Harlow: attachment

Question 1

what is attachment

Answer 1

1. Main & Solomon - an emotional bond between an infant and one or few significant adult
2. Mainly mother

Question 2

early approaches

Answer 2

1. Different schools of thought
   1950s and 60s - dominated by behaviourist and psychodynamic approaches, focus on oral gratification e.g. attachment as a byproduct of feeding, against spoiling children with love and taking a more distant approach
2. Dominant view - attachment is a secondary drive, after fulfilling hunger and thirst
3. Mother-infant bond result of basic drives which leads to the attachment, affection isn’t necessary for attachment

Question 3

Interaction

Answer 3

1. Contrary to behaviorist/psychodynamic views - affectionate interactions are key for creating bonds
2. Harlow - predisposed with creating a different attachment with mother or caregiver which is independent of basic needs
3. Harlow said that behaviourist and psychodynamic approaches showed very little attention and importance to this
4. Argues that early bonds persistent beyond feeding, important for future development

Question 4

Using monkeys

Answer 4

1. Harlow wanted a ‘sturdy’ colony of monkeys for research - healthy etc.
2. Controlled environments - highest survival rate, no maternal protest
3. Isolated infant monkeys from mother, in individual cages in the same room
4. Observations - Disinhibited attachment, antisocial behaviour as a result, mating behaviour difficult, continued to isolate even when put in social groups, didn’t create hierarchy - useful for survival

Question 5

love in infant monkeys

Answer 5

1. Quest for evidence on role of love and affection - backed up by Bowly but with no evidence
2. Examined - role of comfort vs feeding, full and partial social isolation effects, maternal and peer deprivation

Question 6

Study 1 - comfort vs feeding

Answer 6

1. Infant and mother separated 6-12 hours after birth
2. Raised by surrogate mother - either a wire mother or wood mother covered with terry cloth
3. Wire mother vs cloth mother - wire mother had feeding bottle attached, cloth mother present
4. Infant goes to feed on wire mother but goes back to comfort mother
5. Monkeys spent more time on cloth mother irrespective of feeding as monkey is comforted by cloth mother
6. Criticisms - can’t discipline, are there 24/7, interaction isn’t there - not like natural world
7. Findings - behavioural deficits remained, interaction is important, as those deficits may be a byproduct of the lack of reciprocal interaction

Question 7

Study 2 - full and partial isolation

Answer 7

1. Monkeys isolated in a chamber - pit of despair
2. Only interaction was the experimenter dropping some food
3. For up to two years, varied isolation periods (0-2, 0-6 months, 0-80 days)
4. Findings - fearful responses, threat when paired with other monkeys - would crouch, freeze and flee, this response would continue 2 years after being removed from the pit, monkeys showed disturbing behaviour (hurting themselves), unable to form social structures and to mate, continued to isolate
5. Isolated for 6 months - higher tendency to adapt when paired with other monkeys but still froze when attacked and still social difficulty
6. “Emotionally distressed and devoid of social behaviour”
7. Isolated for 80 days - critical period for attachment, adapted faster and showed normal behaviour after 8 months

Question 8

Study 3 - maternal vs peer deprivation

Answer 8

1. Types - normal mother but no play with peers, surrogate cloth mother and could play with peers, normal mother and play with peers
2. Findings - normal mother + play was most normal and behaviourally mature with complex play patterns most similar to normal, surrogate + play almost normal but with slightly defensiveness, normal mother + no play showed normal defenses but low play and limited sex drive

Question 9

Group psychotherapy

Answer 9

1. Monkeys reared in isolation moved to zoo after reaching maturity - behaviour improved here back to a normal state
2. After returning to the lab - behaviour deteriorated showing peer group importance

Question 10

debate and controversy

Answer 10

1. Harlow’s work - important for creating a developmental framework for attachment foundation based on experimental findings
2. Provided evidence of dangers of early isolation, existence of a critical period, importance of mothering, importance of peer groups, importance of context play vs fear
3. Problems with comparing rhesus monkeys to children - development time (monkeys develop faster than children), role of cognition, social interactions e.g. sexual behaviour, family/social constellations

Question 11

Impact

Answer 11

1. Generating research in sociability - schaffer and emerson (1964), infants have an innate ability to seek interactions with other individuals, can form multiple attachments
2. Led to Bowlby’s stage theory - attachment is an adaptive behaviour, which forms during a sensitive period in development as a result of interactions between infant and caregiver, mental health and behavioural problems can be attributed to early childhood, bowlby’s theory suggests that children come into the world biologically pre-programmed to form attachments with others, because this will help them to survive
3. Bowlby’s 4 stages of attachment - pre attachment (0-3), indiscriminate (3-7), discriminate (7-9) and multiple (9+)
4. Stage approaches critiques - limited because they don’t consider individual differences, different types of attachment at different rates, western society and cross cultural differences
5. Types of attachment - Ainsworth’s strange situation, individual differences in how infants create the attachment: Caregiver and infant enter the room, Stranger enters the room, Caregiver leaves the room, Caregiver returns and stranger leaves, Caregiver leaves, Stranger returns, Caregiver returns and stranger leaves
6. Findings - insecure avoidant (20%, indifferent to caregiver, unconcerned if present or absent, signs of distress when alone), insecure resistance (10%, ambivalent to caregiver, anxious of environment), secure (70%, distressed by departure, easily comforted, stranger gives limited comfort)
7. Criticisms - limited and specific, non diverse participant pool, doesn’t take into account cultural differences, doesn’t necessarily reflect interaction in the natural environment (ecological validity)
8. Privation - an attachment has never been present
9. Deprivation - an existing attachment is lost
10. Separation - infant and caregiver separated
11. Genie case study - girl locked in a room for most of her early life with little outside contact, aged 13 physical problems and poor social skills and no language abilities
12. Maternal deprivation consequences - delinquency, reduced intelligence, aggression, depression, affectionless psychopathy ‘inability to show affection or concern for others’
13. Goldfarb - evidence for maternal deprivation, 15 children in foster homes, 15 in an institution