Attachment Flashcards
(45 cards)
What is Attachment?
Attachment = An emotional bond between 2 people.
It’s a 2-way process that ensures over time.
It leads to certain behaviours such as distress on separation, and serves the function of protecting an infant.
What is the Learning Theory of Attachment?
Behaviour is learnt rather than inborn.
Babies are “blank slates” and learn to become attached through classical conditioning and operant conditioning.
What did Harlow 1959 do?
Demonstrated attachment was not based on the feeding bond between mother and infant as predicted by learning theory.
Two wire monkeys.
One soft cloth and one with bottle.
Rhesus monkeys. 🐒
Observations of responses when frightened.
All 8 spent most time with soft cloth mother. Those that fed from wire mother only spent short time getting milk before going back to soft cloth mother.
Infants don’t form attachments to who feeds them. Form attachments to who comforts them
What is Operant Conditioning as an explanation for Attachment?
Once the infant has made an attachment with the caregiver who feeds them.
This will cause the infant to behave in a way which gets the caregivers attention (crying, smiling).
This makes the baby do the behaviour to get rewarded (fed) and therefore reinforcing the behaviour.
However, if the behaviour gets an unpleasant result and makes the infant unhappy (punishment) then the behaviour will not be reinforced and not likely to be repeated.
What is imprinting?
An innate readiness to acquire certain behaviours during a critical period.
What did Lorenz 1952 do?
Experiment with geese and two experimental conditions.
CONDITION 1: He was the first moving object seen by goose chicks.
CONDITION 2: mother goose was the first moving object seen by chicks.
Results: Chicks that saw him as the first thing followed him as if he was the mother. Performed mating displays, ignored other geese.
Chicks that saw his mother first followed her from young and performed mating rituals to other geese in adulthood.
Goose chicks have critical period within a few hours to imprint.
In some species imprinting is irreversible.
Learning Theory - Classical Conditioning Diagram
UCS. UCR
Food. Pleasure
UCS. NS. UCR
Food. Mother Pleasure
CS CR
Mother. Pleasure
Bowlbys Monotropic Theory of Attachment
Attachment is biological and instinctive
Forming an attachment may give one baby an survival advantage over another baby that doesn’t form an attachment.
This suggests there is an evolutionary advantage to forming attachments.
Monotropic Theory key concepts
- Attachments are adaptive.
- Babies have social releases (crying, smiling).
- There’s a critical period for forming attachments.
- There is 1 strong bond formed (Monotropy).
- Babies have an internal working model.
Monotropic Theory - Adaptive
Infants/babies behave in certain ways to their caregivers to aid survival.
E.g. Infants who stay close to their mothers are more likely to avoid dangers and therefore survive until sexual maturity.
Monotropic Theory - Social Releasers
Infants are born with a drive to become attached.
They encourage caregiving from others by SOCIAL RELEASERS (facial features, smiles, cries).
Bonds are formed with adults who are most sensitive to these social releasers
Monotropic Theory - Critical Period
Bowlby believed if mothering was delayed for 12months it was useless for most children.
If it was delayed for 2 1/2years it was almost useless for all children.
Monotropic Theory - Monotropic
Bowlby believed infants form 1 special relationship (monotropy).
The first attachment relationship serves as an ‘ INTERNAL WORKING MODEL’ (or template) that is the basis for all expectations and rules regarding future relationships.
Monotropic Theory - Internal Working Model
The Internal Working Model influences a child’s self-concept.
The Internal Working Model proposes there is a ‘Continuity Hypothesis’.
The Continuity Hypothesis provides one explanation that early patterns of attachment are related to later child characteristics.
Securely Attached = positive working model of themselves, based on feelings of security from their emotionally responsive caregiver.
Insecure Resistant+Insecure Avoidant = Negative self-image and exaggerate their emotional responses to gain attention, due to inconsistent/absent caregiver.
If the Internal Working Model isn’t formed, the lack of initial attachment will affect future relationships.
What are the types of Attachment
Insecure avoidant
Secure attachment
Insecure resistant
Insecure Avoidant characteristics in Strange Situation
- Low seperation anxiety
- Low stranger anxiety
- Avoids comfort from mother on reunion
- Explores freely without using primary care giver as a safe base. Keeps distance from primary care giver
Secure attachment characteristics in Strange Situation
- High seperation anxiety
- High stranger anxiety
- Happy reunion behaviour, settles infant
- Use mother as safe base as they explore
Insecure Resistant characteristics in Strange Situation
- very high seperation anxiety
- very high stranger anxiety
- rejects mum’s attention
- Wont explore, close to mum
Cultural Variations in Attachments Findings
Findings:
- Great Britain 🇬🇧 had overal highest rate of secure.
- Secure attachmentwas most common in all countries.
- Insecure Avoidant was the 2nd most common in every country except Israel 🇮🇱 + Japan 🇯🇵.
- In west Germany 🇩🇪 they had the highest rate of insecure avoidant.
Variation between cultures was approx 1.5x greater than cross cultural variation.
Strength of Cultural Variations in Attachment
P - Use of standardised methodology
E - Use of strange situation means that comparisons can be made across cultures, improving reliability.
E - In addition the analysis had a large sample (2000 babies and their primary attachment figure).
L - Large sample increase validity by reducing the impact of abnormalities caused by bad methodology.
Criticism of Cultural Variations of Attachment.
P - May not be representative of all cultures.
E - Van Ijzendoorm & Kroonenberg made comparisons between countries not cultures. Within a country there could be many different cultures with different child rearing ways.
E - In a later study Van Ijzendoorm found attachment types in Urban Tokyo in similar proportions to Western studies and more rural sample over represented insecure-resistant attachment.
L - Comparisons between countries have little meaning as cultures have different ways of child rearing. Cultural characteristics of the countries need to be specified.
Bowlbys Theory of Maternal Deprivation.
- Maternal Deprivation
- Critical Period
- Effects on Interllectual + Emotional development.
Maternal Deprivation = The emotional and interllectual consequences of separation between a child and its mother.
Critical period = 2 1/2 years of life that if a child is seperated from mother for this time then psychological damage is inevitable.
Deprivation effects on interllectual development = Mental retardation - low IQ.
Deprivation effetcs on emotional development = Affectionless psychopath - Inability to feel guilt.
Support for Bowlby’s Maternal Deprivation
P - Thieves study
E - In this study, Bowlby interviewed 44 thieves and compared them to a control group (had emotional problems). He also interviewed the parents to see if they have been sepersted during the critical period.
E - Found that more than 1/2 the thieves were seperated for 6months+ during first 5yrs.
In control group only had 2 ppts had such a long seperation.
Aslo found 32% of thieves has affectionless psychopathy, 0% control group.
L - Suggests seperation for 6months+ in first 5yrs can gave effects on child’s development
Criticism of Bowlbys Maternal Deprivation
P - Counter evidence
E - Lewis (1954) replicated the 44 thieves study on a larger scale (500 young people).
E - Found that prolonged maternal separation didnt predict criminality or difficulty forming close relationships.
L - Limitation as it suggests other factors affect outcomes of early maternal seperation.