Wk8 Pre-recorded Part 2

Question 1

What do longitudinal studies do?

Answer 1

Follow-up the same children at different points in time

Question 2

What do cross-sectional studies do?

Answer 2

Compare different age groups of children at one point in time

Question 3

What are benefits of longitudinal studies?

Answer 3

Can observe change and continuity.

Can examine relations between early experiences and later outcomes.

Can study attachment over time.

Rich data sets. Lots of contextual information is gathered about family, school, and social environment to help understand the reasons for change and continuity.

Question 4

What are drawbacks of running longitudinal studies?

Answer 4

Time-consuming, expensive, a big research team is needed to follow the children over many years.

Familiarity with repeated testing can influence results - children may learn how to perform well or give socially desirable answers. Great care must be taken with the selection of measures to avoid too much repetition.

Question 5

What can be a problem with samples of longitudinal studies?

Answer 5

Not very representative because participants with certain characteristics may be more likely to drop-out (if families break up, or if they experience significant problems in their life)

Question 6

What are cohort effects and how can they be a limitation of longitudinal studies?

Answer 6

A research result that occurs because of the characteristics of the group being studied.

Findings from longitudinal studies may be specific to the particular historical period. The findings may be out of date by the time that they are actually published. The historical context of these studies needs to be taken into account when interpreting them.

Question 7

What are 2 attachment measures used to study attachment in infants/toddlers?

Answer 7

Strange situation

Attachment Q-sort

Question 8

What does attachment Q-sort involve?

Answer 8

Longer observations to observe parent and child behaviours in their own home, instead of a lab setting

Question 9

What tests are used to examine attachment representations in childhood?

Answer 9

Separation anxiety test

Attachment story completion task

Structured parent or child interviews

Question 10

What does separation anxiety test involve?

Answer 10

Children are interviewed and shown picture prompts of other children being separated from their parents. Children are asked how the children in the pictures would feel/behave.

Question 11

What does the attachment story completion task involve?

Answer 11

Children are presented with story stems about parent and children relationships and are asked to complete the story.

Question 12

Why might structured parent or child interviews be conducted?

Answer 12

To understand their relationship with their children.

Question 13

What attachment measure is used in adults?

Answer 13

Adult Attachment Interview

Question 14

What does the adult attachment interview involve?

Answer 14

Intensive life-history interview with a focus on attachment relationships in childhood and interpretations of these relationships. The interviews are coded in a systematic way.

Question 15

What are 3 major longitudinal studies of attachment?

Answer 15

The Minnesota Study (Sroufe et al., 1975)

Pennsylvania Project (Belsky et al., 1984)

The London Parent-Child Project (Steele & Steele, 1987)

Question 16

What have longitudinal studies of attachment found?

Answer 16

Early attachments is correlated with later outcomes.

Secure attachment relationships generally relate to good outcomes in many areas of life.

Insecure attachments generally relate to poorer outcomes.

Question 17

Explain the Minnesota Study (Sroufe et al., 1975)

Answer 17

Began in 1975 and is still on-going.

Looked at 267 pregnant women living in poverty in the US.

Followed their children, who were identified as being at risk of poorer outcomes.

Question 18

What assessments did the Minnesota study include?

Answer 18

Assessments include strange situation, parent-child play observations, school assessments (progress, peer relations), adult attachment interview, achievement measures, and health assessments.

Question 19

Explain the Pennsylvania Project (Belksy et al., 1984)

Answer 19

Looked at 74 families and focused on the precursors of attachment security.

Question 20

What measures did the Pennsylvania Project include?

Answer 20

Prenatal measures included parental personality measures, marital context etc.

Newborn measures included behavioural exams.

3 home observations during the first year observing infant temperament

Strange situation at 1 year old. Information was gathered about the childcare environment.

Question 21

What did the Pennsylvania Project provide insight to?

Answer 21

Individual differences in attachment patterns and how this relates to both the temperament of the infant themselves and the personality of the parent

Question 22

What did the London Parent-Child Project explore?

Answer 22

The intergenerational transmission of attachment (do parents pass on their own attachment representations to their children?)

Question 23

What measures were used in the London Parent-Child Project?

Answer 23

Prenatal: Adult Attachment Interview

1 year: Strange situation

5/6 years: Attachment story stems

12 years: Family interview

16 years: Adult Attachment Interview

Question 24

What was the sample for the London Parent-Child Project?

Answer 24

90 families (they have now looked at 3 generations)

Question 25

What did the London Parent-Child Project (Steele & Steele, 1987) conclude?

Answer 25

Attachment representations are consistently passed from parent to child.

Question 26

Why do we need to be cautious when interpreting correlational results from longitudinal studies of attachment?

Answer 26

There is a lack of clear theoretical basis for why correlations exist, thus correlations could be meaningless. However lots of meta-analyses have been conducted to identify general patterns across several published studies to eliminate findings that occurred by chance.

Question 27

What do mediating variables from more complicated analyses tell us?

Answer 27

Explains how/why there is a relation between infant attachment and later outcomes. This helps us understand the reasons for why infant attachment patterns continue to affect outcomes 10/20/30 years later.

Question 28

What do moderating variables from more complicated analyses tell us?

Answer 28

Tell us about which factors affect the strength of the relationship between infant attachment and later outcomes.