Attachment Flashcards
What is Attachment psychology?
A field of psychology that studies the emotional bonds between individuals, particularly the bonds between children and their caregivers.
What is the primary caregiver’s role in attachment theory?
To provide a ‘safe base’ for the infant by being consistent and responsive in care.
What are the four main attachment styles?
Secure, Anxious, Avoidant, and Disorganized
What are the types of caregiver-infant attachments?
- Reciprocity: when the infant or mother replicates the others actions (seen in younger infants)
- Interactional synchrony: this is the temporal co-ordination of micro level social behaviour; and occurs when a mother and infant mirror each other
What is Bowlby’s evolutionary theory?
Social releasers - what makes the child appealing and adorable
Monotropy - attachment to only 1 PCG
A
G
Internal working model - a mental framework developed in early childhood based on interactions with primary caregivers
Critical period - time period for the child to attach to a carer, impacts future life
What are the stages of attachment?
- Stage 1: Asocial stage (0-3wks) = the baby displays no emotion
- Stage 2: Indiscriminate attachment (2-7mths) = observable social behaviour
- Stage 3: Specific attachment (7mths) = baby displays anxiety towards strangers but is emotionally attached to their caregiver
- Stage 4: Multiple attachments (10mths) = the baby is attached to not only the caregiver but other people (e.g. siblings)
Outline the Shaffer and Emerson study (KS)
Shaffer and Emerson (1964)
- Aim: to investigate how early attachments were formed
- Sample: 60 babies from Glasgow born from working class families
- Method: The researchers visited the babies and mothers every month for a year and then visit again after 6 months. The researchers would ask the mothers about the kind of protest the babies showed when they were separated daily. The researcher also assessed stranger anxiety.
- Findings: 50% of babies from 25-30 wk showed signs of separation anxiety. Attachment was most abundant when the caregiver was most interactive and sensitive to the child. 80% of babies age 40wks had specific attachment while 30% displayed multiple attachments
Evaluate S+E study
Strengths:
- Large sample (more generalisable results)
- High ecological validity (natural environment)
- Real world application (e.g. daycare)
Limits:
- Bias of what caregivers’ ideas of protest is
- Cultural bias (Scottish)
Outline Harlow’s key study (KS)
Aim: to observe how attachment forms in monkeys
Procedure: Harlow’s sample was baby monkeys which were put into a controlled environment and presented with a wire mother that dispenses food and a cloth covered mother which did nothing - this was known as the wire mother experiment.
Findings: The baby monkey spent most of its time comforted by the cloth mother but occasionally would go to the wire mother for food. Additionally, the monkey was presented with a ‘scary’ toy, they would run straight towards the cloth mother and hug it but did not go near the wire mother.
Conclusion: Contact comfort forms stronger attachments than cupboard love
Evaluate Harlow’s key study
Strengths:
- Real world application (better understanding of infant-caregiver interactions)
- Controlled experiment
Limits:
- Ethically unacceptable (Monkeys were not protected from psychological harm)
- Ungeneralisable as experiement was on animals
Outline Lorenz’s study on imprinting (KS)
Aim: to study the process of attachment in birds
Procedure: Lorenz randomly divided a clutch of goose eggs. Half were hatched in a natural habitat with their mother, and the rest were hatched in an incubator where the first thing they saw was Lorenz
Findings: The incubator group followed Lorenz everywhere he went, even when both groups were mixed, while the control group followed the mother, as expected. Lorenz called this occurrence imprinting.
Evaluate Lorenz’s study on imprinting
Strengths:
- Ethically more acceptable
- Repeated experiment (more reliable)
Limits:
- Birds are genetically different to humans = less usefulness
- Alternative research = imprinting is not permanent
Outline Ainsworth’s study on the strange situation (KS)
Aim: To assess the quality of attachment
Sample: 100 middle class Americans and their infants
Procedure: Ainsworth placed a mother with her infant in a room, the mother would then leave the room and be replaced with a stranger, the baby would then reunite with the mother
Findings:
Type A: Infants showed minimal signs of distress when the mother was replaced with a stranger, and showed minimal emotion upon reunion
Type B: Infants displayed moderate distress (separation anxiety) when the mother left and experienced stranger anxiety when the stranger entered. The infant then seeked proximity upon reunion with the mother
Type C: Infants displayed extreme signs of distress when mother was replaced with stranger. However, the baby seeked separation from the mother upon reunion (as if the mother betrayed the baby)
Evaluate Ainsworth’s study on the strange situation
Strengths:
- High replicability (lab study)
- Useful application in explaining behaviour
Limits:
- Cultural bias
- Social class bias
Outline Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg’s meta-analysis (KS)
Aim: To analyse the differences in attachment between different cultures and within cultures
Procedure: They used meta-analysis to perform a comparison of cross-cultural studies using the Strange Situation. It involved 32 studies performed across 8 countries
Findings: While secure attachment was the most common type globally, there were cultural variations, with some countries showing higher rates of insecure-avoidant or resistant attachment. For example, there were higher levels of insecure-avoidant infants in individualistic countries such as the US
Evaluate Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg’s meta-analysis
Limits:
- Cultural bias (15 of the 32 studies were from the US)
- Ethical considerations (Japanese infants were distressed)
- Sample is unrepresentative of the world
Outline Bowlby’s thieves study (KS)
Sample: 44 criminal teenagers accused of stealing
Procedure:
- The 44 were interviewed for signs of affectionless psycopathy
- Their families were interviewed to see if they had been deprived for a prolonged period
- There was a control group that were emotionally disturbed but not thieves to see if deprivation is linked with criminality
Findings:
- 14 of 44 thieves were affectionless psychopaths
- 12 of 44 had experienced separation in the critical period
- 5 of remaning 30 thieves had experienced seperations
- 2 of 44 from contol had long separations
Evaluate Bowlby’s thieves study
Strengths:
- Supporting research on MD (Levy et al - baby rats)
- Limits:
- Alternative research against the ide of a critical period having permanent impacts
