chapter 3: attachment Flashcards
(34 cards)
1
Q
Caregiver-Infant Interactions
- filmed observations (S)
A
- caregiver-infant interactions are filmed in a laboratory
- conditions are controlled
- using films means that observations can be recorded and analysed
- inter-rather reliability can be established
- no chances of demand characteristics
- good reliability and validity
2
Q
Caregiver-Infant Interactions:
- difficulty observing babies (L)
A
- it is hard to interpret babies’ behaviour
- it is difficult to be sure what a baby’s behaviour means
- cannot be certain the behaviours seen have a special meaning
3
Q
Caregiver-Infant Interactions
- developmental importance + counterpoint (L+S)
A
- simply observing behaviour does not tell us about its importance in development
- Feldman points out that ideas like synchrony are robust phenomena but may not be useful in understanding child development
- cannot be certain from research alone that reciprocity and synchrony are important
- evidence from other lines of research suggest the opposite
- Isabella et al found that achievement of interactional synchrony predicted the development of good attachment
4
Q
Schaffer’s stages of attachment:
- good external validity + counterpoint (S+L)
A
- most of the observations were made by parents and reported to the researchers
having the researchers present might have distracted the babies or made them feel anxious - highly likely participants behaved naturally
- issues with asking mothers to be observers
- might have been biased in terms of what they noticed
- misremembering something
- even if babies behaved naturally their behaviour may not have been accurately recorded
5
Q
Schaffer’s stages of attachment:
- poor evidence for the asocial stage (L)
A
- issues with the validity of the measures they used to assess attachment in the asocial stage
- if babies less than two months old felt anxiety they might have displayed very subtle behaviours
- makes it difficult for mothers to oversee and report
- babies might appear less social but might actually be very social
6
Q
Schaffer’s stages of attachment:
- real-world application (S)
A
- stages have practical application in day care
- in asocial and indiscriminate attachment stages, day care can be straightforward as babies are comforted by any adult
- however, it may also be difficult at the specific attachment stage
- parents’ use of day care can be planned using the stages
7
Q
Role of the father:
- confusion over research questions (L)
A
- lack of clarity over the question being asked
- some researchers might want to answer the question with the role of fathers as secondary attachment figures
- some might be more concerned with them as primary attachment figures
- makes it difficult to offer a simple answer
8
Q
Role of the father:
- conflicting evidence + counterpoint (L+S)
A
- findings vary according to methodology used
- longitudinal studies suggest that father are a secondary attachment figure that have adistinct and important role in play and stimulation
- if that was true, same sex houeholds would have a different upbringing for the children
- means that the question if they have a distinctive role remains unanswered
- lines of research may not be in conflict
- could be that fathers take on a distinctive role in two sex households but same sex households just adapt
- when present, fathers tend to adopt a distinctive role but families can adapt if need be
9
Q
Role of the father:
- real world application (S)
A
- can be used to offer advice to parents
- mothers may feel pressured to stay at home but this research can change that
- fathers are capable of becoming primary attachment figures
- parental anxiety can be reduced
10
Q
Animal studies of attachment (Lorenz)
- research support (S)
A
- existence of support for imprinting
- chicks were exposed to simple shape combinations that moved
- they followed the original the most
- supports the view that young animals are born with an innate mechanism to imprint on a moving object
11
Q
Animal studies of attachment (Lorenz)
- generalisability to humans (L)
A
- mammalian attachment system is different and more complex than birds
- mammals attachment in a two way process
- not appropriate to generalise Lorenz’s ideas
12
Q
Animal studies of attachment (Harlow)
- real world value (S)
A
- helped social workers and clinical psychologists understand the importance of bonding experiences and its risk in child development
- understand the importance of attachment figures in zoos too
13
Q
Animal studies of attachment (Harlow)
- generalisability to humans (L)
A
- human brain and behaviour is more complex than that of monkeys
- not appropriate to generalise the findings
14
Q
Explanations of attachment: Learning theory
- counter-evidence from animal studies (L)
A
- lack of support from animal studies
- Lorenz’s geese imprinted on the first moving object they saw regardless of whether they were associated with food
- shows that factors other than association with food are important for attachment formation
15
Q
Explanations for attachment: Learning theory
- counter-evidence from studies on humans (L)
A
- lack of support from human babies
- Schaffer and Emerson found that babies tended to form their main attachment to their mother regardless of whether she fed them
- Isabella et al found that high levels of interactional synchrony led to good quality of attachment
- these factors are not related to feeding
- suggests that food is not a main factor in formation of attachments
16
Q
Explanations for attachment: Learning theory
- some conditioning may be involved + counterpoint (S+L)
A
- conditioning may still play a role in attachment even if association with food doesn’t
- baby may associate feeling warm and comfortable with the presence of a particular adult
- may influence a baby’s choice of their main attachment figure
- both classical and operant conditioning explanations state the baby plays a passive role in attachment development
- research shows babies actually take on a very active role (Feldman and Eidelman)
- conditioning may not be an adequate explanation
17
Q
Explanations of attachment: Bowlby’s theory
- validity of monotropy challenged (L)
A
- concept of monotropy lacks validity
- Schaffer and Emerson found that a significant minority formed multiple attachments at the same time
- first attachment may have a strong influence on behaviour but not different in quality from child’s other attachments
- Bowlby may be incorrect that there is a unique quality and importance to the child’s primary attachment
18
Q
Explanations for attachment: Bowlby’s theory
- support for social releasers (S)
A
- clear evidence that cute baby behaviours are designed to elicit interaction from caregivers
- Brazelton instructed babies’ primary attachment figures to ignore babies’ social releasers
- babies became increasingly distressed
- illustrates the role of social releasers in emotional development
19
Q
Explanations for attachment: Bowlby’s theory
- support for internal working model + counterpoint (S+L)
A
- Bailey et al assessed attachment in 99 mothers and their one year olds
- measured the mothers’ attachment to their own primary attachment figures
- also assessed the attachment quality of the babies
- found that mothers with poor attachment to their own primary attachment figures were more likely to have poorly attached babies
- other important influences on social development
- psychologists believe that genetic differences in anxiety and sociability affect social behaviour in both babies and adults
- Bowlby may have overstated the importance of the internal working model
20
Q
Types of attachment:
-good predictive validity + counterpoint (S+L)
A
- its outcome predicts a number of aspects of a baby’s development
- babies and toddlers assessed as Type B tend to have better outcomes than others
- they also tend to have better mental health in adulthood
- not all psychologists believe that the Strange Situation measures attachment
- Kagan suggested that genetically-influenced anxiety levels could account for variations in attachment behaviour
21
Q
Types of attachment:
- good reliability (S)
A
- good inter-rater reliability
- Bick tested this and found agreement on attachment type in 94% of cases
- high levels of reliability may be due to high control
- can be confident that attachment type assessed by the Strange Situation is not subjective
22
Q
Types of attachment:
- test may be culture bound (L)
A
- may not be a valid measure of attachment in different cultural contexts
- may be culture-bound
- babies have different experiences in different cultures
- Japanese study showed that babies had high levels of separation anxiety, not due to attachment insecurity but due to how rare mother-baby separation is in Japan
23
Q
Cultural variations in attachment:
- indigenous researchers + counterpoint (S+L)
A
- most studies were conducted by indigenous psychologists
- same cultural background as the participants
- van IJzendoorn and Kroonenberg included research from a German and Japanese team
- potential problems in cross-cultural research can be avoided
- enhancing validity of the data collected
- not true for all cross-cultural attachment research
- Morelli and Tronick were outsiders when they conducted their research
- might have affected difficulties in gathering data
- some data might have been affected by bias and difficulty
24
Q
Cultural variations in attachment:
- confounding variables (L)
A
- impact of confounding variables
- studies conducted in different countries are not usually matched for methodology
- sample characteristics (poverty, social class, and urban/rural make up) can confound results
- environmental variables like the size of the room might also affect the results
- looking at attachment behaviour in non-matched studies may not tell us anything about cross-cultural patters
25
Cultural variations in attachment:
- imposed etic (L)
- trying to impose a test designed for one cultural context to another
- imposed etic is assuming an idea or technique used in one cultural context will work in another
- in Britain or the US lack of response at reunion might be avoidance attachment
- but such behaviour in Germany may be seen as independence rather than insecurity
26
Bowlby's theory of maternal deprivation:
- flawed evidence + counterpoint (L+S)
- 44 thieves study is flawed because Bowlby himself carried out family interviews and assessments for affectionless psychopaths
- left him open to bias
- Bowlby was also influenced by Goldfarb whose study had its own confounding variables
- a new line of research of Levy et al found that separating baby rats from their mother for as little as a day had a permanent effect on their social development
- other sources of evidence support Bowlby
27
Bowlby's theory of maternal deprivation:
- deprivation and privation (L)
- Rutter drew an important distinction between deprivation and privation
- Rutter pointed out that the severe long-term damage Bowlby associated with deprivation was actually most likely privation
- Bowlby may have overestimated the seriousness of deprivation
28
Bowlby's theory of maternal deprivation:
- critical versus sensitive periods (L)
- Czech twins are evidence that damage in the supposed critical period is not irreversible
- they experienced severe physical and emotional abuse but with the right aftercare, they had recovered fully
- critical period should be seen as a sensitive period instead
29
Romanian orphan studies: Institutionalisation
- real-world application (S)
- improve conditions for children growing up outside their family home
- improvements in the conditions of orphanages
- children now only have one or two key workers that play a central role in their emotional care
- disinhibited attachments are avoided
30
Romanian orphan studies: Institutionalisation
- fewer confounding variables + counterpoint (S+L)
- lack of confounding variables
- many children in previous studies had experienced varying degrees of trauma
- however the Romanian orphans were handed by loving parents who could not afford to keep them
- results were less likely to be confounded by other negative early experiences
- different confounding variables however
- quality of care was very poor
- harmful effects on the children could be representative of POOR institutional care not institutional care in general
31
Romanian orphan studies: Institutionalisation
- lack of adult data (L)
- current lack of data on adult development
- will take a long time to gather due to longitudinal design of the study
- don't know about the lifetime prevalence of mental health problems, or later relationships
32
Influence of early attachment on later relationships:
- research support + counterpoint (S+L)
- Fearon and Roisman concluded that early attachment consistently predicts later attachment, emotional wellbeing and later attachment to children
- disorganised attachment is strongly associated with later mental disorder
- Regensburg longitudinal study followed 43 individuals from one year of age
- at age 16 they were assessed of their adult attachment and there was no continuity
- there may be other important factors
33
Influence of early attachment on later relationships:
- validity issues with retrospective studies (L)
- early attachment is assessed retrospectively
- most research isn't longitudinal
- two validity problems
- asking questions relies on the honesty and accurate perception of the participants
- it is very hard to know whether what is being assessed is early or in fact adult attachment
34
Influence of early attachment on later relationships:
- confounding variables (L)
- some studies do measure attachment in infancy
- associations between attachment quality and later development may be affected by confounding variables
- genetically influenced personality may be an influence on factors
- cannot be sure whether it is early attachment and not some other factor influencing later development
