack of emotional care which effects their ability to form attachments in life.

Question 33

what is disinhibited attachment

Answer 33

Disinhibited attachment is when a child shows equal affection to strangers as they do people they know well. Reactive attachment disorder is a condition in children who may have been neglected and did not form a healthy emotional attachment with their mother or other primary caregivers before age 5.

Question 34

study into insitiutionalisation

Answer 34

Background of Romania 1990

Aim: Romania 1990 studied 111 Romanian orphans adopted before 2 years and found that the sooner the children were adopted, the faster their developmental progress.

Methods: Parental reports, a modified Strange Situation and investigator ratings

On the back of the communist government there were many overcrowded orphanages

Institutionally deprived adoptees were compared at 11 with children who had not been subject to institutional deprivation and who had been adopted in the UK before the age of 6 months

Results: disinhibited attachment was strongly associated with institutional rearing but there was no significant increase in the relationship to duration of institutional deprivation past the age of 6 months.
HOWEVER
Only mild disinhibited attachment was more frequent in non-institutionalized adopted children

If you are in an institution – you have likely suffered from maternal deprivation – outline the effects of this

“Bowlby used the term maternal deprivation to refer to the separation or loss of the mother as well as the failure to develop an attachment.”

This is likely to happen to children in an institution as they are deprived of a clear mother or father figure. Because of how an institution works, children live a different life to that of a ‘normal’ one to one relationship that a parent and child would have in a home. This may lead to the failure or lack of ability to develop an attachment.

Natural experiment: ongoing longitudinal study

Compare development of Romanian orphans : 3 different groups

FINDINGS:

Negative long-term effects for the children
HOWEVER
Bowlby argued the critical period was 2 years but this study suggests it is actually more like 6 months

Question 35

evaluation of Romanian orphanage studies (against) (3)

Answer 35

The case of the Romanian orphans was very severe and therefore we cannot generalize to the whole population of all orphans

Methodological issues – children were not randomly assigned to conditions in the ERA study, as the researchers did not interfere with the adoption process.

How might the children who were adopted early be different to the ones who were adopted later? This could have been a confounding variable
It might be that the children who had higher IQ were adopted first because they had higher IQ rather than they had higher IQ after being adopted

Evidence that negative effects can be overcome – Hodges and Tizard

65 kids in an institution since 4 months old
They were either ‘restored’ (back to biological family)
OR
Sent off to a foster family
Kids who are fostered have a better outcome than going back to biological family but both had problems forming friendships
Conclusion: Early Privation has a negative effect on ability to form relationships

Question 36

what is the continuity hypothesis of attachment?

Answer 36

The continuity hypothesis is the idea that there is consistency between early emotional experiences and later relationships. More specifically children’s attachment types are reflected in their later relationships. This is based on the internal working model, as the early attachment provides a ‘model’ (template) for future relationships.

For example, a child whose first experience is of a loving relationship from a reliable caregiver will assume that this is how relationships are meant to be. They would then seek out functional relationships without being too emotionally close (type A) or too controlling and argumentative (type C).

Question 37

study to support continuity hypothesis

Answer 37

Youngblade and Belsky (1992)
30, 5 year old securely attached children were more curious, resilient and empathetic and were more likely to form close friendships.
This supports the continuity hypothesis because the characteristics of the secure attachment type are carried over into later life where the children are able to form close friends and build ‘secure’ relationships with their friends.

Question 38

what is the temperament hypothesis

Answer 38

Temperament : Innate part of your personality
This alternative approach sits well with the idea of continuity but proposes that our initial IWM is a results of innate temperament rather than caregiver sensitivity and parenting.

Question 39

study to go against continuity hypothesis

Answer 39

Those who fail to have secure attachments in childhood are not necessarily condemned to a life of broken relationships

Zimmerman (2000)

longitudinal study found that early attachment style was not such a good predictor of later relationships and discovered that later life events such as parental divorce had a much greater impact.
This contradicts the continuity hypothesis and says that it does not affect adult relationships.

Question 40

discuss research into the influence of early attachment on adult relationships

Answer 40

Many attachment psychologists argue that early relationships with our primary caregivers have an effect on later relationships. The continuity hypothesis is the idea that there is consistency between early emotional experiences and later relationships, and it sees children’s attachment types being reflected in these later relationships. This idea is based upon the internal working model, which was proposed by Bowlby in his monotropic theory.

Bowlby sees attachment as monotropic, where infants have an innate tendency to form an attachment to one particular person. This attachment is the strongest of them all, forming a model for future relationships, which the infant will expect from others. This is the idea of the internal working model; a template for future relationships based upon the infant’s primary attachment, which creates a consistency between early emotional experiences and later relationships.

There are several attachment types that a child can develop in infancy. Ainsworth divided these into secure, insecure avoidant and insecure resistant, when working on her ‘Strange Situation’ research. Based on Bowlby’s predictions and research ideas of Ainsworth, Hazan and Shaver created a ‘love quiz’ experiment to explore the idea that there is continuity between early attachment types and the quality of later adult romantic relationships

they conducted a study to collect information of participant’s early attachment types and their attitudes towards loving relationships. Of the volunteer sample, they found that those who were securely attached as infants tended to have long lasting relationships, on the other hand, insecurely attached people found adult relationships more difficult, tended to divorce, and believed love was rare. This supports the idea that childhood experiences have significant impacts on people’s attitude towards later relationships. The correlation between adult’s attachment style and their memories of parenting style they received is similar to Ainsworth’s findings, where children’s attachment styles were correlated with the degree of sensitivity shown by their mothers..

However, this theory has been accused of being reductionist because it assumes that people who are insecurely attached as children will become insecurely attached as adults and have poor quality adult relationships. As well as this, attachment types identified in the Strange Situation and used in Hazan and Shaver’s study relate only to the quality of relationship with one person. Therefore, an adult’s choice of description to their attachment style might only relate to their current relationships.

An alternative explanation for continuity in relationships is the temperament hypothesis, founded by Kagan. He found that infants have an innate personality, such as being easy going or difficult, which influences the quality of their attachment with caregivers and in later relationships. This suggests that attachments form as a result of temperament and not an innate gene for attachment; which goes against Bowlby’s theory. This also suggests that attempts to develop better quality relationships by changing people’s attachment styles to more positive ones would not work.