Attachment Flashcards
(37 cards)
What is attachment?
An emotional bond between two people. It is a two way process that endures over time. It leads to behaviours such as clinging and proximity-seeking.
Who can be a care giver?
Anyone providing care for a child, including a parent, grandparent, sibling, other family member, childminder etc.
What is interaction all synchrony?
When two people mirror each other in terms of their facial and body movements. It also includes imitating emotions and behaviours.
What is reciprocity?
Responding to the action of another with a similar action, where the actions of one partner elicit a response from the other partner. The responses are not necessarily similar, unlike interactional synchrony.
Who identified the stages of attachment and what are they?
There’s an acronym
Rudolf Schaffer identified the four stages of attachment
- Asocial attachment stage
- Indiscriminate attachment stage
- Specific attachment stage
- Multiple attachments stage
All
Infants
Say
Mum
How do you describe a child’s primary attachment figure?
The person who has formed the closest bond with a child, demonstrated by the intensity of the relationship. This is usually w child’s biological mother but can be fulfilled by other people.
Explain the role of the father in attachment.
Fathers are less likely to be a primary attachment figure than mothers, but do have an important role to play as a secondary attachment figure.
Research highlights that fathers are more playful, physically active and generally better at providing challenging situations for their children than mothers.
Describe the form of learning that Konrad Lorenz’s 1935 study examined.
It examined imprinting, which is an innate readiness to develop a strong bond with the mother. It takes place during a specific time in development, probably the first few hours after birth/hatching. If it doesnt happen at this time it probably will not happen. Imprinting is irreversible.
What did Harry Harlow demonstrate with his 1959?
He demonstrated that infants do not develop an attachment to the person who feeds the but to the person offering comfort. Being denied comfort for more than the critical period resulted in abnormal development that could not be recovered from.
What animal did Lorenz and Harlow use in their studies?
Lorenz used goslings
Harlow used rhesus monkeys
What is learning theory?
The name given to a group of explanations (classical conditioning and operant conditioning), which explain behaviour in terms of learning rather than innate tendencies or high order thinking.
How would behaviourists use classical conditioning to explain attachment
Learning through association. If a neural stimulus (infants mother) is consistently paired with an unconditioned stimulus (food) it eventually becomes the conditioned stimulus and produces a conditioned response (just seeing the mother produces the pleasurable feeing of being fed)
How would behaviourists use operant conditioning to explain attachment?
Learning through reinforcement or punishment. We are ‘driven’ to reduce that discomfort. Hunger leads to discomfort so a baby cries. When the baby is fed, the discomfort is reduced leading to feelings of pleasure. The behaviour id strengthened through negative reinforcement.
Describe John Bowlby’s monotropic attachment theory.
Bowlby proposed that infants have an innate drive to become attached. They develop one special emotional bond and that is the primary attachment relationship, which develops during a critical period.
What is the critical period?
It is a biologically determined period when characteristics develop. Outside this period, they cannot develop.
What is a social releaser?
A social behaviour or characteristic, such as smiling or having a “babyface”, that elicits caregiving and leads to attachment.
What is an internal working model?
A mental model enabling a person to predict and control their environment. With attachment it relates to expectations about relationships.
What is the continuity hypothesis?
The idea that emotionally secure infants go on to be emotionally secure trusting and socially confident adults.
What is the ‘Strange Situation’ and who devised it?
It is a controlled observation designed to test attachment security and it was designed by Mary Ainsworth.
What are the three types of attachment?
- Secure attachment
- Insecure avoidant attachment
- Insecure resistant attachment
Describe secure attachment.
A strong and contended attachment of infant to caregiver, which develops as a result of sensitive responding by the caregiver to the infants needs. It is related to healthy and cognitive and emotional development.
Describe insecure avoidant attachment.
A type of attachment where children tend to avoid social interaction and intimacy with others.
Describe insecure resistant attachment.
A type of attachment where infants both seek and reject intimacy and social interaction.
What are cultural variations?
The ways different groups of people vary in terms of social practices and the effects these practices have on development and behaviour.