ATTACHMENT Flashcards
(26 cards)
AINSWORTH’S ‘STRANGE SITUATION’ AO1
Assesses quality of a baby’s attachment to their caregiver. Controlled observation procedure in a lab, using a two-way mirror.
Five categories used: Proximity-seeking, exploration and secure base behaviour, stranger anxiety, separation anxiety, response to reunion with caregiver.
Three types of attachment identified:
SECURE ATTACHMENT (Type B: 60-75% of British toddlers)
- Baby happy to explore but seeks proximity to caregiver (secure base behaviour)
- Moderate stranger and separation anxiety
- Requires and accepts comfort from caregiver on reunion
INSECURE-AVOIDANT ATTACHMENT (Type A: 20-25% of British toddlers)
- Explores freely but doesn’t seek proximity (no secure base)
- Little/no separation or stranger anxiety
- Avoids contact at reunion
INSECURE-RESISTANT ATTACHMENT (Type C: 3% of British toddlers)
- Explores less and seeks greater proximity
- Considerable stranger and separation anxiety
- Resists comfort on reunion
AINSWORTH’S ‘STRANGE SITUATION’ AO3
✔ = Good predictive validity: Can predict later developments. Secure attachment links to greater success in school (McCormick et al 2016), while resistant is associated with adult mental health problems (Ward et al 2006).
-✘ = May not be measuring
attachment quality, may be
measuring genetic differences
in anxiety (Kagan 1982)
✔ = Inter-rater reliability: Bick et al (2012) found 94% agreement in attachment types in one team. Confidence that the attachment type identified doesn’t just depend on who is observing the baby.
✘ = May be culture bound: Cultural differences may impact behaviours, i.e. Japanese children showing anxiety because they are unused to being left alone by the caregiver (Takahashi 1986)
BOWLBY (1951) MATERNAL DEPRIVATION AO1
- Continued emotional care from the mother is vital. Extended separation may lead to maternal deprivation.
- Separation = the child not being in the presence of the primary attachment figure
- Deprivation = losing emotional care as a result of the separation
- Critical period of 2 1/2 years - if a child is separated from their mother (without substitute emotional care), then psychological damage is inevitable.
- Intellectual development = may lead to a lower IQ in children (Goldfarb 1947)
- Emotional development = May lead to affectionless psychopathy, the inability to experience guilt or strong emotion towards others
44 THIEVES STUDY
- 44 delinquent teens, accused of thievery
- All were interviewed for signs of affectionless psychopathy, as well as family interviews to establish if there was extended separation from maternal figure
- 14 of the 44 could be described as having affectionless psychopathy, and 12 of these had experienced prolonged separation from their mothers in the first two years of their lives. Only 5 of the remaining thieves had experienced prolonged separation.
BOWLBY 1951 - MATERNAL DEPRIVATION AO3
✘ = Flawed evidence: It was open to bias, as Bowlby himself assessed deprivation and psychopathy, knowing what he hoped to find. No solid evidential basis.
- ✔ = Levy et al (2003) found baby
rats separated from their
mothers for a day suffered
permanent effects on their
social development
✘ = Confusion of deprivation and privation: Rutter (1981) made the distinction between separation from an attachment figure (deprivation) and failure to form an attachment (privation). Bowlby may have inadvertently been studying privation, which has much more adverse effects.
✘ = Critical period: Koluchova (1976) studied two Czech twin boys who were isolated from 18 months, but were later cared for by two loving parents and appeared to fully recover. Indicates that the period Bowlby identified may be sensitive, but cannot be critical to development given social interaction and care occurs afterwards.
CAREGIVER-INFANT INTERACTIONS AO1
Reciprocity:
- Reciprocity is achieved when infants and caregivers respond to and elicit responses from each other. E.g. a caregiver responding to a baby’s smile by saying something, and the baby responds by making happy sounds
- Mothers successfully respond around 2/3 of the time (Feldman and Eidelman 2007)
- Gives the baby an active role as an initiator of interactions, as opposed to the passive role they’ve often been given
Interactional synchrony:
- When interactions between caregiver and infant occur at the same time
- Meltzoff and Moore (1977) observed babies as young as two weeks old - babies’ expressions and gestures would mirror the ones an adult gave them more than mere chance would predict
- Isabella et al (1989) found higher levels of synchrony were associated with better mother/baby attachment
CAREGIVER-INFANT INTERACTIONS AO3
✔ = Observations of babies are often filmed to behaviours can be micro-analysed. Babies also don’t know they’re being filmed, so their behaviour doesn’t change in response. This helps the study’s reliability and validity
✘ = It’s hard to observe babies - they aren’t very coordinated and their movements can be entirely random, so it’s hard to decide what are meaningful interactions and what are random twitches
✘ = Feldman (2012) points out that reciprocity and synchrony simply describe behaviours that occur, without any key link to impact on development. BUT Isabella et al, suggests good levels of synchrony are linked to the quality of attachments
SCHAFFER’S STAGES OF ATTACHMENT AO1
Stage 1: Asocial stage
- First few weeks
- Baby’s behaviour towards people and inanimate objects are quite similar
- Some preference for familiar people
- Happier in the presence of other people
Stage 2: Indiscriminate attachment
- 2-7 months
- Preference for people over objects
- Recognise and prefer familiar people
- Don’t show stranger or separation anxiety
- Attachment is the same towards everyone
Stage 3: Specific attachment
- From around 7 months
- Stranger and separation anxiety is shown when separated from specific individual
- Formed an attachment with the primary attachment figure
- Often the person who offers the most interaction and responds to their signals with the most skill (mother in 65% of cases)
Stage 4: Multiple attachments
- By 1 year
- Formation of secondary attachments with other adults
- In the study, 29% had multiple attachments 1 month after forming the primary one, while the vast majority had multiple attachments by 1 year
Schaffer and Emerson 1964 -
- 60 babies from Glasgow, mostly working class families. Visited babies every month for a year, then again at 18 months
- Gained information about stranger and separation anxiety via interviewing the mothers
- Showed stages of attachment, but ALSO that attachments formed with those who showed the most and most skilful reciprocity and synchrony, not necessarily the person who spent the most time with the baby
SCHAFFER’S STAGES OF ATTACHMENT AO3
✔ = High external validity, most observations made by parents were made during everyday interactions and situations
✘ = Reports were from parents, who may be biased in the information they give, e.g. might not notice when a baby is displaying anxiety, or may misinterpret a behaviour as an anxious one
✘ = Limited evidence for asocial stage = babies in the earliest stage have poor coordination and are limited in their motions, making it hard for parents to accurately interpret signs of anxiety or attachment
✔ = Real-world application to day care - a child in the early stages can be comforted by any adult, but putting a child in day care later could cause distress. It helps inform parent’s decisions
THE ROLE OF THE FATHER AO1
- Primary attachment can occur with fathers - Schaffer + Emerson found babies attached with fathers as the sole primary object 3% of the time, and as a shared primary with the mother in 27%.
- 75% eventually form secondary attachments with their fathers by 18 months
- Grossmann et al (2000) carried out a longitudinal study. Found that the quality of attachment with the father was less important than the mother for adolescent interactions. BUT also found that the quality of father’s play was linked to adolescent attachment, indicating a separate role of the father, being play and stimulation instead of emotional care
- Fathers who are the primary attachment figure take on behaviours more typical of mothers - Field (1987) found primary caregiver fathers spend more time smiling, imitating and holding babies than secondary caregiver fathers
- Level of response is the most important aspect - synchrony and reciprocity are more important in developing a primary attachment, more important than the gender of the caregiver
THE ROLE OF THE FATHER AO3
✘ = Confusion over research questions - psychologists tend to take different approaches, with some looking at the role of the father as secondary attachment figures, and others looking at them as primary attachment figures. The former see distinct roles and behaviours between males and females, while the latter find the opposite, that males can take on the primary role with the same behaviours
✘ = Conflicting evidence - Grossman suggests fathers have a key role in play and stimulation, but McCallum and Golombok (2004) found that children with no father do not develop differently
✔ = BUT they might not conflict - homosexual families may have different roles for each parent, and other family structures adapt to not having a father. It may be that fathers have a distinctive role when present, but families can still adapt to the absence of one
✔ = Use in parenting advice - Research on the flexibility of the role of the father can be useful in families where the mother wishes to keep working, and the father wants to be the primary caregiver. Helps reduce parental anxiety
ANIMAL STUDIES OF ATTACHMENT - LORENZ AO1
- Lorenz studied imprinting in goslings. One half were hatched with a mother goose in their natural environment, while the other were born with Lorenz being the first living thing they saw.
- He mixed the goslings to see who they would follow. Incubator group followed Lorenz, the control followed the mother goose.
- Lorenz identified a critical period where imprinting needs to occur for an attachment to be made, of around a few hours
- Sexual imprinting also occurs, where the goslings learn what desirable characteristics to look for in a mate
ANIMAL STUDIES OF ATTACHMENT - LORENZ AO3
✔ = Support for the concept of imprinting - Regolin and Vallortigara (1995) exposed chicks to simple shapes that moved. Chicks followed moving shapes in preference to ones that didn’t, indicating an innate mechanism to imprint
✘ = Generalisation from birds to humans isn’t very reliable, as attachment amongst mammals is very different to amongst birds. Ideas may not be appropriate to apply to humans
ANIMAL STUDIES OF ATTACHMENT - HARLOW AO1
- Harlow studied 16 rhesus monkeys in two conditions - in one, milk was dispensed by a plain wire ‘mother’, and in the other, the mother was covered in cloth
- Monkeys were put in stressful situations to measure their attachment behaviour to the ‘mothers’.
- Baby monkeys cuddled the cloth mother regardless of which dispersed milk, and sought comfort from the cloth mother when frightened
- In adulthood, the monkeys in the study were more aggressive, less sociable, and less skilled in mating than other monkeysA
ANIMAL STUDIES OF ATTACHMENT - HARLOW AO3
✔ = Real world value, i.e. uses in child abuse cases to identify risks, and helps understand the value of attachment figures for monkeys in zoos and breeding programmes
✘ = Ethical issues
✘ = Generalisation from monkeys to humans, less complex behaviours
EXPLANATION OF ATTACHMENT - LEARNING THEORY AO1
- Importance of food - children love whoever feeds them
- Classical conditioning - mother is the NS until she becomes associated with food (the UCS). Then she becomes the CS, producing the CR of pleasure. This pleasure is the basis of attachment
- Operant conditioning via crying - crying is reinforced since crying gets the attention of the mother and elicits a pleasurable response (pos. reinforcement). Caregiver receives neg. reinforcement because the unpleasant action (crying) stops.
- Hunger is a primary drive, and attachment is secondary
EXPLANATION OF ATTACHMENT - LEARNING THEORY AO3
✘ = Counter-evidence, e.g. animal studies from Harlow and Lorenz, imprinting/attachment didn’t occur due to feeding
✘ = Counter-evidence e.g. human studies from Schaffer, many babies had main attachments that weren’t to the one that fed them
✔ = Could be elements of conditioning - choice of attachment figure could be due to associations with warmth and comfort
✘ = Approach ignores that babies take a very active role within the formation of attachments (Feldman and Eidman)
EXPLANATIONS OF ATTACHMENT - BOWLBY’S MONOTROPY AO1
- Attachment is innate, like imprinting - gives a biological advantage
- Monotropic = having a primary attachment figure that is more important than the rest of them.
- More time spent with primary attachment figure = better, due to law of continuity (more constant care leads to better attachment) and law of accumulated separation (all separation adds up)
- Babies are born with ‘social releasers’, that encourage attention from adults, such as smiling and cooing. Reciprocal
- Critical period - though more of a sensitive period of up to 2 years. No attachment in this period = harder to form future ones
- Child forms ‘internal working model’ for future relationships from primary att. figure.
EXPLANATIONS OF ATTACHMENT - BOWLBY’S MONOTROPY AO3
✘ = Lacks validity, evidence that other family members can form attachments with the same qualities as primary att. No evidence that primary att. has different qualities to any other
✔ = Social releasers - Brazelton instructed prim. caregivers to ignore all social releasers. Babies were distressed, then eventually curled up and remained still.
✔ = Internal working model - Bailey studied 99 mothers. Those w/ poor attachments to their own mothers had poor ones with their children
✘ = BUT overemphasis - e.g. genetically determined personality has impacts
TYPES OF ATTACHMENT - AINSWORTH AO1
- Secure attachment (60-75% of British toddlers)
- Insecure-avoidant (20-25 of British toddlers)
- Insecure-resistant (3% of British toddlers)
TYPES OF ATTACHMENT - AINSWORTH AO3
✔ = Good predictive validity - secure babies perform better in school, while insecure-resistant is associated with bullying and adult mental health problems
✘ = Strange Sit. can predict future development, but it may be measuring genetic differences in anxiety instead of attachment quality
✔ = Good reliability - Observers watching the babies agree on the category up to 94% of the time, likely due to high controls in procedure. Can be confident that attachment type doesn’t depend on who is observing
✘ = Culture-bound test - e.g. Japanese babies show anxiety because they’re unused to being left by their carer
CULTURAL VARIATIONS IN ATTACHMENT AO1
CULTURAL VARIATIONS IN ATTACHMENT AO3
ROMANIAN ORPHAN STUDIES - INSTITUTIONALISATION AO1
ROMANIAN ORPHAN STUDIES - INSTITUTIONALISATION AO3
