Paper 1: Attachment

Question 1

What 3 types of attachment were Mary Ainsworth Measuring?

Answer 1

Secure attachment: Uses the mother as a secure base
Have moderate stranger and separation anxiety
Experience joy and are instantly comforted on reuinion

Insecure Avoidant attachment: Won’t use the mother as a safe base
Explores freely
Shows little-to-no stranger and separation anxiety and won’t require comfort on reuinion

Insecure Resistant attachment: Extreme separation and stranger anxiety
Explores less and greater proximity seeking
Will avoid career on reunification

Question 2

What was the additional attachment type later added?

Answer 2

Disorganised attachment: Babies with a disorganised attachment also often cried when their parent left the room. However, upon their return, they either continued to cry or ran toward and then away from them, or had trouble calming down no matter the parent’s response.

These babies with disorganised attachment were distressed when their parents left, but they remained distressed when they returned. They both craved and feared their parents.

Question 3

What was the process of the strange situation study?

Answer 3

Mother and child enter a room full of toys
Mum encourages the child to play with toys
A stranger enters the room, child should use the mother as a safe base, this tests stranger anxiety.
Then the stranger will attempt to talk to the mother, then attempt to play with the child
The mother then leaves and the stranger tries to distract the child. This tests separation anxiety.
The mother then re-enters and reunites to test reunion
Then the mother leaves again leaving the baby.
The stranger then enters again
The mother returns one last time and the stranger leaves again.

Question 4

What were the results of the strange situation study in the US?

Answer 4

More than half of children (51.6%) showed secure attachment. Yet insecure attachment was common; 23.5% were disorganized, 14.7% avoidant, and 10.2% resistant

Question 5

What are some evaluations of the Strange Situations?

Answer 5

Doesn’t actually measure attachment but the individual temperament of each child- Kagan 1982
Test is culture bound, doesn’t work in Japan- Takaheshi 1990
Has unique etic, an American study based on a British theory
Repeatable and standardised, allows for the study to be carried out across a range of subjects
Can bring out demand characteristics from the mother eg overly comforting on reunion

Question 6

What was the meta analysis of the Strange Situation and who conducted it?

Answer 6

Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg

Question 7

What were the results of the Israeli study?

Answer 7

Has a culture in which all the mothers look after all the children, 30% insecure resistant

Question 8

What did Jin et al study?

Answer 8

Did it in Korea, most Insecure resistant, only one insecure avoidant

Question 9

What was found about variation in the Strange Situation?

Answer 9

Greater variation within countries than between them, 150% greater difference.

Question 10

How many secure children were found in Britain and how many insecure resistant children were found in Bitain?

Answer 10

75% and 3%

Question 11

What was the secure attachment in China?

Answer 11

50%

Question 12

What was found in the Japan study?

Answer 12

Mothers rarely leave the baby, insecure-avoidant is the most common.

Question 13

What were the results of the Italian Study (Simonella et al)?

Answer 13

50% secure, 30% insecure-avoidant.

Question 14

What were the positives found in the meta-analysis?

Answer 14

Good sample size, over 4,000 children sampled. Reduces the impact of anomalous vaiables.

Question 15

Negatives of the Strange Situation?

Answer 15

Not applicable across cultures, the insecure resistant may be a positive trait in Japan, the American model can’t be generalised

Question 16

What theory did Bowlby invent?

Answer 16

The monotropic theory, that babies can only make one primary attachment with the mother, which can only be done in the critical period.

Question 17

What two aspects of the monotropic theory did Bowlby emphasise?

Answer 17

Only after forming the primary attachment can a child then go on to form multiple attachments. Reinforces the idea of little-to-no separation from the mother.

Question 18

What are social releasers?

Answer 18

Things done by the baby to help form a closer attachment, such as smiling.

Question 19

What are the behaviourism aspects of the social releasers theory?

Answer 19

Positive and negative reinforcement, when a baby cries and is ultimately fed and stops crying, it provides negative reinforcement to the mother.

Question 20

What does the primary attachment act as?

Answer 20

Acts as the internal working model for future relationships.

Question 21

Strengths for Bowlby’s monotropic theory?

Answer 21

Observations by Ainsworth on the Ganda tribe of Uganda, children still have closer attachment to their mother, even when raised by multiple women.
In Israeli, even after only spending an average of 3 hours per day with their mother, they still end up forming a closer bond.
Brazleton supported the social releasers finding if the mother didn’t interact in the interaction synchrony, the baby reacted strongly.
Bailey et al studied the internal working model and found a correlation between the quality of attachment a mother had with her child and the attachment she had with her parents.

Question 22

Weaknesses for Bowlby’s monotropic theory for attachment?

Answer 22

Places too much emphasis on the mother and their constant level of care.
Contrasting evidence demonstrates the effect is reversible and can later form regular attachments later in life.
No free will and not an individualistic approach.
Disproved by Schaffer and Emerson as they found babies made multiple attachments at the same time.

Question 23

Effects of institutionalisation, what studies looked at these effects?

Answer 23

The Romanian Adoptee Study and the Bucharest Early Intervention Study

Question 24

Who conducted the Romanian Adoptee Study?

Answer 24

Rutter in 1998.

Question 25

How was the adoptee study done and what were the results?

Answer 25

Adopted from Romania and compared to British children. If adopted before 6 months, the average IQ was 102 at 15 and showed signs of normal development. However Adoption after 6 months, IQ dropped to 86 and after 2 years it drops to 74.

Question 26

What type of attachment was discovered and categorised?

Answer 26

Disinhibited attachment, equally friendly and affectionate towards everyone. Desperate to form the bond.

Question 27

What was the Bucharest Early Intervention Project?

Answer 27

Tested the Strange Situation on Romanian orphans, found 44% had disinhibited, 65% had disorganised.

Question 28

What were the evaluations of the Bucharest Early Intervention study?

Answer 28

Langton 2006, the studies had a practical impact on the way care-homes work, only using a few workers for each child.
Fewer extraneous variables, all children had more or less the same treatment.
Lack of generalisability due to its extreme situational variables.
Not long enough time for the children to potentially recover.

Question 29

What are the 4 stages of attachment as outlined by Schaffer and Emerson?

Answer 29

Pre-attachment, babies can’t discriminate between human faces, but prefer humans over objects. Birth-3 months
Indiscriminate attachment, babies can tell the difference but won’t mind if an unfamiliar face appears.
Specific attachment, 8 months onward the mothers bond is particularly strong and will experience separation and stranger anxiety.
Multiple attachments, 10 months onwards, the baby will begin forming attachments to other figures but will still have the strongest bond with the mother.

Question 30

What are the two animal studies done regarding attachment?

Answer 30

Lorenz’s Imprinting and Harlow’s Monkeys.

Question 31

What was the procedure of Lorenz’s Goose experiment?

Answer 31

Would divide the goose eggs into two groups, one with their natural mother and another to be incubated, with their first interaction to take place with Lorenz himself. Geese would follow their imprinting, even if muddled up with the other group. Also found imprinting happened between 4-25 hours of their birth.

Question 32

Evaluation of Lorenz’s geese.

Answer 32

Relation to other theories: The fact that the imprinting always occurred within 4-25 hours after birth could provide support for Bowlby’s concept of a critical period for newborn baby humans to form attachments.
Methodological concerns: Geese are very different to humans and so is unclear from this study the extent to which imprinting occurs in newborn baby humans (if at all).

Question 33

Harlow’s Monkeys proceedure?

Answer 33

16 baby monkeys were separated from their natural mothers.
In place of the natural mother, the monkeys were put into cages and given surrogate mothers in 1 of 4 possible setups:
A wire mother who produced milk and a soft towel mother who did not produce milk.
A wire mother who did not produce milk and a soft towel mother who did produce milk.
Only a wire mother who produced milk.
Only a soft towel mother who produced milk.
Harlow recorded how much time the monkeys spent with each mother and how much time they spent feeding.
Harlow would occasionally expose the monkeys to a loud noise to test which mother they preferred under stress.

Question 34

Results of Harlow’s experiments?

Answer 34

Monkeys spent more time with the soft towel mother regardless of whether it produced milk or not.
When exposed to the loud noise, monkeys would cling on to the soft towel mother for comfort.
Monkeys with only the wire mother exhibited physiological signs of stress such as diarrhoea.

Question 35

Evaluation of Harlow?

Answer 35

Ethical concerns: Harlow’s experiments have been criticised as unethical due to the harm inflicted on the monkeys.
Methodological concerns: As an animal study, it is unclear whether the results can be generalised to human beings.

Question 36

Strengths of the Learning Theory of Attachment?

Answer 36

Theoretical support: The learning theory of attachment is based on behaviourism, which has some supporting evidence. For example, Pavlov demonstrated classical conditioning in dogs, which may apply to humans and attachment behaviours.

Question 37

Weaknesses of Learning theory for attachment?

Answer 37

Conflicting evidence: Schaffer and Emerson (1964) found that 39% of infants developed a primary attachment to someone other than the mother (the person who fed them). Further, Fox (1977) studied attachments in Israeli kibbutzim, where babies would often be fed by caregivers called metapelets. Despite being fed by the metapelets, most babies were more attached to their mothers. These examples suggest factors other than food are needed to explain attachment. Harlow’s research on monkeys also challenges the learning theory of attachment because the monkeys were more attached to the comforting mother than the feeding mother, which may translate to human attachment too.
Reductionist: Although conditioning may explain some behaviours, to explain all attachment behaviour in terms of conditioning may be overly reductive. For example, the learning theory of attachment ignores all the cognitive processes and emotions that influence attachment.

Question 38

What was Bowlby’s maternal deprivation hypothesis?

Answer 38

According to Bowlby, infants separated from their mothers for a short time (e.g. being left with a babysitter) display the following pattern of behaviour:

Protest: Outward expressions of separation anxiety (e.g. crying, kicking, and running away)
Despair: The infant still feels separation anxiety inwardly, but the behaviour becomes more apathetic (e.g. sulking, sucking thumb for comfort, etc.)
Detachment: The infant will interact with people again, but may initially reject the mother when she returns due to anger

More importantly, Bowlby argued that if infants are separated from their mothers for a long time (deprivation) during the critical period (e.g. when the mother dies) then it will permanently damage the infant’s psychological development. For example, he believed that maternal deprivation can lead to aggression, social maladjustment, and depression.

Question 39

What study did Bowlby conduct to support this?

Answer 39

Bowlby’s maternal deprivation hypothesis is supported by observations from his clinical work with children. In Bowlby (1944), Bowlby interviewed 44 children who had been referred to him for stealing and compared them to a control group of 44 ’emotionally disturbed’ children who did not steal:

Of the 44 thieves, 17 (39%) had been separated from their mothers before age 2
In comparison, just 2 children in the control group (4.6%) had been separated from their mothers before age 2
Further, Bowlby identified 14 of the thieves as ‘affectionless psychopaths’, and of these 14 affectionless psychopaths, 12 (86%) had been separated from their mothers for more than 6 months before age 2.

Question 40

Strengths of Bowlby’s maternal deprivation hypothesis?

Answer 40

Supporting evidence: In addition to Bowlby’s observations above, Goldfarb (1943) also supports the maternal deprivation hypothesis. Goldfarb found that children raised in orphanages (i.e. without mothers) for the first 3 years of life suffered intellectually and socially in later life.

Question 41

Weaknesses of Bowlby’s maternal deprivation hypothesis?

Answer 41

Methodological concerns: Bowlby’s study took the form of interviews with the subjects. However, this method has been criticised for researcher bias as Bowlby’s own theories and pre-conceived ideas may have influenced the questions he asked and his interpretations of the answers. For example, Bowlby’s expectation that maternal deprivation could cause a child to become an ‘affectionless psychopath’ could have biased him to diagnose children who were separated from their mothers as such. Because of this, Bowlby’s maternal deprivation hypothesis may not be valid.
Reversible: Bowlby’s maternal deprivation hypothesis argued that the effects of deprivation in the critical period permanently damage the infant’s psychological development. However, Rutter’s Romanian orphan study suggests these effects are largely reversible, which weakens support for Bowlby’s hypothesis.
Alternative explanations: Although Bowlby and Goldfarb (1943) demonstrate correlations between maternal deprivation and poor psychological development in later life, this does not prove maternal deprivation causes poor psychological development. For example, it could be that poor conditions in the orphanages (e.g. poverty, crowding, etc.) are what caused poor psychological development in these children rather than maternal deprivation specifically.

Question 42

What was the continuity hypothesis?

Answer 42

Bowlby’s internal working model forms the basis of the continuity hypothesis: the theory that attachments in early life form the basis for attachments later on, i.e. that there is continuity between early and later attachments.

Question 43

Research of the continuity hypothesis in childhood?

Answer 43

For example, Youngblade and Belsky (1992) conducted a longitudinal study of 73 children. They found that children who had demonstrated secure attachment styles at 1 year old (as measured using the strange situation procedure) were more likely to have close friendships and get along well with other children by ages 3-5. The continuity between infant attachment and child friendships is also supported by Laible et al (2000), who found that adolescents who scored highly for parent attachment were also more likely to score highly for peer attachment too.

Question 44

What research looked at romantic relationships regarding the continuity hypothesis?

Answer 44

Hazan and Shaver 1987

Question 45

What were the findings of Hazan and Shaver’s research?

Answer 45

The researchers found correlations between infant attachment styles and views on romantic relationships. For example, participants who were identified as securely attached infants from the childhood checklist tended to have longer lasting relationships and lower divorce rates as adults compared to those with insecure infant attachment styles. Both insecure attachment styles were more vulnerable to loneliness, with insecure-resistant types being most likely to be lonely. Adults who had insecure-avoidant attachment styles as infants tended to believe that love is rare and felt that they did not need romantic partners to be happy.

Question 46

Evaluation of the continuity hypothesis?

Answer 46

Alternative explanations: The continuity between infant attachment and relationships in adulthood could be explained in other ways besides the continuity hypothesis. For example, Kagan and Snidman (2004) instead argue for the temperament hypothesis: The idea that humans have innate and biologically determined personality traits. These innate character traits are present from birth and are consistent into adulthood, and it is these innate character traits that influence both infant and adult relationship styles rather than a learned internal working model as proposed by Bowlby.