4D studies of attachment

Question 1

the strange situation experiment (ainsworth)

Answer 1

a mother and her young infant are studied in an unfamiliar room. During this study, the infant and their mother experience a series of separations and reunions to analyse the attachment style occurring

Question 2

secure attachment (ainsworth)

Answer 2

• Balance between dependence and exploration.
• Infant uses caregiver as a ‘safe base’ to venture out and explore unfamiliar environment, shows some distress and explores less when caregiver is gone.
• When caregiver returns, infant is happy to see them and seeks physical contact.

Question 3

insecure-avoidant attachment (ainsworth)

Answer 3

• Infant does not seek contact with caregiver, treats them as a stranger.
• Rarely cries when caregiver leaves and ignores them upon return.
• Research findings suggest that this may be the result of neglectful or abusive caregivers.

Question 4

insecure-anxious (resistant) attachment (ainsworth)

Answer 4

• Infant is anxious even when caregiver is near.
• Becomes very upset when separated.
• Upon return, the Infant both wants to be held and yet squirms to get free as if unsure of what it wants.
• Thought to be the result of caregivers who are inconsistent/not very responsive to Infants, and therefore the Infant doesn’t feel as if it can rely on the caregiver.

Question 5

the feeding hypothesis

Answer 5

His theory surrounded the notion that the mother becomes associated with an extremely powerful reinforcer – food!

Question 6

harlow’s experiment

Answer 6

• The IV was the type substitute mother: either cloth or wire
• The DV was the strength of attachment the infant monkeys had with their substitute mothers, measured by the amount of time spent with them and
• In later versions of the experiment, fear-inducing stimuli was used to see which mother the monkeys went to for comfort when afraid

Question 7

harlow’s conclusions

Answer 7

• He found that the baby monkeys spent most of their time on the cloth monkey and they preferred comfort overfeeding.
• Contact comfort is more important than feeding in the formation of the infant-mother attachment.

Question 8

advantage of animals in research

Answer 8

• large sample sizes of humans can be costly and time consuming
• animals are easier to control than humans
• human participants may be unavailable
• animals have shorter gestation periods

Question 9

disadvantages of animals in research

Answer 9

• Only behaviours can be studied, as animals are unable to report on their mental processes.
• The generalisability of results from studies using animals to humans is relatively low as animals are different to humans in many ways.