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Flashcards in Attachment Deck (30)
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1
Q

Who came up with the strange situation experiment and in what year was it created?

A

Mary Ainsworth - 1969

2
Q

What was the aim of Ainsworth’s strange situation?

A

To observe the key attachment behaviours in order to assess the quality of attachment between child and caregiver

3
Q

What was the experimental design of Ainsworth’s strange situation?

A

Controlled observation (lab setting) - Two way mirror for observational purposes

4
Q

What 5 behaviours were used to judge attachment in the strange situation?

A
Proximity seeking
Exploration and secure-base behaviour
Stranger anxiety
Separation anxiety
Response to reunion
5
Q

How many key steps are there in the strange situation and how long do they each last for?

A

7 steps that each last 3 minutes.

6
Q

What are the 7 key ‘episodes’ of the strange situation? (in order) (bonus points for what each step is testing for)

A
  1. The child is encouraged to explore (exploration and secure-base)
  2. A stranger comes in and tries to interact with child (stranger anxiety)
  3. The caregiver leaves the child and stranger together (seperation and stranger anxiety)
  4. The caregiver returns and the stranger leaves (reunion behaviour and exploration/ secure-base)
  5. The caregiver leaves the child alone (seperation anxiety)
  6. The stranger returns (stranger anxiety)
  7. Caregiver returns and is reunited with the child. (reunion behaviour)
7
Q

What were the key findings of the Strange Situation

A

The three main attachment types:

  • Secure attachment (B)
  • Insecure-avoidant attachment (A)
  • Insecure-resistant attachment (C)
8
Q

What were the letters assigned to each attachment type and what % of them were found in British children?

A
  • Secure attachment (B) - 60-75%
  • Insecure-avoidant attachment (A) - 20-25%
  • Insecure-resistant attachment (C) - 3%
9
Q

What are the defining characteristics of the Secure attachment type? (type B)

A
  • Explore happily with regular returns to secure-base
  • Show moderate separation and stranger anxiety
  • Require and accept comfort upon reunion
10
Q

What are the defining characteristics of the Insecure-Avoidant attachment type? (type A)

A
  • Explore freely but do not seek proximity / secure-base
  • Show little to no anxiety towards strangers or separation
  • Do not require comfort on reunion
11
Q

What are the defining characteristics of the Insecure-resistant attachment type? (type C)

A
  • Seek greater proximity and therefore explore less
  • Show huge separation and stranger anxiety
  • Resist comfort on reunion
12
Q

What are the three evaluation points for the Strange Situation?

A

Support for validity - strongly predictive for later development
Good Reliability - has good inter-rater validity; different psychologists have repeated the study and found similar results
Test may be culture bound

13
Q

Which key study looked into cultural variations in attachment?

A

Van IJzendoorn & Kroonenberg (1988)

14
Q

What were the two key aims of IJzendoorn’s 1988 study?

A
  • To test if cross-cultural results are reliable compared to Ainsworth’s ‘standard’ results
  • To compare cross cultural (inter-cultural) with intra-cultural differences
15
Q

What were the main findings of IJzendoorn’s 1988 study?

A

That results were for the most part very similar to Ainsworth’s findings (Type B majority followed by A and C)

16
Q

What sort of cultures were seen to have higher rates of insecure-resistant (type C) attachments?

A

‘Collectivist’ cultures such as China, Japan and Isreal.

17
Q

What were the main strengths of IJzendoorn’s 1988 study?

A
  • Large sample size - nearly 2000 ppts
  • Meta analysis - reduces effects of anomalous results
  • Only consisted of studies that used the strange situation procedure - can compare with Ains
  • Special groups were left out - representative of the populations
18
Q

What was the main weakness of the cultural variation meta analysis (IJzendoorn 1988)

A

Unfair distribution; ‘Collectivist’ cultures were massively under-represented compared to western cultures.

19
Q

Define reciprocity in terms of attachment

A

How people interact - Mother-infant interaction is reciprocated in both infant and mother respond to each other’s signals which elicits a response from the other.

20
Q

Define interactional synchrony

A

When mother and infant reflect both the actions and emotions of one another in a coordinated (synchronised way)

21
Q

What were the findings of Schaffer and Emersons (1964) study into parent-infant attachment

A

That the majority of babies became attached to the mother first but within a few weeks or months form a secondary attachment to other family members (father)

75% of infants studied had formed attachment to the father by 18 months of age.

22
Q

What did Grossman (2002) find from his longitudinal study on the role of the father

A

Findings suggested that the role of the father was less important but the quality of father’s play with infants was related to the quality of adolescent attachment

23
Q

Define ‘Monotropic’

A

Bowlby’s theory that one mother-figure (primary attachment figure)’s attachment to an infant is more important to the child’s development

24
Q

What is Bowlby’s Law of continuity?

A

The theory that the more consistent and predictable a child’s care is, the better the attachment quality will be.

25
Q

What is Bowlby’s Law of accumulated separation?

A

The theory that all the effects of separation from the mother figure (primary attachment figure) all adds up and accumulates.

26
Q

What are social releasers?

A

A set of innate and ‘cute’ behaviours a child displays in order to activate the parent’s attachment system - e.g encouraging attention from adults.

27
Q

When is the critical period for attachment in children?

A

Around 2 years - when the child is maximally sensitive to attachment. (also referred to as a sensitive period)

28
Q

What are the consequences of a child not forming an attachment during the critical/sensitive period?

A

The child will find it difficult to form meaningful attachments in later life.

29
Q

What is Bowlby’s theory of the internal working model?

A

A child’s mental representation of their relationship with their primary caregiver which forms a working model of how the child will later expect all other relationships to be like.

30
Q

What is the significance of Bowlby’s internal working model?

A
  • Has a significant effect on the nature of the child’s future relationships as the child brings the qualities of their relationship with the primary caregiver into future relationships
  • Also effects the child’s later ability to be a parent themselves as people often base their parental techniques on how they were raised themselves.