Attachment Flashcards

Question

What was Harlow’s findings?

Answer 1

All showed a preference for cuddly despite food

Answer 2

“Contact comfort’ is more important than food in forming attachments. When scared by a mechanical figure, the monkeys fled to the cloth too.

Answer 3

STRENGTHS: Practical application -> social care workers and psychologists can intervene to prevent poor outcomes Primates used, genetically and biologically similar to humans, so can be generalised to humans. WEAKNESSES; Unethical, harm caused to monkeys Can’t be extrapolated to humans, as it’s unlikely we have the same emotional atttachment Confounding variable, with surrogates looking different… so reduced internal validity

Answer 4

Laboratory experiment Condition 1 -> Goose mother hatching Condition 2 -> Lorenz incubator hatching

Answer 5

When mixed up later, they still followed either Lorenz or Harlow

Answer 6

Imprinting is genetically determined, species-specific behaviour. Occurs during critical period of 24 hours.

Answer 7

STRENGTHS: Supporting research Although hard to generalise to humans… Lorenz‘s work influenced other psychologists, like Bowlby… who went on to suggest there was a sensitive period for human attachment. WEAKNESSES Difficult to generalise findings, as attachment is a two-way process in mammals. Lorenz’s geese were mobile and able to feed themselves from birth, so a critical period of 24 hours must differ from humans Lorenz may have overstated the importance of imprinting… Guiton et al found chickens that imprinted on yellow rubber gloves would initially try to mate with them, but later engaged in normal sexual behaviour. Ethics but he did take care of them.

Answer 8

Fathers played a minor role in parenting children, and the father went out to work to provide resources for his family.

Answer 9

Children raised by married couples, father going to work and playing a minor parenting role, mothers staying at home to take care of children until school age.

Answer 10

Filmed 4 month old babies in face to face interactions. PCG fathers and PCG mothers spent more time showing reciprocity and interactional synchrony than SCG fathers. So, fathers can be more emotion-based PCGs in the same way s mothers, but only if they have the role of a PCG.

Answer 11

STRENGTHS Controlled observation, so internally valid, as high levels of control over extraneous factors Filmed study, so reliable results, as they can be checked. Lamb (1987) supporting research, so Field study may be externally valid. WEAKNESSES Hardy (1999) conflicting evidence of fathers being less able to detect infant distress… Field isn’t internally valid Controlled environment -> adults don’t act naturally, so findings may not be internally valid

Answer 12

Longitudinal study, attachments studied from infancy to teens. Quality of babies’ attachments with mothers -> related to relationship behaviour in adolescence. Suggests attachment to fathers is less important than to mothers. BUT Grossman found the quality of fathers play with babies was related to the quality of adolescence attachment. Suggests fathers have a different role more to do with play and stimulation and less to do with emotional development.

Answer 13

Strength: Research supported by many studies that have found mothers have a more nurturing role, and fathers have a more playmate role (Geiger 1996)… suggests valid findings. WEAKNESS: Correlations study, so not possible to conclude that mothers or fathers parenting caused later attachment behaviour in children. Other factors may be involved such as experience with peers.

Answer 14

For) Field 1978 Against) Grossman et al 2003

Answer 15

Oestrogen linked to caring behaviour, emotional sensitivity

Answer 16

Attachments were driven by ‘Cupboard Love’ - children learn to become attached to their caregivers because they give them **food**. Learning can be due to associations being made between different stimuli (classical conditioning) or behaviour can be altered by patterns of reinforcement (operant conditioning).

Answer 17

When two stimuli are associated together so we can respond to one and the same way we have always responded to the other.

Answer 18

Label the attachment by classical conditioning: 1. before Food. -> Happy baby **US** **UR** 2. during Mother. + Food. ->. Happy baby **NS**. **US** **UR** 3. After Mother -> Happy baby **CS** **CR**

Answer 19

Involves learning from consequences. Reinforced (rewarded) behaviour will be repeated, whereas a behaviour which is punished is less likely to be repeated.

Answer 20

Primary drives (such as hunger) are innate biological needs which motivate us to survive, therefore the attachment with the caregiver becomes the secondary driver (Sears et al 1957)

Answer 21

STRENGTH: -> Babies’ preference explained by feeling comfortable in the presence of a particular adult, which may be due to reinforcement. WEAKNESS: -> Lack of support from animal studies, eg. Lorenz geese imprinted on first moving object they saw rather than food, and Harlow found contact comfort more important in attachment than food. -> Contradicting studies: Schaffer and Emerson (1964) found less than half of children attached to people that fed them the most. Isabella et al (1989) found international synchrony was the most important factor. -> Classical and operant conditioning both suggest babies role in attachment is passive, but interactional synchrony suggests a baby is more active in the process. -> Bowlby’s evolutionary theory suggests attachments helps up to survive and gives an evolutionary advantage. This suggests we are born with a genetically based drive to become attached and we don’t need to learn this through conditioning.

Answer 22

Controlled observation of 100 middle-class American mothers and their babies. 8 pre-determined ‘episodes’ recorded behaviour of both the parent and child.

Answer 23

Secure (60-75%) Insecure Avoidant (20-25%) Insecure resistant (3%)

Answer 24

**Explores**, plays happily with toys, and uses caregiver as **secure base.** **Moderate** sep anxiety **Moderate** stranger anxiety **Goes** to caregiver when returns and **easily soothed** Mothers here are sensitive and responsive to the child’s needs

Answer 25

**Little attention to caregiver** and **explores** room with **no use of secure base**. **Little concern** showed when CG leaves. **Little** stranger anxiety. Comforted by **anyone** Makes **little** effort to renew contact on reunion… may actively avoid. **No real preference** for stranger or CG. CG tends to ignore infant

Answer 26

**Limited** environment exploration. **Difficulty** moving away from CG. **Very distressed** on separation. **Difficult** to comfort on reunion… **rushes** to her and may show anger/ struggle to get down. **tends to ignore stranger** and resists CG attempts to interact/ comfort. CG behaviour is inconsistent, sometimes rejecting and angry, sometimes overly sensitive and responsive.

Answer 27

STRENGTHS: Easy replication -> controlled, systematic procedure increases validity. Higher inter-rater reliability.. Bick 2012 found agreement on 94% of cases. Research support for predictive power… eg. Secure tend better outcomes in school achievement, later childhood, and better mental health in adulthood. WEAKNESSES: Lacks ecological validity -> unfamiliar environment = atypical behaviours SS reactions invalid? Eg. Daycare may show avoidant behaviour but not necessarily avoidant. Unethical -> distress? But temporary.

Answer 28

Proximity seeking Exploration and safe base behaviour Stranger anxiety Separation anxiety Reunion behaviour

Answer 29

CG + infant shown room by an observer. CG sits + watches, infant explores + plays Stranger enters, interacts, CG leaves Stranger interacts CG returns, Stranger leaves, CG greets and comforts and then leaves. Infant alone Stranger enters and interacts CG enters, greets and picks up with stranger leaving.

Answer 30

Meta analysis of the SS using 32 studies in 8 different countries using 2000 babies.

Answer 31

Cultural variations

Answer 32

-> Secure was most common in all countries studied, with highest in IK 75% and China 50% -> Avoidant was most common in West Germany 50% and lowest in Japan 5% ->Resistant was most common in Israel 29% and Japan 27%, lowest in the UK 3% -> The difference within a culture was 1.5x greater than the variation between different cultures.

Answer 33

The overall consistency in secure attachments suggests this may be a universal characteristic. However, cultural differences do exist which suggests child-rearing practices may affect attachment types.

Answer 34

STRENGTHS: 1) Good population validity and representation of cross-cultural findings on attachment -> large sample in a variety of countries 2) Researchers recruited were from the same cultural background as participants, which avoids problems of cross-cultural research such as language barriers, researcher bias, and enhances validity. WEAKNESSES: 1) Meta-analysis, so difficult to accurately compare results -> lacks internal validity 2) Environmental variables like room size may affect proximity seeking

Answer 35

Bowlby rejected the learning theory, believing that instead attachment was a biological and instinctive survival mechanism to keep young close to caregivers.

Answer 36

Primary attachment figure is different and the most important. He used 2 principles to clarify this: -> *Law of continuity*… constant and predictable care = better quality of attachments. -> *Law of accumulated separation*… interruptions of care add up

Answer 37

Designed to activate caregiving. Bonds are formed with adults who are most sensitive to these social releasers in a two-way, reciprocal process.

Answer 38

At first, Bowlby proposed a limited time for attachment to form (12 months), otherwise it wouldn’t happen and the child would suffer the consequences. Bowlby later reviewed this and called it a critical period of 6 months to 2 years old. After this, attachment would become harder to form.

Answer 39

One special Montrose relationship provides a template and the rules and expectations for future relationships. A child that has experienced a positive, loving relationship will bring those qualities to future ones. But, a child who hasn’t will struggle to form future relationships and bring up their own children.

Answer 40

STRENGTHS: - Bowlby’s work has been influential, stimulating a great deal of research, leading to changes in childcare. - Brazelton and Tronick provide evidence for the importance of social releases in forming bonds. WEAKNESSES: - Ethnocentric, as normal patterns in child rearing differ between cultures. So, may not be culturally valid. - Schaffer and Emerson found that at 8 months, 50 infants had more than one attachment… there may not be a unique quality to the single CG attachment that Bowlby believed. - It ignores the role of the father, suggesting the mother is the most important for the child to attach to… it sets mothers up to accept blame for anything that goes wrong for the children, restricting them from returning to work. Times have changed. - In much of the research, other facts are ignored. Bailey et al (2007) suggests a poor attachment might be genetic (similar personality traits etc.) rather than passed down.

Answer 41

165 Romanian orphans who were adopted into UK families. All had entered the orphanage between one and two weeks old. Rutter assessed all the children. A control group of 52 British children adopted in the UK before 4 years old were assessed for comparison.

Answer 42

At the outset, all Romanian children lagged behind their British counterparts physically, cognitively, and emotionally. Half showed signs of delayed intellectual development, and most were under nourished. Their mean IQs were lower the longer the time they had spent before adoption. Children adopted before 6 months rarely displayed disinhibited attachment.

Answer 43

STRENGTH: / Rich + detailed research… range of methods used, like semi-structured interviews and observations. / Real-life applications -> improvements in childcare in institutions such as less people playing a central role for the children to avoid disinhibited attachments. / Romanian orphans were often given up by loving parents and had similar backgrounds, reducing the chance of confounding variables. WEAKNESSES: \ Methodological issues, children who couldn’t be followed up after many years were different from those who did stay in the study, distorting results. \ Hard to generalise findings? As the orphanage conditions were bad… results may be due to these poor conditions rather than institutionalisation… lack of external validity.

Answer 44

Bowlby combined his ideas about a critical period and monotropy to form his theory of maternal deprivation… … children should experience a positive relationship and if they are deprived of emotional care for an extended period during the critical period (2.5 years), there’s a high chance of psychological damage and the risk continues to age 5.

Answer 45

Separation Deprivation

Answer 46

88 children studied, 44 thieves and 44 control.

Answer 47

14 thieves were described as affectionkess psychopaths (lack of affection, guilt, or remorse) and 12 of these had experienced prolonged separations from mothers in the critical period. Suggests a disruption of attachment has long-lasting negative effects.

Answer 48

Intellectual development -> children who had experienced MD tended to show lower than normal intelligence Emotional Development: Affectionless psychopathy -> lacks affection, guilt, or remorse.

Answer 49

- Bowlby himself collected and analysed the findings, so it was subject to researcher bias. HOWEVER… Levy et al 2003 found some support for his theories through their studies with baby rats.

Answer 50

Avoidant attachments may seek functional but not close relationships. Resistant attachments may become controlling or argumentative.

Answer 51

Hazan and Shaver (1987) Love quiz. 205 male + 415 female = 620 Securely attached as infants tended positive relationships. Insecure types found more negative adult relationships. Secure = Av. 10yr relationships Resistant: Av. 5yr relationships Avoidant = Av. 6yr relationships

Answer 52

Much of the research is based on self-report measures, which can be retrospective, subjective and subject to demand characteristics.