Attachment

Question 1

what is attachment?

Answer 1

Attachment can be defined as an emotional bond between two people in which each seeks closeness and feels more secure when in the presence of the attachment figure.

Question 2

what is reciprocity?

Answer 2

Infant and caregiver are both active contributors in the interaction and are responding to each other.

Question 3

what is interactional synchrony?

Answer 3

rhythmic interaction between mother and infant. mirroring.

Question 4

what are the stages of attachment? and who were they discovered by?

Answer 4

-Asocial
-indiscriminate
-specific
-multiple
found by Schaffer and Emerson

Question 5

what experiment did Schaffer and Emerson carry out?

Answer 5

Schaffer and Emerson (1964) studied 60 babies at monthly intervals for the first 18 months of life (this is known as a longitudinal study).
The children were all studied in their own home and a regular pattern was identified in the development of attachment. The babies were visited monthly for approximately one year, their interactions with their carers were observed, and carers were interviewed.

Question 6

what was the procedure of Harlow’s study?

Answer 6

16 monkeys were separated from their mothers immediately after birth and placed in cages with access to two surrogate mothers, one made of wire and one covered in soft terry towelling cloth.
• Eight of the monkeys could get milk from the wire mother
• Eight monkeys could get milk from the cloth mother

Question 7

what was the results of Harlow’s study?

Answer 7

Both groups of monkeys spent more time with the cloth mother (even if she had no milk). The infants of the second group would only go to the wire mother when hungry. Once fed they would return to the cloth mother for most of the day. If a frightening object was placed in the cage the infant took refuge with the cloth mother. The infant would explore more when the cloth mother was present.

Question 8

what is the evaluation of Harlow’s study?

Answer 8

• ethics

- provided a valuable insight

Question 9

what is Lorenz’s theory?

Answer 9

imprinting theory

Question 10

what was Lorenz’s method?

Answer 10

• separated clutch of eggs some stayed with mother, her kept the others
• To ensure imprinting had occurred Lorenz put all the goslings together under an upturned box and allowed them to mix.

Question 11

what is the learning theory?

Answer 11

Dollard and Miller

• classical conditioning
• operant conditioning

Question 12

what is Bowlby’s monotropic theory?

Answer 12

attachment is an innate behaviour.

Question 13

what does Bowlby suggest in his monotropic theory?

Answer 13

• that there is a critical period

- if an attachment is not formed then it may not happen at all

Question 14

what is the internal working model?

Answer 14

this is the cognitive framework that is used for the understanding of self, world and others.

Question 15

what was the procedure of the strange situation?

Answer 15

• Ainsworth
• controlled observation
• 100 middle class infants
• measured stranger, separation anxiety and reunion behaviour

Question 16

what were the findings of the strange situation?

Answer 16

found that:

• 70% of infants have a secure attachment
• 15% of them are resistant
• 15% are avoidant

Question 17

what are the characteristics of a secure attachment?

Answer 17

• upset when left alone by mother
• happy when mother returns and seeks contact
• infants avoid stranger when mother isn’t around however may approach when mother is present.

Question 18

what are the characteristics of an insecure avoidant attachment?

Answer 18

• unconcerned when mother leaves the room
• shows little interest when reunited with mother
• avoidant behaviour

Question 19

what are the characteristics of an insecure resistant attachment?

Answer 19

• infants are very clingy to mother
• will not explore
• very distressed if left alone by mother
• treat the stranger and mother very differently.

Question 20

what are the criticisms of the strange situation?

Answer 20

• lacks population validity
• low ecological validity
• easy to replicate

Question 21

who carried out the meta-analysis into attachment?

what did they find?

Answer 21

• Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg
• found that secure attachment was the majority of infants (70%).
• The lowest percentage of secure attachments was shown in China, and the highest in Great Britain. It was also found that Western countries that support independence such as Germany had high levels of insecure avoidant.

Question 22

what is Bowlby’s theory of maternal deprivation?

Answer 22

• continual disruption pf attachment can result in long term cognitive, social and emotional difficulties.
• irreversible

Question 23

what are the effects of maternal deprivation?

Answer 23

• aggression
• delinquency
• dwarfism
• intellectual retardation
• depression
• dependency
• affectionless psychopathy

Question 24

what was the method of the 44 thieves study?

Answer 24

-carried out by Bowlby
-88 children
Group 1- thief group: 31 boys and 13 girls in the ‘theft group’ were referred to him because of their stealing.
Group 2- control group: 34 boys and 10 girls were referred to him because of emotional problems.

Question 25

what were the results of the 44 thieves study?

Answer 25

• 14 children from the theft group were identified as affectionless psychopaths, 12 of those had experienced prolonged separation of more than six months
• Out of the 44 children in the control group, only 2 had experienced prolonged separations and none of them were affectionless psychopaths

Question 26

who carried out the Romanian orphan study?

what was the procedure?

Answer 26

• Rutter
• studied orphans that had been placed in orphanages
• 100 Romanian orphans and assessed at ages 4, 6 and 11, then reassessed 21 years later
• 58 babies were adopted before 6 months old and 59 between the ages of 6-24 months old. 48 babies were adopted late between 2-4 years old. These were the 3 conditions Rutter used in his study

Question 27

what were the results of Rutter’s Romanian orphan study?

Answer 27

• those adopted before 6 months, showed ‘normal’ development

- many adopted after 6 months showed disinhibited attachments

Question 28

what are the criticisms of the Romanian orphan study?

Answer 28

• provided detailed measurements through the use of interviews and observations
• we do not know the extent of the privation that the children may have experienced

Question 29

how does early attachments effect later life?

Answer 29

• if attachments aren’t formed then they might not ever be formed even in later life
• a person may seem detached to everyone