Brainscape's Knowledge GenomeTM

Browse over 1 million classes created by top students, professors, publishers, and experts.


See full index

Psychology (AQA) > Attachment > Flashcards

Attachment Flashcards

1
Q

What is an attachment?

A

A close two-way emotional bond between two individuals in which each individual sees the other as essential for their own emotional security

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
2
Q

What is reciprocity?

A

A description of how two people interact, e.g. mother-infant interaction is reciprocal in that both infant and mother respond to each other’s signals and each elicits a response from the other

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
3
Q

At what age does interaction between mother and child tend to be increasingly frequent?

A

3 months

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
4
Q

What role does a baby take in reciprocity?

A

Babies take an active role rather than a passive role because just like the adult they are able to initiate interactions

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
5
Q

What is intersectional synchrony?

A

Mother and infant reflect both the actions and emotions of the other and do this in a synchronised way

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
6
Q

What two psychologists observed the beginning of interactions synchrony in infants as young as 2 weeks old?

A

Meltzoff and Moore

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
7
Q

Describe the procedure of Meltzoff and Moore’s study

A

They got an adult to display 1 of 3 facial expression or 1 of 3 distinctive gestures and the child’s response was filmed and identified by independent observers

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
8
Q

What did Meltzoff and Moore find?

A

They found an association between the expression or gesture the adult displayed and the actions given in response by the babies

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
9
Q

Who conducted research into mother-infant attachment?

A

Isabella

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
10
Q

Describe the procedure of Isabella’s study?

A

She observed 30 mothers and infants together and assessed the degree of synchrony and the quality of the mother-infant attachment

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
11
Q

What did Isabella find?

A

She found that high levels of synchrony were associated with better quality mother-infant attachment

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
12
Q

Suggest some limitations of caregiver-infant interactions

A

(1) HARD TO KNOW WHAT IS HAPPENING WHEN OBSERVING INFANTS
- observations are merely hand movements or changes in expression and therefore it is difficult to be certain what is taking place from the infants perspective and therefore we do not know whether these behaviours have a special meaning

(2) OBSERVATIONS DON’T EXPLAIN THE PURPOSE OF SYNCHRONY AND RECIPROCITY
- these observations may not be particularly useful as it does not tell us the purpose of synchrony and reciprocity, however, there is some evidence that they are helpful in the development of mother-infant attachment

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
13
Q

Suggest a strength of caregiver-infant interactions

A

(1) CONTROLLED OBSERVATIONS CAPTURE FINE DETAIL
- observations of mother-infant interactions are usually well controlled with them being filmed from several angles and therefore we can capture fine details and furthermore babies don’t know they are being studied so there are no demand characteristics and therefore increases the validity

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
14
Q

Who do babies tend to get attached to first?

A

The mother

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
15
Q

When are secondary attachments formed?

A

Within a few weeks or months of the first attachment being formed

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
16
Q

Who tends to be the secondary attachment?

A

The father

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
17
Q

On average how old is the infant when they form an attachment to their father?

A

18 months old

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
18
Q

What psychologist carried out research into the role of the father?

A

Grossman

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
19
Q

Describe the procedure of Grossman’s study?

A

He carried out a longitudinal study looking at both parents behaviour and its relationship to the quality of children’s attachments in their teens

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
20
Q

What did Grossman find?

A

He found that the quality of infant attachment with mothers but not fathers was related to children’s attachment in adolescence, suggesting that father attachment was less important

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
21
Q

What is the fathers role in attachment?

A

Fathers have a more play and stimulation role rather than the nurturing one performed by mothers

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
22
Q

What psychologist conducted research into fathers as primary caregivers?

A

Tiffany Field

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
23
Q

Describe the procedure of Field’s study

A

She filmed 4 month old babies in face-to-face interactions with primary caregivers mothers, secondary caregiver fathers and primary caregiver fathers

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
24
Q

What did Field find?

A

Primary caregiver fathers, like mothers, spent more time smiling, imitating and holding infants than the secondary caregiver fathers and therefore this behaviour must be important when forming an attachment

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
25
Q

What is the key to attachment?

A

The level of responsiveness and not the gender of the parent

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
26
Q

What are some limitations of attachment figures?

A

(1) INCONSISTENT FINDINGS ON FATHERS
- research into the role of the father is confusing because different researchers want to research different questions and this means that psychologists cannot easily answer a simple question

(2) WHY AREN’T CHILDREN WITHOUT FATHERS DIFFERENT
- Grossman found that fathers still had an important role but other studies have found that children growing up in single or same-sex parent families do not develop any differently and therefore the fathers role cannot be that important

(3) WHY DON’T FATHERS GENERALLY BECOME PRIMARY ATTACHMENTS
- they may not become primary attachments as a result of traditional gender roles or the fact that female hormones create higher levels of nurturing and therefore women are more biologically suited to be the primary caregiver

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
27
Q

What two psychologists conducted important research into the stages of attachment?

A

Schaffer and Emerson

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
28
Q

Describe the sample of Schaffer and Emerson’s study

A

The study involved 60 babies (31 male and 29 female) from Glasgow and the majority were from skilled working class families

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
29
Q

Describe the procedure of Schaffer and Emerson’s study

A

The mothers and babies were visited at their home every month for a year and again at 18 months and the researchers asked the mothers questions about the kind of protest their babies showed in everyday separations and they also assessed stranger anxiety

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
30
Q

What did Schaffer and Emerson find?

A

Between 25 and 32 weeks about 50% of the babies showed signs of separation anxiety (usually to the mother which is known as specific attachment)

This attachment tended to be to the caregiver who was most interactive and sensitive to the infants signals and facial expressions

By 40 weeks 80% of the babies had a specific attachment and almost 30% displayed multiple attachments

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
31
Q

What are two strengths of Schaffer and Emerson’s research?

A

(1) GOOD EXTERNAL VALIDITY
- the study was carried out in their own homes and most of the observation was actually done by the parents and this means that the behaviour of the babies is unlikely to be affected by the presence of an observer and therefore this increases its external validity

(2) LONGITUDINAL DESIGN
- this design means that the same children were followed up and observed regularly and this has better internal validity than other methods such as cross-sectional design because there is no CV of individual differences

32
Q

What is one limitation of Schaffer and Emerson’s study?

A

(1) LIMITED SAMPLE
- the fact that the families were all from Glasgow and the same social class means that the findings aren’t generalisable to the rest of the population

33
Q

Who developed the 4 stages of attachment?

A

Schaffer and Emerson

34
Q

What are the 4 stages of attachment?

A

(1) asocial stage
(2) indiscriminate stage
(3) specific attachment
(4) multiple attachment

35
Q

When does the asocial stage occur?

A

The first few weeks of the baby being born

36
Q

When does the indiscriminate stage occur?

A

From 2-7 months of age

37
Q

When does the specific attachment stage occur?

A

At around 7 months of age

38
Q

When does the multiple attachment stage occur?

A

Around 8 months of age to a year

39
Q

What happens in the asocial stage?

A
  • the baby starts to recognise and form binds with its carers
  • they baby’s behaviour towards non-human objects and humans is quite similar
  • they show a preference for familiar adults
40
Q

What happens in the indiscriminate stage?

A
  • they show a preference for people rather than inanimate objects, and recognise and prefer familiar adults
  • they accept cuddles and comfort from any adult and do not show separation or stranger anxiety
41
Q

What happens in the specific attachment stage?

A
  • they start to display stranger anxiety and separation anxiety to a particular adult
  • most babies have now formed a specific attachment (usually with the mother) and this adult if termed as the attachment figure
42
Q

What happens in the multiple attachments stage?

A
  • they show attachment behaviour to multiple attachments with other adults and these are called secondary attachments
43
Q

What are 3 limitations on the stages of attachment?

A

(1) PROBLEM STUDYING THE ASOCIAL STAGE
- babies that are too young have poor co-ordination and pretty much immobile which therefore makes it difficult to make any judgment on their behaviour and therefore the evidence cannot be relied upon

(2) CONFLICTING EVIDENCE ON MULTIPLE ATTACHMENTS
- it is not clear when infants can form multiple attachments and some research indicates that most babies form specific attachments before they become capable of developing multiple attachments. However, other psychologists that work in different cultures where multiple caregivers are the norm believe that babies form multiple attachments for the outset

(3) MEASURING MULTIPLE ATTACHMENT
- just because a baby gets distressed when an individual leaves the room does not mean that the individual is a true attachment figure and this is a problem because Schaffer and Emerson’s observations doesn’t suggest a way to distinguish between secondary attachment figures and playmates

44
Q

What are animal studies?

A

Psychological studies which are carried out on animals instead of humans

45
Q

What two psychologists use animal studies to research attachment?

A

Lorenz and Harlow

46
Q

What animal was Lorenz’s research conducted on?

A

Geese

47
Q

What animal was Harlow’s research conducted on?

A

Rhesus monkeys

48
Q

What is imprinting?

A

An innate readiness to acquire certain behaviour during a critical or sensitive period of development

49
Q

Describes the procedure of Lorenz’s study

A

He randomly divided a clutch of goose eggs and half of the eggs was hatched with the mother and the other half was hatched in an incubator where the first moving object they saw was Lorenz

50
Q

What did Lorenz find?

A

The incubator group followed Lorenz everywhere whereas the control group followed the mother and this is known as imprinting whereby bird species that are mobile from birth attach and follow the first moving thing they see

51
Q

What happens when imprinting doesn’t occur during the critical period?

A

They do not attach themselves to a mother figure at all

52
Q

How did Lorenz find about sexual imprinting?

A

He observed that birds that had imprinted on a human would often later display courtship behaviour towards humans

53
Q

Describe Lorenz’s case study on sexual imprinting

A

A peacock had been reared in a reptile house at a zoo and the first moving objects it saw were giant tortoises and as an adult bird it directed courtship behaviour towards giant tortoises

54
Q

Suggest 2 limitations of Lorenz’s research

A

(1) LACK OF GENERALISABILITY
- there is a problem generalising findings from birds to humans as the mammalian attachment system is quite different from that of birds and therefore it is not appropriate to generalise Lorenz’s findings to humans

(2) LORENZ’S OBSERVATIONS HAVE BEEN QUESTIONED
- some critics had questioned Lorenz’s conclusion that imprinting has a permanent effect on mating behaviour as Guiton found that chickens that had imprinted on yellow washing up gloves would eventually try to mate with them but with that experience they learn to prefer mating with other chickens and therefore these effects are not permanent

55
Q

What did Harlow conduct research into?

A

The important of contact comfort

56
Q

Describe the procedure of Harlow’s study

A

In one experiment he reared 16 baby monkeys with two wire model mothers and in one condition milk was dispensed by the plain wire mother and in the second condition the milk was dispensed by the cloth-covered mother

57
Q

What did Harlow find?

A

He found that the baby monkeys cuddled the soft object in preference to the wire one and sought comfort from the cloth one when frightened regardless of whether it dispensed milk and therefore contact comfort was more important than food when it came to attachment behaviour

58
Q

What are the behaviours displayed by maternally deprived monkeys as adults?

A
  • they are more aggressive and less sociable than other monkeys and they often bred less as they are unskilled at mating
  • those who do become mothers often neglected their young and others attacked the children which sometimes resulted in death
59
Q

What was the critical period for an infant monkey?

A

Within 90 days

60
Q

Suggest 2 strengths of Harlow’s research

A

(1) THEORETICAL VALUE
- his finding have had a profound effect on the understanding of human mother-infant attachment and he showed that attachment does not develop as a result of the mother feeding the child but as a result of contact comfort

  • this has also showed us the importance of the quality of early relationships on relationships as adults and successfully rearing children

(2) PRACTICAL VALUE
- his research has had important implications such as it’s helped social workers to understand the risk factors in child neglect and abuse and therefore intervene to prevent it

61
Q

State one limitation of Harlow’s research

A

(1) ETHICAL ISSUES
- the monkeys suffered hugely from Harlow’s procedures and as this species is considered similar enough to humans to generalise the findings, this also means that their suffering was human-like

62
Q

Who suggested that caregiver-infant attachment can be explained by learning theory?

A

Dollard and Miller

63
Q

What is learning theory?

A

A set of theories from the behaviourist approach that emphasis the role of learning in the acquisition of behaviour

64
Q

What are the two types of conditioning?

A

(1) classical

(2) operant

65
Q

What is classical conditioning?

A

This involves learning to associate two stimuli together so that we begin to respond to one in the same way that we already respond to the other

66
Q

What is operant conditioning?

A

Involves learning whether to repeat behaviour depending on its consequences

67
Q

How does classical conditioning apply to attachment?

A

Food is an unconditioned stimulus (UCS) and the pleasure from the food is an unconditioned response (UCR) and the caregiver starts as a neutral stimulus and therefore if the caregiver provides food then the baby starts to associate the pleasure of food with the caregiver and therefore the caregiver becomes a conditioned stimulus (CS) who produces and conditioned response (CR)

68
Q

How does operant conditioning apply to attachment?

A

Crying leads to a response from the caregiver and as long as the caregiver provides the correct response then the crying is reinforced and the baby then directs crying for comfort towards the caregiver, the caregiver also receives negative reinforcement because the crying stops

69
Q

What is a primary drive?

A

It is an innate, biological motivator

70
Q

Why is hunger considered to be a primary drive?

A

We are motivated to eat in order to reduce the hunger drive

71
Q

Is attachment a primary or secondary drive?

A

Secondary drive

72
Q

Why is attachment a secondary drive?

A

The caregiver provides food and therefore the primary drive of hunger becomes generalised and therefore attachment is thus a secondary drive learned by an association between the caregiver and the satisfaction of the primary drive

73
Q

What are some strengths of using learning theory to explain attachment?

A

There are none

74
Q

What are some limitations of using learning theory to explain attachment?

A

(1) COUNTER-EVIDENCE FROM ANIMAL RESEARCH
- animal studies show that young animals do not always attach to those who feed them e.g. Lorenz’s geese imprinted before they were fed and they still maintained their attachments and therefore food does not create the attachment bond that learning theory suggests

(2) COUNTER-EVIDENCE FROM HUMAN RESEARCH
- in Schaffer and Emerson’s study many of the babies developed a primary attachment to their biological mother even though other carers did most of the feeding and therefore feeding is not a key element of attachment

(3) IGNORES OTHER FACTORS ASSOCIATED WITH FORMING ATTACHMENTS
- research into early infant-caregiver interaction suggests that the quality of attachment is associated with factors such as reciprocity and interactional synchrony and therefore is attachments developed purely because of feeding then there would be no purpose for these complex interactions

75
Q

What psychologist came up with the monotropic theory?

A

Bowlby

76
Q

What does monotropic means?

A

The mono means ‘one’ and indicates that one particular attachment is different from all others and of central importance to the child’s development

Psychology (AQA) (5 decks)

Brainscape helps you reach your goals faster, through stronger study habits.
© 2024 Bold Learning Solutions. Terms and Conditions