Week 1 - Attachment Flashcards
Relevant Background: Define Attachment
An emotional bond between an infant and one or few significant caregivers (mainly the mother) - Main & Solomon
Relevant Background: What was the dominant view in the 1950s-60s about attachment
Psychoanalytic Perspective - focus on oral gratification. Against ‘spoiling children with love’
Behaviourist Perspective - mother-infant bond result of basic drives to fulfil hunger, thirst and pain (it is an innate secondary drive)
HARLOW: Harlow believed that we are pre-disposed to create attachment bonds with our mothers, and that this bond exists independent of food (basic drives)
Relevant Background: Harlow’s Monkeys - what were the initial observations
Harlow observed a ‘sturdy’ colony of 60 isolated baby monkeys in individual cages in the same room:
–> Negative effects of isolation
–> Comforted by warm blankets
–> Would harm themselves (eg. pinch the same patch of skin)
–> Behaved different from animals raised in the wild
–> Monkeys continued to isolate themselves
Experiment(s): Aim
A) Examine the role of comfort vs feeding *observed through the surrogate mother studies (1958)
B) Examine the effects of full and partial social isolation observed through the social isolation experiment - pit of despair
C) Effects of maternal and peer deprivation observed through maternal and peer deprivation experiments
Experiment: Participants
For all experiments - infant monkeys separated from mothers 6-12 hours after birth
Experiment: Methods
A B and C: All experiments.
A - Surrogate Mother - two conditions either a wire mother (with feeding bottle attached) or a cloth mother (made of soft cloth)
–> In one variation both mothers were present but only one (the wire mother) provided food
B - Social Isolation - To examine whether different periods of isolation have an effect on relationships. Experimental groups of varied isolation periods:
–> 0-2yrs
–> 0-6 months
–> 0-80 days
C - Maternal Deprivation - three conditions:
1) Normal mother, not allowed to play
2) Normal mother, allowed to play
4) Surrogate cloth mother, allowed to play
Experiment: Procedure
A) Caged monkeys contained both the cloth and the wire mother. The monkeys’ behaviour was observed. The surrogate cannot cradle the baby, communicate monkey sounds of gestures, punish for misbehaviour
B) Monkeys isolated in chamber called the ‘pit of despair’
–> contained a feeding box, a viewing point for the researcher, air vents, and a living area
–> each monkey isolated in its own cubicle with solid walls
C) Monkey’s play, defense, and sex behaviours were observed. Some reared with mothers (see conditions), others also raised with peers
Findings
A) Monkeys spent more time on the CLOTH mother IRRESPECTIVE OF FEEDING - the cloth is more important than feeding (monkey comforted by cloth)
–> The infant would only go to the wire mother when hungry.
–> Once fed it would return to the cloth mother for most of the day. If a frightening object was placed in the cage the infant took refuge with the cloth mother (its safe base
B) Effects after isolation:
–> fearful responses (threat and fear when paired - including crouching, fleeing, and freezing)
–> these effects continued beyond 2 years of the isolation period ENDING
–> behavioural: unable to form social structures (hierarchy’s), unable to mate, continued to isolate
6 MONTHS: adapted slowly, still froze
80 DAYS: adapted the fastest when paired, showed ‘normal’ behaviours after 8 months
Harlow argues that 80 days was the ‘critical period’ in which attachments should form
C) Found that:
–> Normal mother + play = normal behaviour and playing patterns
–> surrogate mother + play = almost normal behaviour (slightly defenceless)
–> normal mother + no play = normal defence by low play and low sexual behaviours
Monkeys reared in isolation and moved to zoo after reaching maturity –> their behaviour improved here (peer group importance –> towards normal development)
Debate and Controversy
Issue: Comparing Monkeys to Children
–> Development time - monkeys develop much faster than children
–> What is the role of cognition
–> Social interactions differ (eg. sexual behaviour of human beings is different
–> Family/social hierarchies are different (humans have aunties, uncles etc.)
Issue: Ethics
–> would we be able to separate monkeys from mothers for two years now? no. - therefore replicability issues
Legacy and Impact
LEGACY: Provided developmental framework foundation based on EXPERIMENTAL FINDINGS:
–> dangers of early isolation
–> existence of critical period of development
–> importance of mothering
–> importance of peer groups
–> importance of context (play)
IMPACT on ATTACHMENT RESEARCH
A) Schaffer and Emerson:
–> infants have an innate ability to seek interactions with other individuals and can form multiple attachments (this is known as SOCIABILITY)
B) Bowlby’s Stage Theory
–> Attachment is an adaptive behaviour that forms during a sensitive period of development - we are biologically prep-programmed to form them
C) Ainsworth’s Strange Situation
–> Involves a series of episodes where the infant/mother/stranger are involved in a series of reappearing/exiting stages
–> issues: ethics makes baby cry, highly controlled lab
ISSUES WITH STAGE APPROACHES: doesn’t account for individual differences and upbringing - often highly WESTERN
