Topic 2- Attachment Flashcards
What is an Attachment?
A strong, long-lasting emotional tie or bond between two people, usually a caregiver and child.
What is reciprocity?
Where the actions of one person get a response from the other person, although response is not necessarily the same
What is interactional synchrony?
Behaviour is synchronised when it is carried out at the same time.
What did Meltzoff and Moore (1977) investigate?
INTERACTIONAL SYNCHRONY
What did Tronick et al (1979) investigate?
RECIPROCITY
What are the four stages of attachment
1- (birth to 2 months) asocial/preattachment stage
2-(2-7months) indiscriminate attachment stage
3-(7-12 months) specific/ discriminate attachment stage
4-Multiple attachments
Animal studies of attachment?
LORENZ AND HARLOW
GREYLAG GOOSE AND RHESUS MONKEYS
Outline - Meltzoff and Moore (1977)
Controlled experiment w/ infants 2-3 weeks old.
Adult displayed 1/3 facial expressions and one hand gesture
Observed and recorded
Found that there was an association between the behaviour of the infant and adult model
A later study found same levels of infants who were 3 days old =BEHAVIOUR IS INNATE
Outline- Tronick et al (1979)
Filmed controlled observations of mothers + babies. Mothers were asked to stop moving and maintain a static unsmiling expression on their faces
Babies would try and get their mothers to interact and showed confusion and distress when there was no engagement
demonstrating babies aren’t passive in their interactions with caregivers +have an active role in reciprocal interactions
Evaluating research into caregiver-infant interactions
+use well controlled observational procedures, which were filmed and can be replicated
Outline -Schaffer and Emerson
Only 3% of infants has their father as their first attachment, in nearly a third of the babies fathers were the first joint attachment figure. Fathers today are more likely to be involved with babies compared to working class fathers in Glasgow. In 2013 office for national statistics showed 10% of those who care for children whilst their partner goes to work are male and 9% British single parents are male.
Outline - lamb
Observed 7-13 month old infants at home and found mothers and fathers hold their children for different reasons. Mothers- nurture, restrict
Fathers- playful purposes
Mothers - preferred as sources of comfort (in unfamiliar settings
Fathers -preferred as playmates.
Outline Paquette
Found fathers are more likely to encourage toddlers to take risks and to be brave during physical play than mothers - supports lamb
Outline Grossman
Longitudinal study
Found a correlation between infant relationships with their mother and attachments in adolescence , but no correlation between infant relationships with their father and attachments in adolescence. Quality of fathers play was related to the quality of adolescent attachment
Outline -Lorenz
Took a large clutch of eggs from GREYLAG goose- half placed by him and half by goose mother when hatching -followed who they first saw “imprinting”
Mixed them all together and after they went to their respective ‘mother’s’
Imprinting occurs during critical period and is irreversible. It is also directly linked to sexual behaviour (animals choose a mate with the same kind of object which they imprinted)
Criticisms- Lorenz
Difficult to generalise
Overstated the importance and permanence of imprinting
(Guiton et al found chickens who imprinted on yellow rubber gloves would try and mate with them as adults, after being around their own species were able to engage in normal sexual behaviour - imprinting isn’t irreversible)
Outline-Harlow
Demonstrating attachments not based on feeding
8 infant RHESUS monkeys taken from mothers at birth and studied for 165 days
-grew up with two surrogate mothers (wire and cloth) half were in cages with feeding bottle on wire mother and other half feeding bottle on cloth mother - they all showed preference to cloth mother
Also Harlow scared them with mechanical figure, monkeys fled to cloth mother for comfort
All monkeys developed abnormally- socially, sexually and unable to cradle offspring. However if the monkeys spent time with peers before 3 months - they seemed to recover, more than 6 months with wire mothers created permanent damage. SUPPORTS CRITICAL PERIOD FOR DEVELOPMENT OF ATTACHMENTS
Criticisms - Harlow
+ controlled experiments + generalisation to humans is possible
- ethical issues
- confounding variable - clothe and wire surrogate mothers also had different faces
What’s within the learning theory of attachment
Operant and classical conditioning
What is the main assumption of the learning theory explanation of attachment?
Children learn to become attached to their caregiver because they give them food - can be due to associations and behaviour can be altered by patterns of reinforcement
Evaluate the learning theory of attachment
+ substantial body of lab evidence to support the principles of the learning theory - well controlled, objective and replicable
- classical conditioning is not a sufficient explanation for attachment
- Harlow found that physical contact, rather than food, is vital for attachment in infant RHESUS monkeys
Outline van ijzendoorn and kroonenberg
Meta-analysis, comparing results of 32 studies using the strange situation in 8 different countries
Findings; variation within a culture was 1.5 greater than the variation between different cultures
In all cultures the highest % of children were securely attached
There were variations between cultures
Israel and Japan have less avoidant and more resistant attachments than west Germany. Israel and Japan have similar % for insecure resistant attachments but probably for different reasons.
44 juvenile thieves
Studied 88, 44 were a control group, 44 caught stealing - bowl you suggested that some of them had shown signs of affection less psychopathy - found that some of the thieves had experienced prolonged separation from their mothers at a young age.
Hazan and shaver
“Love quiz” in an American newspaper, collecting info from people about early attachment experiences -205 male responses 415 female responses.
Securely attached - happy and lasting relationships in adulthood
Insecure types- divorced and true love seemed to be rare
Secure 10 years
Resistant 5
Avoidant 6