Paper 1 Attachment Flashcards
Describe and evaluate research into caregiver-infant interactions (16)
- Reciprocity: turn taking
- Active involvement
- Interactional synchrony: mirroring = Meltzoff an Moore
- Importance of interactional synchrony for attachment = Isabella et al
Strength = filmed in lab - control of variables
Limitation = hard to interpret behaviour
Further = filmed - inter rater reliability
Limitation = observation doesn’t tell developmental importance
BUT = interactional synchrony is important for quality of attachment
Describe and evaluate Schaffer’s stages of attachment (16)
Asocial
- similar behaviour towards everything
Indiscriminate
- preference for humans over intimate objects
- accept comfort from anyone
Specific attachment
- attachment towards one person = primary attachment figure (stranger anxiety and operation anxiety)
Multiple attachments
- secondary attachment figure usually after 1 year old
Strength = external validity
- observation made by parents
BUT = mothers are objective observers
- biased in what is noticed
Strength = real world application
- day care (useful stages to give advice)
Limitation = validity of measures in assessing asocial stage
- babies are hard to observe
Outline and evaluate the role of the father (16)
Attachment to fathers = typically secondary attachment figure
- importance after 18 months - signs of protest
Distinctive role for fathers = quality of infant attachment to mother - nurturing and fathers to do with play
Fathers as primary attachment figures = able to adopt emotional role
- primary caregiver fathers compared to secondary caregiver fathers displayed behaviours of interactional synchrony
Limitation = research findings are contradictory
- fathers as secondary attachment figures = associated with play and stimulation
- questions weather children without father (single mother/ lesbian house holds) turn out different
BUT = single mothers and lesbian households accommodate for these differences
Strength = offer advice for parents
- mothers feel pressured to stay at home
- fathers pressured to focus on work
= reduce parental anxieties concerning attachment
Describe and evaluate animal studies of attachment (16)
Lorenz: animal imprinting
- critical period of a few hours
- sexual imprinting
Harlow: importance of contact comfort
- monkey preferred cloth covered
- maternally deprived monkeys as adults = aggressive and less sociable/ bad at mating and bad mothers
- critical period of development = 90 days
Strength = supporting evidence for imprinting
- chicks and simple shape combinations
= innate mechanisms to imprint on moving object
Strength = real world application
- psychologists understand lack of bonding and prevent it
Limitation = generalising findings to humans
- brain in humans is much more complex
Describe and evaluate learning theory as an explanation of attachment (16)
Classical conditioning
- (food) unconditional stimuli/ (unconditioned response) pleasure/ neutral stimuli/ conditioned stimuli/ conditioned response
Operant conditioning
- positive reinforcement
- negative reinforcement
Attachment is a secondary drive
Limitation = lack of support
- Harlows monkeys chose comfort over food
= factors other than food are important
Strength = conditioning involved in attachment
- comfort of particular person = attachment figure
BUT = operant and classical conditioning - babies play a passive role (responding)
- research shows babies have active role = conditioning isn’t adequate
Describe and evaluate Bowlby’s monotrophic theory of attachment (16)
Attachment was an innate system that gives survival advantage
- The law of continuity
- The law of accumulated separation
Social releasers and critical period
- Activate adult social
interaction and so make an adult attach to the baby (reciprocal)
- Six months/ 2 years
Internal working model
- loving relationship with a reliable caregiver = expectation that
all relationships are as loving and reliable
- poor treatment = further poor relationships
- parenting on their own experiences of being parented = children from functional families tend to have similar families themselves
Limitation = monotropy lack validity
- contradictory from Schaffer and Emerson = multiple attachments can be formed first to family members (different characteristics/ behaviours)
Strength = supporting evidence for critical period
- Lorenz innate imprinting of baby geese
BUT = Rutter et al roman orphans without attachments when adopted able to form one
Strength = internal working model
- mothers with poor attachment to their own primary attachment figures = poorly attached babies
BUT
- genetic differences in anxiety and sociability affect social behaviour in both babies and adults
- parenting ability
Describe and evaluate the strange situation (16)
Ainsworth: Attachment behaviours as a means of assessing the quality of a baby’s attachment to a caregiver
- Proximity seeking
- Exploration and secure-base behaviour
- Stranger anxiety
- Separation anxiety
- Response to reunion
Secure attachment
- explore happily but regularly go back to their caregiver
- moderate separation distress and moderate stranger anxiety
- require and accept comfort in the reunion stage
Insecure-avoidant attachment
- explore freely but do not seek proximity or show
secure-base behaviour
- no reaction when their caregiver leaves and little stranger anxiety
- little effort to make contact when the caregiver returns and may even avoid such contact
Insecure-resistant attachment
- seek greater proximity than others and so explore less
- high levels of stranger and separation distress
- resist comfort when reunited with their caregiver
Strength = predicts aspects of babies later development
- securely attached = better mental health
- insecure avoidant = better at school and less likely experience bullying
BUT
= genetically-influenced anxiety levels could account for variations in attachment behaviour in
the Strange Situation and later development
Limitation = culturally relative
- Japanese study babies displayed very high levels of separation anxiety and so a disproportionate number
were classified as insecure-resistant
- anxiety response was not due to high rates of attachment insecurity but to the unusual nature of the experience in Japan where mother-baby separation is very rare
Further
= us social standards doest account for other cultures - misinterpretation of German mothers were seen as cold and rejecting rather than encouraging independence in their children.
Describe and evaluate research into cultural variations in attachment (16)
Attachments across a range of countries to assess cultural variation.
- secure attachment was the most common in all cultures studied
- individualist cultures = insecure resistant was low
- collectivist rates are higher
- Avoidant attachment was more common in Germany
Italian study:
patterns of attachment types are not static but vary in line with cultural change
- lower rate of secure attachment
- higher rate of insecure avoidant attachment
= increasing
numbers of mothers of very young children work long hours and use professional childcare.
Korean sudy:
compare proportions of attachment types in Korea to other studies
- proportions of insecure and secure babies were similar to those in most countries, with most babies being
secure
- insecurely attached were resistant low = similar to Japan
=Secure attachment seems to be the norm in a wide range of cultures, supporting Bowlby’s idea that attachment is innate and universal and this type is the universal norm.
Describe and evaluate Bowlby’s theory of maternal deprivation (16)
Separation
- physically separated
Deprivation
- withdrawal of emotional care because of separation
Critical period
2/ half years = psychological damage inevitable
Intellectual developmental effects
- abnormally low IQ
Emotional developmental effects
- affection less psychopathy
link between affectionless psychopathy and maternal deprivation:
characterised
- lack of affection, lack of guilt about their actions and lack of empathy for their victims
- separation from mothers
= prolonged early separation/deprivation caused affectionless psychopathy
Strength = real world application
- changes to be made to hospital policies, due to the new psychological insight into how best to provide quality substitute emotional care in the absence of parents to minimise negative consequences for the child
Limitation = confusion between different types of early
experience
- long-term damage Bowlby associated with deprivation is actually much more likely to be the result of privation
Describe and evaluate research into Romanian orphans (16)
Institutionalisation
- effects on institutional care on
children’s attachment and subsequent development
Rutter et al:
- To investigate the extent to which good care could make up for poor early experiences in institutions
= Physical, cognitive and emotional development
-delayed intellectual development
and the majority were severely undernourished
- IQ better adopted before 6 months and worse if adopted after 2 years
Adopted after they were 6 months showed signs of = disinhibited attachment
- attention seeking, clinginess and social behaviour directed indiscriminately towards all adults both familiar and unfamiliar.
Zeanah et al:
- comparison of (experimental group) children from institutionalised care and none (control group)
- using strange situation and signs of disinhibited attachment
=
- control group were classed as securely attached in the Strange
Situation
- experimental group = more disinhibited attachment signs than control
Disinhibited attachment
- Rutter et al: disinhibited attachment as an adaptation to living with multiple caregivers during the sensitive period for attachment formation
Intellectual disability
- damage to intellectual development as a result of institutionalisation can
be recovered provided adoption takes place before the age of 6 months-the age at which attachments form
Strength = application to improve the conditions form children
growing up outside their family home
- improvements in the conditions experienced by
children growing up in the care system ‘key workers’
= chance to develop normal attachments and disinhibited
attachment is avoided
Strength = lack of confounding variables
- group from orphanages were all given from loving families (hadn’t experienced trauma)
- less confounded by by negative earlier experiences ( higher internal validity)
BUT = quality of insinuations were poor (didn’t receive much education or comfort) accounts for poor institutional care rather than representing just insertional care
Limitation = lack of data on adult development
- long term effects of institutional care ( mental health, later relationships)
- longitudinal study
Describe and evaluate research into the influence of attachment on childhood and adult relationships (16)
