Topic 7: Attachment Flashcards
Define Attachment
Attachment can be defined as an emotional bond between two people in which each seeks closeness and feels more secure when in the presence of the attachment figure.
Reciprocity
Reciprocity is a form of interaction between infant and caregiver involving mutual responsiveness, with both infant and mother responding to each other’s signals, and each elicits a response from the other. I.e. the caregiver picking the baby up and cuddling it when it cries.
Jaffe eh al demonstrated that infants coordinated their actions with caregivers in a kind of conversation. From birth babies move in a rhythm when interacting with adults almost as if they were taking in turns, as ppl do in conversations- one person leans forwards and speaks and then it is the other person’s turn. This is an example of reciprocity.
Reciprocal interactions are crucial for the development of communication skills and secure attachmen
Research for reciprocity
The Still-Face Experiment:
Tronick in the 1970s, explores how infants react when a caregiver suddenly becomes unresponsive and maintains a neutral, expressionless face.
Procedure:
A caregiver (typically a mother) engages in normal, interactive play with an infant.
The caregiver then abruptly stops responding to the infant’s cues, maintaining a still, expressionless face for a period of time.
Finally, the caregiver resumes normal interaction.
Key Findings:
Initially, infants attempt to re-engage the caregiver through various means like smiling, vocalizing, and reaching out.
When these attempts fail, infants become visibly distressed, showing signs of confusion, frustration, and even crying.
Infants may withdraw and lose postural control, indicating a sense of overwhelm and despair.
The experiment demonstrates that infants are not passive recipients of care but actively seek and expect reciprocal engagement.
Interactional synchrony
Interactional synchrony is when two people interact and tend to mirror what the other is doing in terms of their facial and body movements (emotions and behaviours).
For example, when two people move In time with each other.
Observational Research into interactional synchrony
Meltzoff and Moore
Aim: To investigate IS between infants and their caregivers.
Procedure: conducted a series of controlled observations and frame-by-frame video analysis using babies. The Babies were exposed to four different stimuli carried out by adult models; three facial gestures (e.g. mouth opening, tongue protrusion) and one manual gesture (e.g. waving fingers). The babies response to each of these gestures were observed and their actions were video recorded.
Findings: An association between the infant behaviour and the adult model was found even with infants only 3 days old.
Conclusion: Meltzoff & Moore (1983) demonstrated that interactional synchrony occurred with infants imitating facial expressions, tongue protrusions and mouth openings from an adult model when only three days old. This suggests the behaviour was innate rather than learned.
Reciprocity and Interactional Synchrony Evaluation
Weaknesses:
- Testing infant behaviour is difficult as their facial expressions are almost continuously changing. Behaviours observed in the Meltzoff & Moore study may lack validity as expressions involving sticking their tongue out, yawning, smiling, opening their mouths and movements of hands occur constantly in young babies. This makes it incredibly difficult to distinguish between general behaviour and actual interactional synchrony. Therefore such theories may lack internal validity due to not necessarily measuring interactional synchrony.
- Failure to replicate: For example, Koepke et al (1983) was unable to recreate the same findings as m&m although one weakness claimed by Meltzoff and Moore was their study lacked control and thus had validity.
- potential observer bias in the studies. Since behaviours of babies are hardv to interpret, researcher may interpret a babies actions in a way that fits their expectations.
Strengths:
- One practical application for such findings is mothers can be placed in the same rooms with their children instantly so they can begin to form attachment bonds unlike previous practice where they were kept separate.
- A strength is that controlled observationsoften capture fine details as they are generally well-controlled procedures. For example, both the mother and the infant are filmed, often from multiple angles, this ensures that fine details of behaviour can be recorded and later analysed. Videos can be replayed in detail for accurate analysis increasing reliability. Furthermore, babies are unaware that they are being observed so their behaviour does not change in response to controlled observations which is generally a problem for observational research. Increases internal validity
- Murray and Trevarthen research support: 2 month old infants shown video monitor of mother in real time and video monitor of mother not responding to the infant’s facial and body gestures. The result was acute distress, infant tried to attract mother’s interest but eventually gaining no response turned away. Infant = active and intentional partner in mother-infant interaction. Supports that behaviours are innate not learnt as baby is not displaying response that has been rewarded but rather a baby is actively eliciting a response.
- Predictive validity for IS: Isabella et al (1991)hypothesised that caregiver-baby pairs that developed secure attachment relationships would display more synchronous behaviour than babies with insecure relationships. Babies were observed using frame by frame video analysis at 3 and 9 months and the secure group interacted in a well-timed, reciprocal, and mutually rewarding manner. In contrast caregiver-baby pairs classed as insecure were characterized by interactions that were minimally involved, unresponsive and intrusive. Found a positive correlation between care-giver infant interaction and attachment strength.It was concluded that different interactional behaviours predicted attachment quality. However correlation doesn’t = causation.
- Support for reciprocity: The Still-Face Experiment - Tronick 1970s, explores how infants react when a caregiver suddenly becomes unresponsive and maintains a neutral, expressionless face.demonstrates that infants are not passive recipients of care but actively seek and expect reciprocal engagement.Feldman et al (2007) found that babies have “alert phases” and signal that they’re ready for interactions, and mothers pick up on and respond to infant alertness two-thirds of the time.
Outline and Evaluate Schaffer & Emerson’s observational Glasgow baby study
- Longitudinal study using a naturalistic observation. Measured indicators of separation anxiety and stranger distress of 60 infants from 5-23 weeks of age until 1 year by observing how the baby reacted to being separated form their parent and how it reacted to a new comer. Mothers were visited every 4 weeks and reported their baby’s response to separation in every day situations and stranger anxiety was measured by the infant’s response to the interviewer on each visit. They discovered that attachment types develop over time and correspond with age- the four stages of attachment.
87% of babies formed an attachment with two or more caregivers and the baby’s main attachment figure wasn’t always their maincaregiver. And the babies who formed the strongest attachments were the ones whose caregivers displayed the mostsensitive responsiveness
Evaluation:
- naturalistic observation means that the study likely has high ecological validity and babies behaviours are generalisable to everyday life. However it may still contain observer bias.
- Small and biased sample - From working class population in 1960s. Thus findings may only apply to that social group a time period.
- Their stages are inflexible & judgemental and lack cultural validity, particularly the idea of a primary attachment figure followed by multiple attachments, may not be universally applicable.In some collectivist cultures, multiple attachments may form earlier and play a more prominent role than in individualistic cultures.The study’s emphasis on separation anxiety and stranger anxiety as indicators of attachment might also not be universally applicable, as some cultures may have different norms and expectations regarding infant behavior in these situation
- Unreliable data - based on self report, could create systematic bias / conformity to social desirability.
- Sagi et al. - S&E only studied infants from 1 culture (an individualist culture) but other cultures are collectivist.Sagi compared attachments in Israeli kibbutzim (communal environment) to individualist family environment. Found closeness with mother twice as likely in family arrangements.These results suggest that attachments are culturally specific and the fact that Shaffer & Emersons study was only carried out in Individualist cultures creates an imposed epic to universally apply the stages of attachment formation to collectivist cultures
Schaffer and Emmerson’s four stages of attachment
1) Asocial Stage: 0-6 weeks. No discrimination between humans. Preference for humans over non-humans.
2) Indiscriminate Stage: From 6 weeks - 7 months. Can tell ppl apart, stronger bonds start to grow with familiar adults. No fear of strangers.
3) Specific Stage: Develops around 7 months old. Form specific attachment to one person, their primary attachment figure. Strong displays of separation anxiety. Distress in the company of strangers.
4) Multiple Attachments: From around 10 months old, children begin to attach to others and form multiple attachments.
The Role of the Father
- Schaffer and Emerson Found that fathers were far less likely to be primary attachment figure than mothers: in 3% of cases the father was the first sole object of attachment, in 27% of cases the father and mother were joint first object of attachment, and 75%of infants studied had formed an attachment with the father at 18 months
- men may be less psychological equipped to form an intense attached because they lack the emotional sensitivity that women offer. This could be due to biological factors (i.e. the female hormone oestrogen underlies caring behaviour) or social factors such as stereotypes. Some research has sown that single fathers and men in homosexual relationships with children have increased levels of oestrogen. Studies have shown thatfathers who spend more time playing, holding, and interacting with their infants exhibit elevated oxytocin levels (a hormone that facilitates parent-child bonding), suggesting that bonding and caregiving behaviours are not biologically exclusive to mothers but are shaped by active involvement (Gettler et al., 2011).
- Fathers as primary attachment figures: Tiffany Field filmed 4 month old babies in face-to-face interactions with primary caregiver mothers, secondary caregiver fathers, and primary caregiver fathers. Found that Primary caregiver fathers, like primary caregiver mothers, spent more time smiling, imitating and holding babies (examples of reciprocity and interactional synchrony), similar to traditional maternal behaviour. Suggests that fathers have the potential to be the more emotion-focused PAF but may only express this when given the role of primary caregiver.
Ross et al (1975) - investigated the impact of carrying out caretaking duties on parental attachment, using a correlational study measuring the number of nappies changed and strength of attachment. F: A positive correlation was found between the number of nappies changed and the strength of the father/child attachment, suggesting that the more time a father spends engaged in care giver activities, the stronger the attachment will be.
Secondary Attachment:
Geiger found that fathers tend to be more playful, physically active and generally better at providing challenging situations for their children (which encourages problem-solving), than mothers, who are more conventional. He suggests they make good secondary attachment figures.
Grossman et al carried out a longitudinal study on babies through to teens, studying the relationship between parents behavior and quality of their babies’ later attachments. Found that quality of baby’s attachment with mothers, but not fathers, was related to later attachment in adolescence. However, quality of fathers’ play with babies was related to the quality of adolescent attachments.
Evaluation/discussions:
- Real world applications: mothers may feel pressured to stay at home because of stereotypical; views of mothers’ and fathers’ roles and this may not be the best economical decision for the family. Research into ROF can offer reassuring advice to parents. Heterosexual parents can be informed that fathers are quite capable of become PAF’s.
- Relies on Heteronormative research which assumes all parents are in heterosexual relationships. enforces not only strict norms about sexuality but also reinforces strict gender roles within society, and ignores the roles of primary attachment in single parents or heterosexual relationships.
Lorenz (1935)
Lorenz (1935) imprinted goslings onto himself within a brief time period, which Bowlby incorporated into his idea of a critical period - a set time within which an attachment must form (13-16 hours after hatching/birth).
- The imprinted geese preferred him to the natural mother.
- Sexual imprinting: When adult the imprinted geese made sexual advancements upon Lorenz.
- Lorenz suggested imprinting was irreversible and long lasting.
Procedure:
Lorenz divided a clutch of goose eggs into two groups:
Group 1 (Natural Hatching):Eggs hatched naturally with the mother goose.
Group 2 (Incubator Hatching):Eggs hatched in an incubator, where Lorenz was the first moving object they saw.
Observation:
The goslings from the incubator group followed Lorenz everywhere, demonstrating imprinting on him.
The goslings from the natural hatching group followed their mother goose.
Results:
Lorenz’s research demonstrated that newly hatched goslings would imprint on the first moving object they saw, regardless of whether it was a human or another animal.
Sluckin (1966)
Imprinted ducklings outside of the critical period, thus it is instead a sensitive period - a best time for attachments.
Guiton (1966)
Research support for imprinting:
Guiton demonstrated that chicks exposed to yellow gloves while being fed during their first weeks became imprinted on the gloves. Also found that male chickens later tried to mate with the gloves.
CP: Guiton found that he could reverse the imprinting in chicken that had initially tried to mate with the rubber gloves after leaving them with their own species. Suggests imprinting may not be very different from any other kind of learning.
Imprinting
A form of attachment where offspring follow the first large moving object they see.
Harlow’s Monkeys (1959)
- Harlow raised baby monkeys in isolation with two surrogate mothers,
- Cupboard love theories predict baby monkeys would prefer a harsh, wire mother that provided food to a soft-towelling mother providing no food.
- Infant monkeys spent most time with the soft-towelling mother, using her as a safe base to explore from and went to her when scared.
- Harlow later raised baby monkeys in total isolation resulting in psychological disturbance. When placed with others they had no social skills, were psychologically disturbed and had no ability to engage in sexual courtship and made made terrible parents.
- Harlow and Suomi (1972) found that these effects were reversible if the damaged monkey was placed with a younger, opposite sex normal ‘therapist’ monkey, which seemed to act as a ‘template’ for normal behaviour to develop.
Evaluate Animal Studies
Strengths:
- Animal research let psychologists study attachment in ways not practically or ethically possible with human pps.
- Practical applications: Imprinting has helped reintroduce migratory birds to areas where they have become extinct. Farmers also use imprinting by putting an orphaned lamb wearing the skin of a dead lamb with the dead lamb’s mother so that she will accept it. Also has profound implications for childcare. Due to the importance of early experiences on long-term development , it is vital that all children’s needs are catered for; taking care of a child’s physical needs alone is not sufficient.
- Harlow ‘Comfort love’: Schaffer and Emerson Glasgow study supports the idea that responsiveness may be more important than food as the baby’s main attachment figure wasn’t always their maincaregiver. And the babies who formed the strongest attachments were the ones whose caregivers displayed the mostsensitive responsiveness.
Limitations:
- Problems with generalisation/extrapolation: What is true for animals is not necessarily true for humans.
- Ethics: Harlow’s study created lasting emotional harm as the monkeys later found it difficult to form relationships with their peers.
- Lorenz’s membership of the Nazi party has led to accusations that his belief in genetically inherited characteristics contaminated his work with researcher bias.
- Confounding Variable: The heads of the monkeys in Harlow’s study were also different, decreases internal validity.
Learning Theory
- The first attachment theory.
- A behaviourist theory.
- Also known as a cupboard love theory (we attach due to feeding).
- Children attach to those who feed them by the process of association (either through classical or operant conditioning)
Classical Condition = attachment
Babies learn to associate caregivers with food
Before Learning:
Food (UCS) = Pleasure (UCR)
During Learning:
Food (UCS) + Caregiver (CS) = Pleasure (UCR)
After Learning:
Caregiver (CS) = Pleasure (CR)
Operant Conditioning as an explanation for attachment
Caregivers are a source of negative reinforcement as they become associated with reducing the unpleasant feelings of hunger.
Evaluation of Learning Theory
Strengths:
- Dollard & Miller (1950) calculate babies are fed over 2,000 times in their first year by the main carer, easily enough for an association between caregiver and feeding to be formed.
- May be useful in explaining when attachment goes wrong, i.e. because of neglect, and therefore suggests better solutions.
Limitations:
- Sometimes human’s actively seek negative stimuli i.e. nerves, fear and adrenaline during extreme/dangerous sport, or alcohol and smoking. Human’s don’t always look to reduce negative feelings. OC may not be the best explanation as human behaviour contradicts it.
- Based on animals research i.e. Pavlov’s dogs and Skinner’s rats. Extrapolation. Cannot necessarily be generalised to human’s who are much more complex.
- Environmentally reductionist: Ignores biological factors (Bowlby’s monotropic theory or Lorenz).
- Harlow found baby monkeys separated from their mother preferred a soft-towelling surrogate mother with no food, to a harsh wire mother that did provide food. This goes against learning theory and suggests babies only need food occasionally, but need emotional security all the time.
- Attachments develop with carers who don’t feed babies.
- Conditioning best explains how simple behaviours are learned, but attachments are complex behaviours with an intense emotional component.
- Little research support compared to Bowlby’s theory.
Primary Reinforcer
food
Secondary Reinforcer
Person who supplies the food (carer)
Bowlby’s theory of Maternal Deprivation
Bowlby’s ‘maternal deprivation’ theory suggested that a separation from the mother or substitute mother can have negative psychological consequences.
Critical Period: Attachment must form before 2.5 years but a continued risk up to age 5.
Effects of maternal deprivation on Development:
Intellectual Development is delayed. Results in abnormally low IQ. William Goldfarb found lower IQ in children who remained in institutions than those who were fostered and thus had a higher standard of emotional care.
Emotional Development: Prevents development of normal relationships and is associated with criminality. Can result in affectionless psychopathy.
PDD model
Robertson and Bowlby (1952) suggested that the effects of short-term separation may be the same as the effects of deprivation. They developed the protest-despair-detachment (PDD) model:
Stage One: Protest
Immediate reactions involved crying, kicking, screaming, and attempting to stop the caregiver from leaving.
Stage Two: Despair
Children displayed signs of acceptance of the situation or helplessness. They appeared to be in mourning. They comforted themselves through thumb-sucking or rocking and withdrew.
Stage Three: Detachment
Children began engaging with others and appeared sociable. When the caregivers returned, the children showed indifference or anger at the caregiver for leaving.
Affectionless Psychopathy
Bowlby defined affectionless psychopathy as the inability to experience guilt or strong emotion towards others.
Bowlby’s 44 thieves study concluded that prolonged early separation/deprivation caused affectionless psychopathy.
14/44 thieves, who were interviewed, could be described as affectionless psychopaths. 12 of these experienced prolonged separations from their mother during the critical period.
Evaluate Bowlby’s theory of Maternal Deprivation
Strengths:
- Robertson and Robertson (1971) showed in their study that the effects of short-term separation (i.e. the PDD model) were greatly reduced when children received substitute mothering from a warm, emotionally available, sensitive and responsive care-giver.
This suggests that when children are separated from their families they need to be looked after by people who are well trained in how to care for children social and emotional wellbeing, not just to meet their physical needs (such as feeding and washing them).Real-world application: Bowlby and Robertson’s work (they observed children aged 1-4 years old in residential nurseries and filmed their responses when separated for a short period from their primary caregivers). led to a major social change in the way that children were cared for in hospital and care homes (i.e. key workers).
- Bifulco found that about 25% of women, who had experienced separation from their mothers, later experienced depression or anxiety compared with 15% who had no experience of separation. The mental health problems were much greater in those women whose loss occurred before the age of 6 supporting Bowlby’s notion of a critical period.
Limitations:
- Flawed evidence: Bowlby interviewed the families and carried out the assessments for affectionless psychopathy, which left him open to bias as he knew in advance which teens he expected to find signs of AP.
- Rutter (1981) Privation vs Deprivation: Many of the 44 thieves in Bowlby’s study had been moved around a lot during childhood and had probably never formed an attachment. This suggested they were suffering from privation rather than deprivation, which Rutter suggested was far more deleterious to the children. Bowlby oversimplified maternal deprivation and this lack of clarity in Bowlby’s definition of deprivation may therefore -vely affect the validity of his research findings.
- Critical Vs Sensitive Periods: For Bowlby, damage was inevitable if a child had not formed an attachment in the first 2 and a half yrs of life. However, evidence suggests that good quality aftercare can prevent most or all of this damage. E.G. the Czech Twins case, although they were severely damaged emotionally by their experiences of abuse, severe isolation and neglect during the critical period, they received excellent care and by their teens were fully recovered. The ‘critical period’ is therefore better seen as a ‘sensitive period’.
Privation
Privation is a situation where no attachment bond ever has the opportunity to form. studies of privation must rely on case studies (a detailed investigation of a single participant).
Privation is more likely to result in lasting damage than deprivation. But research is conflicting - some individuals recover while others don’t improve.
Genie was discovered at the age of 13. She had been isolated from her mother and father by being locked in a room. Case study showed that: Genie’s social skills, language and understanding of numbers improved outside of the CP but she never completely caught up. Conclusion: Effects of privation may be considered partially reversible – she developed some social skills, attached to key figures and developed some language.
OR Effects of privation are not reversible? Genie did not develop normal language and use normal social skills
Freud and Dann (1951) reported on a group of children who became known as the Bulldog Bank children. They were six refugees aged between three and four discovered at a concentration camp. It was believed that the children were orphaned at only a few months old and so had no time to form any attachments. Initially, their language skills were limited, which increased their levels of aggression and hostility. With careful nurturing and support from staff, all children made rapid improvement. They displayed consideration and helpfulness to the staff, as well as identifying with adults in ways previously not seen.
The Bulldog Banks six weakens Bowlby’s maternal deprivation hypothesis because the children recovered from their early traumatic experiences. Supports Rutter’s research, particularly his studies on Romanian orphans, by demonstrating that the negative effects of privation can be reversed, especially if children are adopted into loving and nurturing families before a certain age.
The Czech twins: Koluchova (1976) studied a pair of identical twin boys from Czechoslovakia who experienced similar mistreatment as Genie. However, after these boys were adopted and cared for well by two sisters, the detrimental effects of privation were reversed, and they grew into healthy adults with a job andrelationships.
Evaluation of Genie and other studies
While the Bulldog Banks children had each other, Genie was raised in isolation. So it might have been the children’s attachment to each other that helped with their recovery.
Bowlby overstated the negative effects of maternal deprivation because those children who received care and sensitivity went on to make good recoveries.
Case studies are dependent upon retrospective memories that are often incorrect. For example, Genie’s mother often gave conflicting reports of what happened to her daughter.
The Czech twins were discovered at the age of 7 which may explain why they recovered from the effects of privation where Genie, who was discovered at the age of 13, did not.
The twins were not completely isolated as they had each other. Being able to form an attachment to another person, in this case the other twin rather than a caregiver, may have protected them from some of the negative effects of privation.
Bowlby’s monotropic Attachment theory 1958
- An evolutionary explanation that sees attachment as linked to survival.
- Parents must attach to offspring to protect genes/species survival and infants must attach to parent to survive EEA(Environment of Evolutionary Adaptedness) . This builds the monotropic bond.
- Attachment behaviour involves social releasers, infant social behaviours that stimulate adult interaction and caregiving.
- Babies have an innate drive to built a monotropic bond with one specific person. The critical period for attachment is 3-6 months. Failure to develop a secure an attachment during CP = difficulty in forming successful relationships later on.
- Sensitive responsiveness - A child attaches to the adult who responds most sensitively, usually the mother.
Outline Bowlby’s Internal working model
Bowlby proposed that a child forms a schema of their relationship with their primary attachment figure and it serves as a model for what relationships are like.
The Internal Working model:
The primary carer’s behaviour towards child affects the child’s working model of self (their self belief), which affects their attachment style in future relationships and consequently how they act towards their children. If a child feels positive & loved they will feel secure in adult relationships. If a child feels unloved and rejected by their PC, they will be avoidant in future relationships. If a child feels angry & confused by their PC’s behaviour they will become resistant in future relationships.
Continuity Hypothesis
- Bowlby linked the development of the IWM to the future development of relationships. The CH is the idea that there is consistency between early emotional experiences and later relationships, and a child’s ability to parent and develop relationships will be a result of IWM.
Eval:
- Bowlby’s IWM and issue of determinism; negative implications of assumption that the relationship is cause and effect.
- difficulty of measuring the IWM – hypothetical concept
Evaluation for Bowlby’s monotropic Theory
- Rutter found infants show attachment behaviours towards many attachment figures not just mothers. This lowers support for Bowlby’s theory of monotropy.
- Lamb et al. found that infants had dif. attachments for dif. purposes to dif. ppl, rather than attachment being in a hierarchy. E.g., infants go to fathers for play, but mothers for comfort, going against Bowlby’s idea of monotropy.
- Schaffer & Emerson found that multiple attachments are the norm, which goes against Bowlby’s ideas of monotropy, as does the fact that 39% of children had their main attachment to someone other than the main caregiver.
- Caregiver sensitivity hypothesis vs temperament hypothesis: Kagan founded the temperament hypothesis, by finding that infants have an innate personality, which influences the quality of their attachments with caregivers and later relationships with adults. This suggests that attachments from as a result of temperament not an innate gene for attachment, going against Bowlby’s theory.
- Bowlby’s theory has been used by right-wing political fugures, as scientific proof that women should be at home mothering children and not at work with their children in day care. - socially sensitive
- Main, Kaplan, and Cassidy (1985) found a strong association between the security of the adults’ working model of attachment and that of their infants’, with a particularly strong correlation between mothers and infants (vs. fathers and infants)
- A practical Application of Bowlby’s theory is that parents showed receive parenting classes that emphasis the importance o sensitive responsiveness in developing secure attachments.
Ainsworth’s ‘Strange Situation’ (SS)
- The strange situation is the accepted observation testing method for measuring attachment types developed by Mary Ainsworth.
- The SS involved a carer, her child, a stranger and an observer
- The SS measured separation distress, stranger anxiety, reunion response, the secure base concept and the sensitive responsiveness of the mother to the infant’s needs.
- Three attachment types were identified:
1. Secure Attachment (Type B)
2. Insecure-avoidant (Type A)
3. Insecure-Resistant (Type C)
Ainsworth’s ‘strange situation’ findings
Ainsworth’s findings provided evidence for three distinct attachment types that seemed to correlate with the level of sensitive responsiveness shown by the mother.
- 66% of infants were classified as secure (Type B)
- 22% of infants were classified as insecure-avoidant (Type A). Received low sensitive responsiveness.
- 12% of infants were classified as insecure resistant (Type C). Received inconsistent sensitive responsiveness.
Ainsworth’s research suggests that a secure attachment develops due to the attention of a consistently sensitively responsive mother.
Insecure Avoidant (Type A)
- doesn’t use mother as safe base
- low stranger anxiety
- low separation anxiety
- indifferent to mother’s return
- mother shows little sensitive responsiveness
Secure (Type B)
- Uses mother as safe base as they explore environment
- moderate stranger anxiety
- separation anxiety but settles when mother returns
- caregiver shows sensitive responsiveness
Insecure resistant (Type C)
- Clingy
- higher stranger and separation anxiety
- ambivalent to mother’s return
- Mothers appear to be inconsistent with their sensitive responsiveness
- Low willingness to explore the new environment
Ainsworth’s ‘Strange Situation’ evaluation
Strengths:
- Highly controlled observational study with standardised procedures. Allows for replication which allows for comparison and increases reliability.
- Predictive validity when it comes to later attachments and relationships: McCarthy studied 40 adult women assessed with the strange situation as infants. Found that adults with the most long-lasting and secure adult friendships and romantic relationships were securely attached in infancy. Hazan and Shaver found similar proportions of attachment types in adulthood.
Limitations:
- The SS was developed in America, using Amrican babies and based on American values regarding child-parent beahviour, and may be a culture-bound test, not valid when applied to other cultures. The Strange Situation’s focus on American norms can be seen as ethnocentric, implying that American attachment styles are the “ideal” or “normal” ones.The criteria used to classify infants’ attachment styles (secure, insecure-avoidant, insecure-resistant) are based on American standards, potentially leading to misinterpretations when applied to other cultures - an Imposed Etic.
- Lacks ecological validity because they are held in a lab not a familiar environment like the family home. The mother knows her behaviour is being monitored so may show more sensitive responsiveness than usual due to demand characteristics.
- Alternative argument: Kagan’s temperament hypothesis suggests infant’s have an inherited high or low reactive temperament. High reactivity = distressed babies, low-reactive infants show less distress and mothers struggle to interact with infants with high reactivity.
Van ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg (1988)
Aim: To find cultural Variations in attachment
Procedure: conducted a meta-analysis of strange situation studies from different countries.
Findings: Secure attachment was most common in all countries, which suggests there is a globally preferred attachment style which potentially has a biological basis and therefore support Bowlby’s theory. However avoidant was more common in individualistic cultures and resistant in collectivist non-western cultures (Takahashni’s, Japan study shows this), which variations in parenting styles could explain.
- Germany was the most avoidant (Grossman & Grossman suggests this is due to Germany’s independent culture)
- Japan and Israel had highest percentage of insecure resistant
Cultural Variations in Attachment: Van ljzendoorn: evaluations
Strengths:
- The meta-analysis included a very large sample size (32 studies across 8 countries) increases validity.
- As the dominant style was “secure” for all countries studied, this may be evidence for Bowlby’s theory that there in a biological, instinctive drive to parent in a way that produces secure attachments.
- A large number of the studies used were conducted by indigenous psychologists, who are from the same backgrounds of the participants.
Limitations:
- Ainsworth’s (1970) and Van Ljendoorn’s (1988) findings may lack temporal validity. Simonelli et al (2014) measured attachment using the strange situation in modern Italian infant-mother pairs and found a significantly higher % of avoidant infants compared to historical Italian families. Adaption to modern life? with infants adjusting to frequently absent mothers due to work?
- Many of the countries only had 1 study included. Such a small sample is not representative of the country’s population. Was also more variation within countries than between countries.
- Ethnocentrism. The ‘SS’ has cultural bias as styles of attachment more common in America and Britain are viewed as superior ‘secure’ and types that are more common in other cultures are labelled as ‘insecure’. Ainsworth imposing an etic.
Institutionalisation
The effect of institutional care. The term can be applied widely to the effects of an institution but our concern focuses specifically on how time spent in an institution or orphanage can affect the development of children. The possible effects include social, mental and physical underdevelopment. Some of these effects may be irreversible.
Key Study: Rutter and Sonuga-Barke (2010)
P:
Followed the lives of 165 Romanian children, who grew up in Romanian institutions. The adoptees have been tested at regular intervals and their progress has been compared to a control group of 52 British children adopted in the UK before the age of 6 months. 111 adopted before the age of 2yrs, the other 54 adopted by 4yrs. Tested at regular intervals (ages, 4, 6, 11, 15) and info on physical, cognitive & social development were gathered from interviews with parents and teachers.
F:
- At the time of adoption: All Romanian orphans lagged behind their British counterparts on all measures of physical, cognitive and social development. They were smaller, weighed less and classified as mentally retarded.
- By the age of 4: Some children had caught up with their British counterparts, mainly those adopted before 6 months.
- Follow ups confirmed that significant deficits remained in a substantial minority, who had experience institutional care beyond the age of 6 months. Many of the children adopted after 6 months exhibited disinhibited attachments and had problems with peer relationships.
C:
The earlier adoption occurs, the less severe the long-term effects of institutionalisation and deprivation, as children have the opportunity to form attachments. There is a crucial period in life when attachments develop, most likely before and up to six months of age.
Context behind Romanian Orphan studies
Fall in communism in the 1960s led to finding out about the poor conditions of Romanian Orphanages resulting from lack of birth control and abortion ban, which led to too many unwanted children.
Zeanah et al. (2005)
Compared 136 Romanian children who had spent 90% of their lives in an institution, to a control group of Romanian children who has never been in an institution. The children aged 12-31 months were assessed in the Strange Situation. 74% of the control group were securely attached.Only 19% of the other children were securely attached and the institutionalised children showed signs of disinhibited attachment.
What are the effects of institutionalisation?
1) Physical Underdevelopment: Small, bone problems
2) Disinhibited attachment: - Institutions involve the children having multiple carers and so it is nearly impossible for them to form a secure relationship with one caregiver during the sensitive period. This results in disinhibited attachment where children are very friendly and behave indiscriminately between people they know and people they don’t know. This causes them to be very attention-seeking and clingy and acting inappropriately towards strangers. (Zeanah et al)
3) Intellectual Under functioning: Learning slower than peers of the same age. William Goldfarb found lower IQ in children who remained in institutions than those who were fostered and thus had a higher standard of emotional care.
4) Poor parenting in adulthood: Issues with attaching to their children (Harlow)
Evaluation of Romanian Orphan Studies
- Social Sensitivity: Romanian Orphan studies are socially sensitive because the results show that late-adopted children typically have poor developmental outcomes. Due to these findings, teachers or parents may have lower expectations, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. Also the suggested effect of ‘poor parenting in adulthood’ is an unfair assumption to make for all institutionalised children and may discourage them from becoming parents.
- Real-world application: Has led to improvements in the conditions experienced by looked-after children. I.e. children homes now avoid having large numbers of caregivers for each children and considerable effort is made to accommodate children in foster-care or to have them adopted instead of placing them in institutional care.
- Lack of adult data: The studies only followed children’s development up to 15, making it difficult to determine and compare the long-term to short-term effects of institutionalisation and deprivation.. Cannot yet answer q’s like the effects on adult romantic and parental relationships. It is possible that the late-adopted children will catch up.
- Lack of generalisability: The Romanian Orphanages were not typical of other types of institutions. The children were raised in extreme conditions where they were given poor care and very low level of intellectual stimulation. The conditions were so bad that they are unlikely to compare to any other institutions thus the effects cannot be generalised to other institutions.
- Fewer extraneous Variables as most of the Romanian orphans were instituationalised from birth and did not suffer any trauma beforehand like in previous orphan studies. The reduced risk of confounding participant variables in Romanian orphan studies means that they have higher internal validity (because the effects are more likely to be due to institutionalisation alone).
Key Study: Hazan and Shaver (1987)
A: To test if there is a continuity between early attachment types and the quality of later adult romantic connections.
P: Designed a ‘love quiz experiment, which asked questions about current attachment experiences and about attachment history to identify current and childhood attachment types. Analysed 620 responses, 205=men and 415=women.
F:
- They found that the prevalence of attachment styles was similar to that found in infancy - 56% = secure, 25% = avoidant, 19% = resistant.
- Found a positive correlation between attachment type and love experiences. Secure attachment type relationships were more enduring overall.
- Found a relationship between IWM and attachment type (securely attached individuals tended to have a +ve IWM.
Eval:
- use of self-report techniques to assess quality of childhood/adult relationships – subjectivity, social desirability, etc. – as well as retrospective assessment of early attachment patterns
Harlow, 1959 - Effects of lack of attachment
When observing the long-term effects of his monkey’s lack of attachment he found:
- Abnormal social development (they froze and fled from peers)
- Abnormal sexual behaviours (no mating behaviour shown)
- Poor parenting (No nursing their infants and in extreme cases killed them)
Wilson and Smith (1976)
Relationships in childhood
A: Wanted to see whether there was a link between attachment type and bullying behaviour in children.
P: Questionnaire responses analysed from 196 children from London (aged 7-11).
F: Avoidant children were most likely to be bullied, resistant children were most likely to be the bullies and secure children were the least likely to be involved in bullying at all.
Eval:
f use of self-report techniques to assess quality of childhood/adult relationships – subjectivity, social desirability, etc.
Cultural Variaitons in attachment: Sagi
Sagi et al.(1991)research indicated a higher prevalence of insecure-resistant attachment in Israeli children compared to other cultures, suggesting that cultural factors might influence attachment patterns
Economic implications of research into the role of the father in attachment
- Increasingly fathers remain at home and therefore contribute less to the economy consequently more mothers may return to work and contribute to the economy
- changing laws on paternity leave – partially funded by both the employer and the government so affects the economy; impact upon employers. Research has already influenced a shift towards shared parental leave and increased paternity leave for new fathers.Whilst shared parental leave may reduce males in the workforce as they seek to take more leave when they have children, this would allow mothers to take less leave and therefore return to work, allowing them to resume contribution to the employer. Or is some cases parents may choose to divide the leave so each works part time, which may mean less cover issues in some workforces.
- gender pay gap may be reduced if parental roles are regarded as more equal
- early attachment research, e.g. Bowlby suggests fathers should provide an economic rather than an emotional function.
