Explanations of attachment: Flashcards
(23 cards)
Dollard and Miller (1950)
Dollard and Miller (1950) proposed the Cupboard love theory which suggested that the reason children become attached to their caregiver is because they learn that the caregivers provide food and meet their other physiological needs.
This learning theory suggests that all behaviour including attachment behaviour can be explained by classical and operant conditioning.
Classical conditioning :
Classical conditioning is learning by association. When two stimuli are presented multiple times, such as food (unconditioned stimulus) and the mother (neutral stimulus), the feeling of pleasure (unconditioned response) starts to become associated with the mother, so the mother becomes the conditioned stimulus and pleasure becomes the conditioned response. So pleasure now happens whenever the mother appears.
Operant conditioning:
Operant conditioning is learnt through the consequences of trial and error, so through patterns of reinforcement. Pleasurable consequences for crying such as receiving food act as positive reinforcement, making crying behaviour when hungry more likely to happen. Also stopping crying (removing the negative stimulus) by providing food works as negative reinforcement for parents, making it more likely that parents will provide food the next time the baby cries.
Primary/secondary drives
Primary drives (desire to complete an action such as feeding and sleeping) are instinctive according to behavioural psychologists as they are based on a biological need. Secondary drives are desires to complete actions that develop due to a learned process (i.e; we desire money), in which they are associated with a satisfying primary drive such as food. This would class attachment as a secondary drive as it is learnt by the baby through access to food.
Learning theory evaluation
Learning theory is a clear and believable explanation for attachment , and the underlying theories on which it is based are backed up by significant amounts of well-controlled research. Also the theory has face validity. It ‘makes sense’ that babies would cry more if they learnt that it would gain them attention.
Learning theories applied to human feelings of attachment can be seen as environmentally reductionist in explaining the complex interactions between primary caregivers and their infants as a result of simplistic processes such as stimulus-response links and patterns of reinforcement.
The operant conditioning explanation for caregiver attachment to the baby is questionable in evolutionary terms as if the baby is repeatedly producing a negative effect (crying) then it would logically make more sense to remove the negative stimulus in a more permanent way such as by abandoning the baby somewhere. The removal of this negative stimulus would negatively reinforce the caregiver to abandon any other baby that they were supposed to care for, which goes against the survival of a species (if all babies are abandoned then very few will survive into adulthood). Therefore, given the continual survival of the human species, there must some other explanation for the caregiver’s attachment to the baby.
Bowlby’s monotropic theory
Bowlby’s monotropic theory is an evolutionary explanation of attachment. It states that babies have an innate attachment drive in order to survive, as security results in survival. This is shown by the fact that babies will stay close to the caregiver (usually the mother) for safety. Bowlby’s theory is based on Lorenz’s theory of imprinting and Harlow’s contact comfort theories.
Monotropy is the unique strong attachment that infants have to a single caregiver (usually the mother).
The concepts of a critical period and an internal working model
The concepts of a critical period and an internal working model
Bowlby proposed that there is a critical period for attachment. Attachment must happen in the first 2 ½ years after birth, or else they will never form an attachment and this will result in long-lasting negative social consequences. This idea is based on Lorenz’s work.
Bowlby also proposes that the first strong attachment a child has (its attachment with its primary caregiver) acts as a blueprint for all of the child’s future relationships. This internal working model acts as a guide on how to conduct future relationships such as if other people can be trusted, or if relationships are loving. This schema is based on the work of both Freud and Harlow.
Bowlby suggests that stronger attachments will form if the care is consistent and weaker attachments form from long and/or frequent separations.
As well as this, Bowlby states that infants with a good attachment to their primary caregiver will use the caregiver as a safe base from which to explore their environment, but will show distress if their carer leaves them or if a stranger approaches.
Finally, Bowlby suggests that babies instinctively use signals that attract a caregiver’s attention (such as crying, smiling, vocalisations), and caregivers are biologically programmed to find certain behaviours (such as smiling) cute and others (such as crying) distressing. These behaviours are called social releasers and are used to activate caregiver attachment.
To remember Bowlby’s theories use SCAMI:
Social releasers, Critical period Attachment-consistency, Monotrophy, and Internal working model.
Blowby theories evaluation
Bowlby’s work is based in part on Lorenz’s work. Imprinting studies on geese indicate the potential strength of attachment to a single attachment figure, explained by evolutionarily significant survival advantages. However these are findings of animal studies applied to humans, and geese and humans are very different in evolutionary terms, so Lorenz’s findings may lack the external validity with which to be applied to human infants.
Bowlby’s theory is criticised as suffering from alpha bias as it overexaggerates the differences between men and women by suggesting that it is/should only be the mother who acts as the primary caregiver and that the father’s role is simply to provide for the family. This lacks temporal validity as in modern society men are expected to do a much more equal amount of the childcare compared to women. Bowlby’s theory also has negative implications for working mothers or those bringing up a child who is are not the child’s mother (i.e: grandparents, gay male couples ..etc).
There are alternative explanations of attachment. Behaviourists claim that it is the environment, not biology, that creates attachment. The cupboard love learning theory suggests that attachment is based on patterns of reinforcement and the association of the mother with the food that she provides. Learning theory is well supported by numerous experiments.
The continuity hypothesis (see below) suggests that the types of relationships that we have as adults can be predicted by the attachments we have as infants due to the development of the internal working model. This is highly deterministic as people like to believe that they have full conscious control over their own relationships, suggesting responsibility for the success or failure of a relationship is set in infancy has socially sensitive implications such as potentially justifying domestic abuse (ie: because the man’s mother was violent to him this caused him to behave violently in all other relationships) which would have implications for the criminal justice system.
Ainsworth’s ‘Strange Situation’
Ainsworth and Bell (1971) aimed to measure different forms of infant attachment. They conducted a controlled observation recording the reactions of a child and mother (caregiver), who were introduced to a strange room with toys. In the strange situation about 100 middle-class American infants and their mothers took part. The infant’s behavior was observed during a set of predetermined activities.
The Strange Situation procedure involved the child experiencing eight ‘episodes’ of approximately 3 minutes each.
In this procedure the child is effectively observed playing for 20 minutes while caregivers and strangers enter and leave the room, recreating the flow of the familiar and unfamiliar presence in most children’s lives. Observers noted the child’s willingness to explore, separation anxiety, stranger anxiety and reunion behavior.
Ainsworth & Bell observed from the other side of a one-way mirror so that the children did not know that they were being observed.
Stage 1 – Mother and child enter the playroom
Stage 2 – The child is encouraged to explore
Stage 3 – Stranger enters and talks briefly to the mum, then attempts to interact with the infant
Stage 4 – Mothers leaves while the stranger is present
Stage 5 – Mother enters and the stranger leaves
Stage 6 – Mothers leaves
Stage 7 – Stranger returns and interacts with infant
Stage 8 – Mother returns and interacts with child, stranger leaves
The observers assessed the infant’s willingness to use its mum as a safe base and explore the environment in stages 2 and 5, assessed separation anxiety in stages 4 and 6, assessed reunion response in stages 5 and 8, and assesses stranger anxiety in stages 3,4, and 7.
Ainsworth’s ‘Strange Situation’ that provided evidence for the different Types of attachment: secure, insecure-avoidant and insecure-resistant
The findings provided evidence for three distinct attachment types that ainsworth called Insecure-Avoidant, Insecure-Resistant, and Secure. These types also seemed to correlate with the level of sensitive responsiveness of the parents, suggesting that secure attachment develops due to the attention of a consistently positive and responsive mother.
15% of infants were classified as Insecure-avoidant (Type A). These infants consistently kept a distance away from their mothers, and did not use her as a secure base, though still explored freely. They had low stranger anxiety and little separation anxiety. They also didn’t attempt to seek comfort from their mothers when they returned. The mothers of these babies appeared to show little sensitive responsiveness.
70% of infants were classified as Secure (Type B). This is the ideal attachment type. Secure infants used their mothers as a safe base as they explored the environment. These infants had high stranger anxiety and separation anxiety, but had a happy reunion response that allowed them to settle quickly back into exploration. Mothers of these infants showed sensitive responsiveness.
15% of infants were classed as Insecure-resistant (Type C). These infants would not explore the environment and were inconsistent about wanting closeness with or distance from their mum. They had high stranger anxiety and separation anxiety, but were unable to settle when reunited with their mothers, rejecting her attention. The mothers of these infants seemed inconsistent with their sensitive responsiveness.
Conclusions: Most US children appeared to be securely attached. The results highlight the role of the mother’s behaviour in determining the quality of attachment.
This led to the conceptualisation of the Caregiver Sensitivity Hypothesis, which suggests that a mother’s behaviour towards their infant predicts their attachment type.
Evaluation of Strange Situation
Replicable/high inter-observer reliability- As the research is highly operationalised, observers have a clear view of how a securely attached infant should behave, due to the 4 specific criteria that Ainsworth used. For this reason, the research had high inter-rater reliability.
It is also reliable as it was a highly controlled observational study with a clear standardised procedure and behavioural categories, so could easily be replicated with the same results obtained.
The Strange Situation procedure has been replicated across many different cultural groups, enhancing the generalisability of its findings.
A criticism of the study is that it has low ecological validity, and the results may not be applicable outside of the lab. The environment of the study was controlled and the eight scripted stages of the procedure (e.g. mum and stranger entering and leaving the room at set times) would be unlikely to happen in real life.
Cultural variations in attachment, including van Ijzendoorn
Individualist cultures value independence with each working to their own individual goals e.g. USA and Europe (Western Cultures).
Collectivist cultures value cooperation with each working towards the family or group goals e.g. Japan and Israel (Eastern Cultures)
Van Ijzendoorn & Kroonenberg (1988) aimed to investigate if attachment styles (secure and insecure) are universal (the same) across cultures, or culturally specific (vary considerably from place to place, due to traditions, the social environment, or beliefs about children).
They analysed data from other studies using a method called meta analysis. Data from 32 studies in 8 different countries was analyzed, involving a total of around 2000 infant participants.
All the 32 studies used the strange situation procedure to study attachment. Using a meta analysis (statistical technique) they calculated the average percentage for the different attachment styles (e.g. secure, avoidant, resistant) in each country.
Average findings were relatively consistent with Ainsworth’s original research - Secure 65% - Avoidant 21% - Resistant 14%. Intra-cultural variation was nearly 1.5 times greater than the cross-cultural variations. Van Ijzendoorn speculated that this was linked to differences in socio-economic factors and levels of stress that varied between samples used within each country. 6/8 countries produced findings that were proportionally consistent with Ainsworth & Bell. Non-western collectivist countries like Japan (27%) & Israel (29%) revealed a higher incidence of resistant than avoidant children, whereas individualistic western countries like Germany (35%) had a higher incidence of avoidant than resistant. Chinese findings revealed the lowest rate of secure attachments (50%) with the remaining children falling into the other categories equally, and Britain had the highest rate of secure attachments (75%). Secure attachments were the most common (50% or more in all cultures) and insecure-resistant were least common. It was concluded that the modest cross-cultural differences reflect the effects of mass media, which portrays similar notions of parenting.
The general trend towards secure attachment suggests that it is the globally preferred attachment style, suggesting it may be the innate/natural way for a caregiver to interact with their baby.
Evaluation in Cultural variations in attachment
Comparison is aided by the standardised methodology. The use of the strange situation as a procedure means that a comparison can be made across cultures, and the reliability is therefore high
The study was not globally representative -Van Ijzendoorn & Kroonenberg recognised that data from less Western-oriented cultures were required to establish a more global perspective attachment classifications, pointing out that Africa, South America, and Eastern European socialist countries were not represented.
Overall findings are misleading - As a disproportionately high number of the studies reviewed were conducted in the USA (18/32), the overall findings would have been distorted by these. This means that the apparent consistency between cultures might not genuinely reflect how much attachment types vary between cultures. Results for Germany misleading as German families value independent behaviour, so secure children may have been socialised out of using mother as a secure base. Misrepresentative for Japan as Japanese infants are almost never separated from their mothers in the first two years of life, so are very unused to being left alone. Israeli results misleading as the sample used for that country were being raised in a Kibbutz, a communal home where they would rarely encounter strangers (raised by a nurse) but would often be away from their mothers.
Bowlby’s theory of maternal deprivation
Bowlby proposed the idea of Monotropy, that is, that infants form a single unique attachment bond with their mother, and that this is needed for healthy psychological development in infants.
Maternal deprivation is not receiving suitable emotional care from a maternal figure.
If attachment is disrupted/not formed within 2 ½ years since birth then the baby will never form an attachment and the lack of stimulation will have permanent negative intellectual and emotional consequences due to deprivation which will be permanent.
ADDIDDAS to remember the effects of maternal deprivation: Aggression, Delinquency, Dwarfism, Intellectual retardation, Depression, Dependency, Affectionless Psychopathy, Social maladjustment.
Three of consequences of deprivation that Bowlby outlines are delinquency (due to delayed social development these children often show behaviour outside of acceptable norms such as petty crime) , affectionless psychopathy (due to delayed emotional development children are unable to show caring behaviour to others or empathy for people’s feelings, and feel little guilt over harmful actions), and low IQ (due to delayed intellectual development their general cognitive abilities are lower than those of peers).
The continuity hypothesis states that prolonged separation/deprivation from the mother limits the development of an effective schema (internal working model) for later relationships. If this schema fails to develop properly then it will lead to unsuccessful childhood and adulthood relationships as well as issues with their own parenting skills.
Bowlby (1944) The 44 juvenile thieves:
Aim, procedure, findings
Bowlby (1944) The 44 juvenile thieves: their characteristics and home life
Aim: To investigate the long-term effects of maternal deprivation.
Procedure: He selected an opportunity sample of 88 children attending his clinic.
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.
The two groups were matched for age and IQ.
The children and their parents were interviewed and tested by a psychiatrist (Bowlby), a psychologist and a social worker focusing specifically on their early life experiences.
Findings: 14 children from the theft group were identified as affectionless psychopaths, 12 of those had experienced prolonged separation of more than six months from their mothers in their first two years of life whereas only 5 of the 30 children not classified as affectionless psychopaths had experienced separations. Out of the 44 children in the control group, only 2 had experienced prolonged separations and none of them were affectionless psychopaths.
This suggests that the affectionless psychopathy may have led to criminal/delinquent behaviour and may be linked to the periods of separation that thieves experienced in early life.
Evaluation for Bowlby (1944)
The 44 juvenile thieves:
However this research was only correlational, so a third factor such as extreme poverty, criminal relatives, or a family history of mental issues like psychopathy could be related both to the early separation and to the children’s behavioural difficulties.
This was an opportunity sample, so these delinquents weren’t necessarily a representative sample of children who have experienced long separations. They were likely brought to Bowlby’s clinic because they were extreme cases, meaning that the external validity of this study is questionable.
Bowlby’s theories come from assuming findings from animal studies should be applied to humans, but there are significant biological and psychological differences between humans and even our closest evolutionary relative, meaning that such findings can’t be validly generalised to humans.
Bowlby’s Maternal Deprivation theory is supported by Harlow’s (1958) research with monkeys. He showed that monkeys reared in isolation from their mother suffered emotional and social problems in older age. The monkey’s never formed an attachment (privation) and as such grew up to be aggressive and had problems interacting with other monkeys.
what is Institutionalisation
Institutionalisation is living away from a family environment, such as in a children’s home or hospital.
Romanian orphan studies: effects of institutionalisation
Extended stays in institutions can result in children permanently behaving according to the rule of the institution and losing their personal identity (deindividuation), affectionless psychopathy, delinquency, and low IQ.
Romanian orphans- The fall of the communist government in 1989 revealed the terrible conditions of up to 300,000 orphans. Contraception had been banned so many families had given up excess children to orphanages. The orphans lacked physical and emotional care from the staff and many were malnourished and abused.
Whereas deprivation is not receiving suitable emotional care from a primary attachment figure, and can happen with both frequent and/or extended absences, privation is the total lack of any attachment bond (this happened to the Romanian orphans).
Rutter (2011)
Rutter (2011) aimed to understand the impact that this privation had on the romanian orphans. Studied 165 Romanian orphans adopted into British families. The children were followed in four groups; Group 1 were 58 children under the age of 6 months, Group 2 were 59 children between the ages of 6 and 24 months, Group 3 were 48 children over 24 months, and Group 4 was a control group of 52 british adoptees. At the start of the observation half of the Romanian children were severely malnourished and had low IQ compared to children of the same age. Each group was assessed at ages 4, 6, 11, and 15.
At age 6 children adopted after 6 months showed disinhibited attachment and were overly friendly with strange adults. At 11 just over half (54%) of the Romanian adopted children that showed disinhibited attachment at six still displayed the behaviour. Children adopted after 6 months showed significant delays in intellectual development, scoring lower on IQ tests and with difficulty concentrating, with those adopted after 24 months showing an average IQ of 77. In a small number of cases (only in the Romanian orphans), quasi-autism tendencies were identified, with children having problems understanding the meaning of social contexts. Intellectual problems continued at the 15 year follow-up.
Rutter concluded that adoption within the first six months of life is important to stop the effects of deprivation and privation from becoming permanent, however there may be some recovery as children develop, suggesting that the critical period is more of a sensitive period.
Evaluation for Rutter (2011)
Research on the negative effects of institutionalisation changed policies around adoption and care in orphanages and other institutional settings. Key workers in institutions ensured a higher level of care, and adoption at an early age and suitable care from the new family ensured by regular follow-ups were prioritised.
This study provided detailed measurements through the use of interviews and observations of the children’s behaviors. The problem is that it is not easy to find out information about the institutional experience for the child and therefore we don’t know the extent of early privation experienced by these children.
Another problem with this type of study is that once the children were adopted they may not wish to take part in the study anymore so the results would not be representative
Children not randomly assigned to adoption and control groups, but were selected by the new parents, so it could be that the more sociable children were more likely to be adopted.
Hodges & Tizard (1989)
Hodges & Tizard (1989) conducted a longitudinal natural experiment using 65 children had been placed into institutional care before the age of 4 months, where there was a no-attachment policy.
By 4 years, 24 had been adopted, 15 returned home & the remaining 26 were still in the institution. Assessments were taken at ages 8 & 16 years. A control group of normal children were used. Data was obtained through interviews with the adolescents and their mothers (and sometimes fathers).
A self-report questionnaire on social difficulties was completed by adolescents and finally, teachers completed a postal questionnaire, focusing on the adolescents’ relationships with teachers and peers. The findings revealed that maternal deprivation was overcome to a large extent by adopted children, with them going on to develop stronger and longer lasting attachments to adoptive parents once placed in families in comparison to restored and institutionalised groups who made limited recoveries.
However all three groups were more oriented towards adult attention, and had more difficulties with peers and fewer close relationships than a matched control group of adolescents, suggesting that early institutional experience had damaging long-term effects, but that some effects could be overcome with appropriate substitute care.
It can be concluded that it does not support the Maternal Deprivation Hypothesis as the findings demonstrate that recovery was possible given the correct circumstances in the environment.
The children who were adopted may have had adoptive new families that made a considerable effort to attach to them, where as the restored children returned to the same difficult circumstance. This demonstrates that the subsequent after care can affect the recovery from privation.
It can be concluded to support the Maternal Deprivation Hypothesis as the findings show that both groups of children have difficulties outside of the family.
As they both experience this difficulty it shows that privation has a lasting impact upon later development.
Evaluation for Hodges & Tizard (1989)
Hodges and Tizard’s research can be seen to be ethical, as it used a natural experiment meaning that the independent variable was naturally occurring, rather than being deliberately manipulated by a researcher.
Lacks random allocation – As children were already placed in the institution, participants were not randomly allocated to conditions, which means that individual differences between the children could influence the findings in unanticipated ways.
The research appears to suggest that positive subsequent care can minimise the harmful effects of privation, however, the adopted children might have been adopted because of personal characteristics such as apparent resilience or being more attractive in some way. These characteristics might explain why they made a partial recovery rather than the fact that they were adopted, which lowers the internal validity of the research.
