Attachments Flashcards
(31 cards)
Reciprocity AO1 and AO3
caregiver-infant interactions
AO1:
- Interactions between cares and infants resulting in mutual behaviour, where both parties respond to each others signals.
AO3:
- Feldman found reciprocity increases after 3 months as both pay more attention to each other.
Interactional synchrony AO1 and AO3
caregiver-infant interactions
AO1:
- The coordinated rhythmic exchanges between the carer and infant (mimicking/mirroring behaviour).
AO3:
- Meltzoff and Moore (infants as young as two weeks old synchronised with adults’ facial expressions suggesting it is innate.
- No found in all cultures (Le Vine et al , Kenyan mothers).
Bodily contact AO1 and AO3
caregiver-infant interactions
AO1:
- Skin-to-skin contact between carer and infant encourages the formation of a bond.
AO3:
- Klaus and Kennel (mums allowed to give their newborn several hours of physical contact gave their babies more cuddles and eye contact a month later - physical contact leads to stronger attachment). Hospitals now place mothers and babies in the same room.
Issue with caregiver-infant interactions observations
Hard to know what’s being observed, as just hand movements or changes in expression, therefore can’t know for certain that behaviours seen in caregiver-infant interactions have a special meaning.
Role of the father AO1
- Disagreement over the role of the father.
- Proving stimulation rather than nurture (secondary attachment figure to stimulate infants through play, encouraging infants to develop).
- Father seen as primary attachment figures (evidence to suggest fathers can take on the role of being main caregivers and adopt the level of sensitivity usually associated with mothers).
Evidence to support father’s role as secondary attachment providing stimulation (AO3)
Lamb (1987) children prefer interacting with fathers in positive emotional state, wanting to seek stimulations; but seek mothers when distressed and want comfort.
Evidence to support father’s role as primary attachment figure (AO3)
Lamb (1987) fathers who become the main caregiver seem able to quickly develop more sensitivity to children’s needs and become a safe base, therefore sensitive responsiveness is not a biological ability limited to women.
Long-term benefits of children with secure attachments to their father (AO1)
Go onto have better relationships with peers, less problem behaviours and are more able to regulate their emotions.
Disadvantages of absence of father may have on a child (AO1)
Do less well in school and have higher risk of aggression.
Researcher argument that weakens disadvantages of absent father theory
Pederson (1979) most studies have focused on female single mothers from poor socioeconomic backgrounds, therefore negative effects may be related to poverty not absence of fathers.
Stages of attachment (Schaffer and Emerson) AO1
- Idea that attachments develop in a sequence with different behaviours linked to specific ages.
Schaffer and Emerson (attachment can be divided into several distinct stages). - Longitudinal study, 60 Glaswegian working class mums recorded how their babies responded to separation anxiety and stranger anxiety.
- Findings: most infants showed separation protest towards main attachment figure (6-8 months), attachment to caregiver who showed the most sensitivity, at 18 months 87% had at least 2 attachments.
Stages of attachment development AO1
- Asocial phase (0-6 weeks) form bonds with carers, some preference in adults, behave to humans and inanimate objects the same.
- Indiscriminate phase (2-7 months) prefer people over objects, no separation or stranger anxiety.
- Discriminate phase (7 months onwards) stranger and separation anxiety when separated from primary attachment figure.
- Multiple attachments phase (9 months onwards) now has secondary attachments.
Evaluation of stages of attachment theory experiment (AO3)
- Experiment had mundane realism therefore high validity.
- Large individual differences in when attachments formed suggesting the process of attachment formation may not be exclusively biological in nature.
- All families involved when from the same district and social class + was over 50 years ago and child rearing practices vary from cultures and time periods, therefore does not generalise well to other social and historical contexts.
Animal studies - Lorenz AO1
Aim - investigate mechanism of imprinting in goslings, where they form an attachment to the first large moving object they meet.
Procedure - split large clutch of goose eggs into two batches (one hatched naturally by the mother and one hatched in an incubator with Lorenz being the first moving object the goslings saw), he marked the goslings and placed them in an upturned box which was then removed and behaviour was recorded.
Findings - naturally hatched goslings followed their mother, while incubated gosling followed Lorenz (these bonds proved to be irreversible).
Animal studies - Lorenz AO3
- Support by Bowlby’s theory of attachment (idea of critical period stemmed from this research).
- Difficult to draw conclusions about human behaviour bases on geese.
- The fact the imprinting is irreversible suggests the ability is under biological control, as learned behaviours can be modified by experience.
Animal studies - Harlow AO1
Aim - test learning theory by comparing behaviours in baby monkeys.
Procedure - two types of surrogate (wire and towelling), 16 baby monkeys - 4 in each of the 4 conditions: wire mothers (milk) and towelling mother (no milk), wire mother (milk), toweling mother (milk), wire mother (no milk) and towelling mother (milk).
Findings - preferred contact with towelling mother regardless of whether she produced milk, they stretched across to wire mother to feed while still clinging to towelling mother, monkeys with only a wire mother has signs of diarrhoea and signs of stress, when frightened by loud noise monkeys clung to towelling mother,
Animal studies - Harlow AO3
- Involves animals so can’t really be generalised to humans.
- Ethical issues involving the separation of baby monkeys and the stressed caused.
Learning theory of attachment AO1
- Attachment learnt through conditioning.
- Classical conditioning: mother (NS) paired with food (UCS) repeatedly, mother becomes CS which elicits the CR of pleasure = infant attaches to mother.
- Operant conditioning: positive reinforcement (baby fed by mother and baby receives reward of food) and negative reinforcement (discomfort when hungry, mother removes with discomfort of hunger (drive reduction) and attachment forms as secondary reinforcer).
Learning theory of attachment AO3
- Dollard and Miller (in their first year babies are fed 2000 times so enough opportunity for carer to become associated with the removal of the unpleasant feeling of hunger, therefore supports operant conditioning.
- Schaffer and Emerson (infants have strongest attachment with person who was the most responsive to them), quality of interaction more important than food.
- Reductionist (attachment just down to feeding, ignores internal cognitive processes and the emotional nature of attachments are not considered).
Bowlby’s monotropic theory AO1
- Need and ability to attach is innate and adaptive.
- Emphasis on the evolutionary basis of attachment.
- Monotropy (emphasis on the attachment to one primary caregiver - this attachment is qualitatively different to other attachments and has long-term benefits).
- Critical period (a specific time within which an attachment must be formed (up to 2 years old)) - later suggested it’s a sensitive period rather than critical.
- Social releasers (a baby is born when an innate set of behaviours that elicit a caregiver to form an attachment with it, adults who respond the most to these social releasers become the primary attachment).
- Internal working model (primary attachment serves as a template and schema for future relationships + forms template for child’s later attachment with their infant).
Bowlby’s monotropic theory evaluation (AO3)
- Evidence to support the continuity hypothesis that there is a consistency between early attachment types and later relationships, supports internal working model.
- Used by right-wing political figures as scientific proof that women should be at home mothering children and not at work.
- Sees fathers as minor attachment figures, but research suggests that fathers can be attachment figures in their own right (Lamb 1987).
Bowlby’s theory of maternal deprivation AO1
- If monotropic bond to the infant’s mother is not formed during the critical period it effects social, intellectual and emotional development, it can lead to affectionless psychopathy and the effects are permanent and irreversible.
44 thieves study: - interview 44 young thieves 14/44 were affectionless psychopathy, and 12/14 had prolonged separation from mother in critical period.
- Concluded there is a correlation between prolonged separation and affectionless psychopathy.
Bowlby’s theory of maternal deprivation evaluation (AO3)
- Bowlby cant claim cause and effect as not all participants who experienced separations were affectionless psychopaths + all participants were troubled juveniles who were in a psychiatric ward, therefore were trouble in some way - this extraneous variable may be the cause of the affectionless psychopathy not maternal deprivation.
- Goldfarb (1947) children who remained in institutions vs being adopted has a lower IQ because adopted children had higher standard of emotional care - those in institutions continued to suffer maternal deprivation.
- Lewis et al replicated 44 thieves study with 500 young people, found little relationship between separation and criminality suggesting other factors influence original study reducing reliability.
- Critical period is flawed (twins from czechoslovakia isolated in cupboard till age 7, then looked after by loving adults and fully recovered, but may be because they were together so could form a substitute attachment to each other).
Ainsworth’s strange situation AO1
- Standardized procedure to observe attachment security in children within the context of caregiver relationships.
- Procedure: observing behaviours of primary caregivers and infants in a room with a two-way mirror, measured; proximity seekings, exploration and secure base behaviours, stranger and separation anxiety, and reunion behaviour.
- Type A (insecure avoidant) - 15%, ignored mum, level of play not affected by mum presence, displayed some stress when mum left, reacted to stranger and mum in the same way.
- Type B (securely attached) - 70%, played happily when mum there, were distressed when mum left, sought comfort when she returned, mum and stranger treated differently.
- Type C (insecure-resistant) - 15%, fussy and wary even with mum there, distressed by her leaving, sought comfort when she returned but also showed anger and resisted contact.
