w2-pre Flashcards
What was the aim of Bowlby’s (1947) study on juvenile thieves?
To investigate the effects of early maternal separation on delinquent behavior.
What percentage of the 44 juvenile thieves in Bowlby’s study had experienced early prolonged separation from their mothers?
0.61
What was Bowlby’s key conclusion from his 1951 WHO report?
The quality of early parental care is crucial for mental health.
What is Bowlby’s famous quote about maternal separation and delinquency?
“Prolonged separation… stands foremost among the causes of delinquent character development.”
How was attachment viewed before the 1950s?
As a secondary drive, meaning infants bonded with caregivers only for survival needs (e.g., food). Attachment is secondary to survival needs.
How did Bowlby challenge the secondary drive view?
He suggested Primary drive theory where attachment resulted from nutritional satisfaction e.g. infants bond because caregivers provide food.
How did Lorenz (1935) challenge the primary drive theory?
He showed that geese imprint on the first moving object they see, regardless of food, suggesting attachment is biologically programmed.
What did Harlow & Zimmerman’s (1959) monkey experiment demonstrate?
Infant monkeys preferred the cloth mother (comfort) over the wire mother (food), proving attachment is based on security, not nutrition.
How did Bowlby (1969) define attachment?
A strong affectional bond that promotes proximity-seeking behavior.
What is Bowlby’s (1988) concept of a secure base?
A caregiver who provides a safe foundation for the child to explore the world.
What are two key attachment behaviors according to Bowlby?
- Proximity-seeking (crying, smiling, vocalizing, reaching). 2. Proximity-maintaining (clinging, following, calling).
What were Mary Ainsworth’s 3 major contributions to attachment research?
- Developed lab methods to study attachment in infants. 2. Introduced sensitive caregiving as a key factor in attachment security. 3. Findings - identified ID in the quality of attachments.
What was Ainsworth & Bell’s (1970) key finding?
Attachment relationships are qualitatively different from one another.
Who developed the stages of early development?
Bowlby 1969.
What happens in Phase I (0-3 months) of attachment development?
Infants signal for care without discrimination between caregivers.
At what age do infants start preferring certain caregivers but still accept others?
Phase II (3-6 months).
When does clear attachment to one main caregiver emerge?
Phase III (9 months - 2 years).
What is a “goal-corrected partnership” in attachment development?
In Phase IV (2.5+ years), children develop an internal working model of relationships, predicting caregiver behavior.
What did Schaffer & Emerson (1964) find about early attachment behaviors?
Initially, infants indiscriminately seek proximity from any adult but by 25 weeks, they prefer specific caregivers, only demonstrating proximity-promoting behavior to those individuals.
What does the Universality and Normality Hypothesis suggest?
All infants develop attachments, and secure attachment is the most common style worldwide.
What does the Continuity Hypothesis propose?
Early attachment patterns remain stable throughout life (internal working model).
What is the Sensitivity Hypothesis?
A caregiver’s responsiveness determines an infant’s attachment security.
What does the Competence Hypothesis claim?
Secure attachment leads to better social, emotional, and cognitive outcomes.
What did Fearon & Roisman (2017), Meins (2017), and Mesman et al. (2016) find about secure attachment?
It predicts better emotional regulation, higher self-esteem, and better social competence.
How does early caregiving quality influence later attachment security?
Children with secure early attachments are more likely to have healthy relationships and mental well-being in adulthood.
What are the four main methods used to measure attachment?
- Strange Situation Procedure (SSP) – Infants (12–20 months). 2. Attachment Q-Sort (AQS) – Children (12 months – 6 years). 3. Child Attachment Interview (CAI) – Children (7+ years). 4. Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) – Adults (16+ years).
What are the key dimensions of attachment measurement?
- Presence/Absence vs. Individual Differences – Does attachment exist, or how does it vary? 2. Form vs. Function – What attachment looks like vs. what it does. 3. Behavior vs. Representation – Observable actions vs. internal models.
Who developed the Strange Situation Procedure?
Ainsworth and Bell (1970).
What is the Strange Situation Procedure (SSP) designed to measure?
Children aged 1-2 years exploratory and attachment behaviors in a controlled lab setting.
What was the procedure of the SSP?
- Child and caregiver enter an unfamiliar room. 2. A stranger enters and interacts with the child. 3. The caregiver leaves, leaving the child alone or with the stranger. 4. The caregiver returns, and reactions are observed.
What are the four main attachment classifications (Ainsworth et al 1978)?
- Secure (60%) – Uses caregiver as a safe base, seeks comfort. 2. Avoidant (15%) – Avoids caregiver, treats them like a stranger. 3. Resistant (10%) – Distressed by separation, resists comfort on reunion. 4. Disorganized (15%) – Confused, disoriented behavior (Main & Solomon, 1990).
What are the five main categories of attachment behaviors?
- Proximity and Contact Seeking – Approaching, gesturing, vocal signals. 2. Contact Maintaining – Clinging, embracing, clutching. 3. Proximity and Interaction Avoiding – Looking away, turning away, moving away. 4. Contact and Interaction Resisting – Pushing away, kicking, hitting, screaming, squirming. 5. Searching Behavior – Orienting to door, banging on door, looking at an empty chair.
What is the inter-rater reliability of the Strange Situation Procedure (SSP)?
85-100% consistency, meaning different observers tend to agree on classification.
How stable is attachment classification over time in the SSP?
Low test-retest reliability over two weeks. Moderate rank-order stability in attachment behavior between 12-18 months (Waters, 1978).
What is the kappa statistic for classifying secure, avoidant, and resistant attachment types in the SSP?
Kappa of .92, indicating very high agreement in classification.
What is a key limitation of the SSP in terms of age range?
The SSP is only valid for children aged 12-20 months.
What evidence supports the convergent validity of the SSP?
It correlates strongly with attachment behaviors observed in the home environment (Ainsworth et al., 1978).
What is a major criticism of the SSP regarding what it measures?
Some argue it measures temperament rather than attachment quality (Groh et al., 2017).
What is the weak correlation between SSP attachment classification and temperament?
d = .08, suggesting SSP is largely independent of temperament.
What was Bronfenbrenner’s (1977) critique of SSP?
Issues with ecological validity, It only measures strange behavior in strange situations with strange adults for brief periods.
Who developed the Attachment Q-Sort?
Vaughn and Waters (1990).
How does the Attachment Q-Sort (AQS) measure attachment?
Measures individual differences in “secure base” behavior in natural settings.
What is the procedure for AQS?
- Conducts home observations (1.5-2h) on two occasions. 2. Uses 75-100 behavioral items, sorted based on similarity to a prototype of secure attachment. 3. Generates a continuous score (-1 to +1) comparing the child’s attachment behavior to a “secure child” profile.
What are the four key takeaways from attachment theory?
- Attachment is a biological process – infants are wired to seek security. 2. Quality of caregiving matters – sensitive parenting fosters secure attachment. 3. Early attachment shapes lifelong relationships and mental health. 4. Attachment patterns are stable but can change with life experiences.
