attachment

Question 1

What is attachment?

Answer 1

Attachment is an affectional tie that one person or animal forms between himself and another specific one.

Question 2

Behaviours that indicate attachment (maccoby)

Answer 2

-proximity seeking
-separation distress and pleasure when reunited
-general orientation towards specific individual
-joy on reunion

Question 3

Interactional synchrony

Answer 3

Is where an infant mirrors the actions of another person eg: facial expressions and body movements

Question 4

Meltzoff and Moore study

Answer 4

Found that infants as young as 2 or 3 weeks old imitated specific facial and hand gestures.
The study was conducted with an adult model who displayed 1 of 3 facial expressions.
A dummy was placed in infants mouth to prevent response.
Following the display the dummy was removed and the child’s expression was filmed.
An association between the child’s behaviour and the adults one was found.

Question 5

Reciprocity

Answer 5

Interactions between carers and infants result in mutual behaviour where both parties are able to produce responses from eachother.

Question 6

Feldman and eildelmans discover on “alert phases”

Answer 6

Babies have periodic alert phases and signal they are ready for interaction.
Mothers pick this up around 2/3 of the time.

Question 7

Evaluation of care giver interactions

Answer 7

-a strength of observation into caregiver interactions is that they use well-controlled procedures with both the mother and infant being filmed.
-a weakness of observing infant interactions is that it is difficult to know what they mean by these interactions.
-a weakness of research is that it could be considered unethical as it is socially sensitive
-a weakness of observations is that they don’t tell us the purpose of synchrony and reciprocity

Question 8

what are the stages of attachment?

Answer 8

asocial
indiscriminate
specific
multiple

Question 9

What did grossman conduct into the father’s role in child’s development?

Answer 9

he conducted a longitudinal study of 44 families comparing the role of fathers and mothers to the child’s attachment experiences at 6/10 and 16.
He found that father’s play style ( sensitive/ challenging and interactive) was a better predictor of the child’s long term attachment than the early measures of attachment type that the infant had with their father.

Question 10

What did field find in his study on fathers as primary caregivers?

Answer 10

Field filmed 4 month old babies face to face interaction with their parents in 3 different situations:
-mothers (primary)
-fathers (primary)
fathers (secondary)
Primary caregiver fathers spent more time smiling, imitating and holding infants compared to secondary caregivers. This behaviour appears to be more important in building attachment with the infant. Therefore fathers can be more nitiding. Key to attachment is level of responsiveness NOT the gender.

Question 11

Factors influencing the father- child attachment:

Answer 11

Degree of sensitivity
Type of attachment with own parents
Marital intimacy
Supportive co-parenting

Question 12

Evaluation of father as primary caregiver studies

Answer 12

A weakness of research is the inconsistent findings on the role of fathers in attachment due to researchers being intrested in different research questions
A weakness it doesn’t explain why children without fathers develop no differently
A limitation is that there are numerous influence which might impact on a child emotional development
A weakness of research is that it doesn’t explain why fathers don’t generally become primary attachment figures.

Question 13

Lorenz animal study Aim, procedure, findings and conclusion:

Answer 13

Aim: to understand imprinting on geese
Procedure: 2 lots of geese eggs divided into 2 groups
-1 w/ mother
-1 in an incubator and saw Lorenz first and followed him around.
Findings: when put back together they divided into 2 groups again
-imprinting restricted to critical period
-imprinting is reversible

Question 14

John bowlbys theory on the critical period of developing an attachment

Answer 14

He theorised that there is a critical period for developing attachment of (0-5 years). If an attachment has not been developed during this period the child will suffer from irreversible developmental consequences, such as reduced intelligence and increased aggression.

Question 15

Lorenz evaluation

Answer 15

Problems with generalising birds to humans
Support for imprinting: guiton found that chicks could imprint on an inflated yellow glove. Found that it could be reversed by spending time with own species.
Lorenz: saw a peacocks first moving object was a tortoise and imprinted on it

Question 16

Harlows animal study: aim, procedure, findings and conclusions

Answer 16

Aim: to understand the defect of affection within attachment
Procedure: a monkey was given two conditions a wire and cloth monkey that both fed it
Findings: monkey went to cloth mother in anxiety induced situations (provided contact comfort£
and led to be bad parental monkeys and had bad social skills in adolescence.
Conclusion: affection has a large impact on child’s development

Question 17

Evaluation for Lorenz and Harlow

Answer 17

Lorenz and Harlow: lacks generalisability to humans

Psychologists have questioned whether imprinting has a long lasting effect on later mating behaviour.

Harlow: supports importance of primary caregiver and infant attachments

Harlow: has practical value as it helped social workers w/ child neglect and abuse.

Harlow: unethical causes distress to monkey

Question 18

Learning theory for attachment: classical conditioning

Answer 18

Food -> happy baby
mother + food -> happy baby
mother -> happy baby

Behaviour is learnt through association .

Question 19

Learning theory for attachment: operant conditioning

Answer 19

Infant hungry. Motivated to reduce discomfort.
Feeding reduces discomfort and produces feeling of pleasure
Food becomes a primary reinforcer. Reinforces the behaviour to avoid discomfort.
The person who supplies the food is associated with avoiding discomfort (secondary reinforcer)
The child seeks the person who can give the reward and so becomes attached

Question 20

Evaluation for learning theor

Answer 20

Schaffer and Emerson found that the best attachments were with parents that paid the most attention to the baby not who fed them the most
Harlows research proved that babies form better attachment with adults that provide comfort not food

Question 21

Bowlbys attachment theory

Answer 21

MONO TROPIC THEORY: the idea that infants have an inbuilt tendency to make an initial attachment with one attachment figure called primary caregiver, usually the mother
INTERNAL WORKING MODEL: based on experiences of attachment the infant will develop a model about emotional relationships. Bowlby called this the internal working model. A cluster of concepts about what to expect from others.
SOCIAL RELEASERS: innate, infant social behaviours that stimulate adult interaction and caregiving.
CRITICAL PERIODS: limited window for attachment to happen- 6-18 months sensitive period. After that it becomes increasingly difficult for attachment to happen.

Question 22

Evaluation of bowlbys theory of attachment:

Answer 22

Lorenz supports the evolutionary approach as his geese imprinted on the first thing they saw to be kept safe.

Schaffer and Emmerson. Children show many attachments, but one primary attachment. Observed that mothers who responded to infants demands and more interaction have a stronger attachment.

Minnesota Longitudinal Study. Followed from infancy to adolescence. Found continuity between early attachment to later behavioral and emotional behaviour

Rutter et al (1998) contradicts Bowlby’s idea of a critical period as it shows adoptees can form attachment after their first birthday. Can form attachment after critical period. Therefore, it is suggested critical period should be called sensitive period as attachments are quicker formed then but can still be formed after this period; just takes longer

Bowlby’s theory cannot explain how some children suffer the long term consequences of not being able to form attachment while other children don’t as they are able to cope with poor attachment experiences
Schaffer and Emmerson found that children form many attachments

Question 23

The strange situation aim and procedure

Answer 23

Aim: to investigate how infants (9-18 months) behave under conditions of mild stress and novelty.
Procedure: stress and separation created by the presence of a stranger and separation from a caregiver testing stranger anxiety and separation anxiety, willingness to explore and reunion behaviour.
Data is recorded by time sampling every 15 seconds.

Question 24

Strange situation steps:

Answer 24

1) mum and baby play
2) strangers enters and interacts with baby
3) mum leaves and stranger tries to comfort baby
4) mum returns, comforts baby, stranger leaves
5)mum leaves again
6) stranger returns, comforts baby
7) mum returns

Question 25

Secure attachment types reaction to
1)willingness to explore
2)stranger anxiety
3) separation anxiety
4)reunion behaviour
5)percentage

Answer 25

1)high
2)high
3)some easy to soothe
4) enthusiastic
5) 66%

Question 26

Insecure-avoidant attachment types reaction to
1)willingness to explore
2)stranger anxiety
3) separation anxiety
4)reunion behaviour
5)percentage

Answer 26

1) high
2)low
3) indifferent
4) avoids contact
5) 22%

Question 27

Insecure-resistant attachment types reaction to
1)willingness to explore
2)stranger anxiety
3) separation anxiety
4)reunion behaviour
5)percentage

Answer 27

1)low
2) high
3) distressed
4) seeks and rejects
5) 12%

Question 28

Evaluation of the strange situation:
PERVERT

Answer 28

PRACTICAL ISSUES: main and solo man found an additional attachment type- insecure disorganised
ETHICAL ISSUES: no as it is in a real life setting and so doesn’t cause any more distress than would be expected irl
RELIABILITY: main er al found that all identified before 18 months of age were still securely attached at 6 years
VALIDITY: ecological validity, found that attachment behaviour is much stronger in a lab than at home
ETHNOCENTRICITY: N/A
REPRESENTATIVITY: all middle class white kids
THEORETICAL ISSUES: bowlbys theory

Question 29

Evaluating types of attachment: prior & glaser

Answer 29

secure attachment = positive outcomes
(Less emotional dependence, higher achievements)
Avoidant attachment= later aggressiveness and generally negative effect.
Resistant attachment: greater anxiety and withdrawn behaviour

Shows this study is reliable as it has consistent results over time

Question 30

Evaluation of attachment: hazen and shaver

Answer 30

Used the love quiz to show that attachment type was associated with later romantic behaviour.

Self report technique -> bias
-> memory loss