Paper 1- Topic 3 Attatchment Flashcards
Define attachment
a close two emotional bond between two people, where both individuals see the other as important for them to be emotionally secure
Define reciprocity
attachment is two way
-one of the caregiver of child elicits a response in the other
Define interactional synchrony
actions and emotions of the caregiver and the baby are rhythmic, co-ordinated and mirror the other person
define a baby’s alert phase
-a time where baby’s signal that they want an interaction
research found mothers pick up on it 2/3 of the time
Describe a study on active involvement in reciprocity
Brazelton
- found both caregivers and babies can initiate interactions and they take turns in doing so
- described it like a ‘couples dance’ where each partner respond to the other’s moves
Describe a study on when synchrony begins
Meltzoff and Moore
- showed babies of 2 weeks and upwards am adult making one of three facial expressions and gestures
- babies response to the expressions was filmed and observed
- found association between expressions and gestures of the adult and the baby
Describe a study about the importance of interactional synchrony on the level of attachment
Isabella et al
- observed 30 mothers and babies and assessed their level of synchrony
- found that there was a link between high levels of synchrony and high quality mother-baby relationships
Describe Schaffer and Emerson’s research study
- 60 Glasgow babies in working class families
- interviewed mother every month for a year and again at 18 months about the baby’s behaviour during everyday separations (separation and stranger anxiety)
Findings of Schaffer and Emerson’s study
- 50% of specific attachments were made by 25-32 weeks
- person who was most interactive and sensitive to baby’s signals formed the primary attachment
- identified the 4 key stages
Schaffer’s and Emerson’s stages of attachment
asocial -similar behaviour towards humans and objects
0-2 months
-indiscriminate - prefer familiar people to objects but accept comfort from strangers
2-7 months
-specific - primary attachment forms (separation and stranger anxiety begins) familiar adults used as secure base
7-12 months
-multiple - secondary attachment forms with familiar adults
1+ years
Studies that show the role of the father and their conclusions
•Frodi et al
- shows that father can provide the emotional responsiveness needed to be a primary caregiver
•Grossman
- suggests a mother’s attachment is more important than the attachment to the father
- suggests fathers have a different role to mothers - more to do with play and stimulation and less to do with emotional development
•Schaffer and Emerson
- vast majority of mothers form the primary attachment, however fathers do go on to become an important attachment figure (75% of fathers attached to by 18 months)
Describe Frodi et al study and findings
Frodi et al
- showed video types to groups of men and women and the physiological responses were the same (e.g. distress)
Describe Grossman study and findings
•Grossman
- completely a longitudinal study where he looked at babies attachment until their teens
- looked at relationships behaviour of parents and the quality of baby’s later attachments to others
- found that quality of a baby’s attachment with only mother was related to quality of adolescent attachments
- found that quality of play of father to child related to quality of adolescent attachments too
Describe Schaffer and Emerson’s study into role of the father and findings
•Schaffer and Emerson
- although 3% of fathers formed the first primary attachment
- 75% of babies in their study formed an attachment with their father at the age of 18 months (showed separation anxiety)
Define imprinting
where mobile bird species attach to and follow the first moving object they see, at birth
define critical period in relation to Lorenz’s study
the period of time where imprinting needs to take place otherwise chicks won’t attach themselves to a mother figure
describe Lorenz’s sexual imprinting study and findings
found that when a newborn peacock first observed a giant tortoise, as an adult the peacock aimed its courtings at tortoises
-found this whatever object birds were imprinted to would be the subject of their courtship
Findings of Harlow’s study on attachment
- found all 16 monkeys spent most time with cloth mother, regardless of which mother had the feeding bottle
- all monkeys sought comfort from cloth mother regardless of where the bottle was, when scared by a mechanical bear
- shows that contact comfort is more important to monkeys than food, in attachment
Harlow’s follow up research study on these monkey as adults
These monkeys had maternal deprivation
•the group who had the wire mother with the feeding bottle were the most dysfunctional, but those with the cloth mother did also develop abnormal behaviour
• more aggressive, less social, neglected and attacked their children
Suggested critical period for monkeys based on Harlow
90 days otherwise monkey will form no attachment
Strength and weakness of Lorenz study
•research support
- Regolin et al showed newborn chicks moving shape and then a different shape was moved infront of it
- chicks followed the original shape most closely
•generalisability
- mammalian attachment system is more complex than birds (in mammals it is two way)
Strength and weakness of Harlow’s study
•application
- social workers and psychologists can understand that a lack of bonding with attachment figure can alter a child’s development
- workers can intervene and prevent poor outcomes
•ethical issues
- monkeys had severe long term effects
- lasted into their own parenting (killed and attacked their own babies)
- humans are supposed to have similar genes to monkeys however these behaviours are not seen in humans
Describe Mary Ainsworth’s strange situation
Behaviours used to judge attachment
- baby with mother, free to explore
- stranger enters and tries to interact with baby
- mother leaves, baby alone with stranger
- mother returns to comfort baby while stranger leaves
- mother leaves, baby is alone
- stranger enters and approaches child
- caregiver returns
Behaviours used to judge attatchment
- proximity seeking
- exploration and secure base
- separation anxiety
- stranger anxiety
- reunion response
Findings of Mary Ainsworth’s Strange Situation
identified three main types of attachment based on distinct patterns
• secure : cry when mother leaves and calm when she returns
• insecure avoidant : little effect of mother leaving and returning
-little stranger anxiety, no secure base behaviour but free exploration
• insecure resistant : cry when she leaves, resist comfort when she returns (stays distressed)
- greater proximity seeking (no exploration)
% of babies that were insecure avoidant (type … )
20-25%
Type A
% of babies that were securely attached (type …)
60-75%
Type B
% of babies that were insecure resistant (type….)
3%
Type C
Describe Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg study
what were they trying to study and the procedure
Studied rue proportion of each attachment type within and across different cultures
-meta analysed 32 Strange Situations for assessing attachment of around 2,000 children
define a meta analysis
combination of research and findings from several studies on the same topic
- findings are weighted for its sample size
Findings of Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg’s meta analysis
•most common attachment type was secure, like Ainsworth
—> although varied (Britain 75% , China 50%)
- least common attachment type was insecure resistant, like Ainsworth
- individualist cultures rates of insecure-resistant was same as Ainsworth’s study but not collectivist cultures (China, Japan, Israel) where rates were above 25% (3% in Ainsworth)
- variation within cultures was 150% greater than variation between cultures
Describe 2 other studies of Cultural Variation
Italian study - used strange situation
- found 50% secure, 36% insecure avoidant (much higher)
Korean study - used strange situation
- found secure and insecure ratios were similar to most countries
- but most insecure, were insecure resistant (like Japan) due to rare separation anxiety in these cultures
Bowlby’s proposed distinction between separation and deprivation
- separation means the child not being in presence of primary attachment figure
- this only becomes harmful to child’s development if separation is prolonged and the child is deprived of emotional care (if separations are brief and substitute care is provided it’s not harmful)
Describe Bowlby’s proposed critical period
- if a child is separated from its mother without substitute care for an extended amount of time (and so is deprived of emotional care) within the first 2 and a half years of his life, then psychological damage is inevitable
define maternal deprivation
- idea proposed by Bowlby which is where baby is separated from primary caregiver for an extended period of time, without substitute care.
- as a result of this, Bowlby states that emotional and intellectual development of the baby is damaged
Describe the effects of maternal deprivation on development
- intellectual development - mental retardation occurs (shown by abnormally low IQ
- emotional development - lead to affectionless psychopathy (inability to experience guilt or strong emotions towards others)
Describe a study on intellectual development
GOLDFARB
- followed 30 orphans til they were 12
- half were fostered, half remained in institution
- found that those who remained in institution had a lower average IQ than those who were fostered
Describe a study on the effect on emotional development of maternal deprivation
•Bowlbys 44 thieves study
- interviewed 44 teenage thieves for signs of affectionless psychopathy
- interviewed their families to establish whether they had prolonged early separation from mother
- found that 14 were affectionless psychopaths and 12 of these 14 had prolonged early separations
- compared to only 2 of the non criminal but emotionally disturbed control group that had early prolonged separations
Define institutionalisation
the effects of living in an institution (hospital or orphanage that children live in for continuous periods of time)
Describe the research procedure of a study looking into the effect of institutionalisation
•Rutter’s English and Romanian Adoptee study
- followed 165 Romanian orphans who had been in poorly run institutions and were adopted in Britain
- assessed their physical, cognitive and emotional development at ages 4,6,11,15 and around 24 years old
- compared the results to a a control group of 52 adoptees from the UK
Describe the findings of a study assessing the effects of institutionalisation
RUTTER
-found the more time spent in institution before adoption the lower average IQ they had (102 if younger than 6 months when adopted, 86 if older than 6 months)
- found the children who spent more time in an institution before adoption (more than 6 months) were more likely to show signs of disinhibited attachment -(behaviour is indiscriminate, attention seeking)
Describe research into the effects of institutionalisation on attachment
Zeanah et al
• used strange situation and asked carers about clingy or attention seeking behaviour
• studies children who spent 90% of life in institutionalisation
Describe findings of research into the effects of institutionalisation on attachment
Zeanah et al
•found 20% of institutional group were securely attached (control group was 75%)
•disinhibited attachment applied to 44% of institution group and 20% of control group
Effects of institutionalisation
- Intellectual disability (abnormally low IQ)
- Disinhibited attachment (Rutter suggests its a adaptation to living with multiple carers so can’t form secure attachment
Strengths of Romanian orphan studies into the effects of institutionalisation
Lack of confounding variables
- parents couldn’t afford them there was no trauma involved in their relationship
- so any finding is to do with negative experiences in institution
Key worker
- real application
- assign a child one key worker at nursery or day care so they can form an attachment and prevent disinhibited attachment (substitute care in critical period)
Weaknesses of Romanian orphan studies into the effects of institutionalisation
•coming to England the babies may find it hard to adapt so it may not actually be measuring their attachment but actually their ability to adapt to new situations and people
-low internal validity
•socially sensitive study
- shows that late adopted children typically have worse development outcomes
- may mean parents avoid adopting a child who is past the ‘sensitive period’ as they may worry attachment won’t form
What aspects of early attachment influence later relationships
Internal working model
attachment type
How the internal working model influences later relationships
ADULT RELATIONSHIPS
-if first relationship experience is loving, baby will assume all relationships are like this and will bring this positive experiences to later relationships and behave functionally in them
-if first relationship experience is negative, baby will bring these negative experiences to later relationships so they may struggle to for, relationships and behave functionally in them
ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIPS
- Hazan and Shaver used the Love quiz on women who as babies had their attachment assessed
- found those who were secure had best romantic relationships
- insecure avoidant struggled maintaining relationships
- insecure resistant struggled being intimate
PARENTING RELATIONSHIPS
- people base their parenting style on their internal working model of how they were parented
- Bailey et al used strange situation on mother-baby attachment and also assessed mother-own mother attachment
- found most mothers had same attachment type to their baby as their own mother
How attachment type influences quality of childhood relationships
- secure formed best quality
- insecure struggle forming relationships
Study on bullying found
- insecure avoidant more likely to be bullied (free to explore in SS > lost > pussy)
- insecure resistant more likely to be a bully (cried all time in SS, take rage out on others)
Strengths of influence of early attachment on later relationships
•real world application
- using Hazan and Shavers research of how each attachment style view relationships this can be used in couple therapy to show what each partner expects in the relationship
- this can then be worked on between them
•research support
- there has been metanalyses (e.g. by Fearon) completed that showed that early attachment does consistently predict later attachment
- shows that secure attachment as a baby does convey advantages to future development while disorganised attachment appears to seriously advantage children (research has shown leads to mental health)
Weaknesses of the influence of early attachment on later relationships
•lack of validity in method of Hazan and Shaver
- used self report techniques and also asked adults to assess their own attachment as a child
- possible social desirability bias
- inaccuracy as adult may not remember and instead recall their schema of other relationships to assume what it must have been like
•there is an association between the attachment type of mother and baby and the mother and her mother, but the cause (being internal working model) is not necessarily effect
-may be other variables that influenced the attachment type other than their internal working model (e.g. genetics)
Two explanations of attachment
- Learning theory
- Bowlby’s monotropic theory
Describe how attachment forms through classical conditioning
- unconditioned stimulus (the food) creates an unconditioned repsonse (pleasure) is associated with the neutral stimulus (the mother) as she keeps providing food, therefore causing a conditioned response of pleasure when the baby sees the now conditioned stimulus of the mother
- the mother then becomes an attachment figure
Describe how attachment is maintained through operant conditioning
Two way process
•Positive reinforcement - baby cries and mother comforts him with social suppressor behaviour. Baby learns to direct crying to caregiver in future as the response was positive (comfort)
•Negative reinforcement - when baby is crying, the caregiver receives negative reinforcement as the crying stops when she comforts baby so she is more likely to comfort baby to avoid negative consequence
The mutual reinforcement strengthens attachment
Describe how attachment is a secondary drive
idea of ‘drive reduction’
- primary drive is hunger and survival
- mother becomes associated to this as she provides food
- baby associates satisfaction of food with mother and so their attachment becomes a learned secondary drive
Strengths of the learning theory of attachment
•Counter evidence from Harlow and Lorenz is using animals
- human attachment system is two way (as seen by mutual reinforcement)
- human behaviour incorporates higher power thinking and emotion
•Some conditioning may be involved in attachment
- association with food being central to attachment seems unlikely
- a baby may associate a feeling of warmth and comfort with the presence of a particular parent which can lead to attachments being formed
- so learning theory still is useful in understanding development of attachments
Weaknesses of the learning theory of attachment
•Counter evidence from animal studies
- Lorenz geese imprinted on first moving object it saw regardless of food
- Harlow’s monkeys attached more with the cloth mother over the wire mother regardless of who provided the food
•Schaffer and Emerson’s contradictory research
- found babies didn’t necessarily attach to the person who fed them the most
- but actually to the person who showed the most sensitivity and reciprocity to the babies signals and social releases
Describe Bowlby’s monotropic theory
EVOLUTIONARY THEORY
- suggests attachment is innate and has a survival advantage
- emphasis on one primary caregiver
- this attachment is different and more significant than any others
- more time spent with his mother figure the better (law of continuity and accumulated separation)
- proposed social releasers, critical period and internal working model
Describe Bowlby’s proposal of social releasers and critical period
- set of innate behaviours that trigger adult social interaction and attachment, adults also have innate behaviours to response to the social releasers
- e.g. laughing, smiling, cooing
-child is maximally sensitive to attachment at 6 months (sensitive period) and this extends up to 2 years (critical period)
Describe Bowlby’s proposal of the internal working model
- a child’s mental representation of the attachment they have with their primary attachment figure
- serves as a model for what the child expects future relationships to be like (if loving relationship with primary caregiver then expect all relationships to be loving and reliable and will bring these qualities to future relationships)
- people base their parenting behaviour on their experiences of being parented based on their internal working model
Strengths of Bowlby’s monotropic theory of attachment
•Research support of the internal working model
- -Bailey et al used strange situation on mother-baby attachment and also interviewed mother to assess mother-own mother attachment
- found most mothers had same attachment type to their baby as their own mother
• Rutter et al
- Romanian orphans from institutions were adopted into Britain
- found that even when adopted, they struggled to form new good quality attachments, especially if they were adopted after the age of 6 months- which was Bowlby’s proposed maximum sensitive period
- they mainly formed disinhibited attachments
Weaknesses of Bowlby’s monotropic theory of attachment
•Schaffer and Emerson contradictory research
- found that although most babies formed one attachment at first, the majority of babies formed multiple attachments around the age of 1
- although the primary attachment does have strong influence on later behaviour it may just be because it is stronger, not better quality than the others
- concept of monotropy lacks validity
•Czech Twins research
- were abused by their mother and fostered at 7 years old
- able to form attachments even though they hadn’t formed any attachments at 7 years old
- suggests critical period is more flexible than Bowlby suggested
Define the laws of continuity and accumulated separation
Law of continuity- the more constant and predictable a child’s care is, the better quality the attachment
Law of accumulated separation- every separation of the baby from the mother adds up, safest dose is zero
define imposed etic
when we assume a technique that works in one cultural context will work in another