Unit 1 - Attachment Flashcards
Define attachment.
A strong emotional and reciprocal bond between two people.
Describe the Social Learning Theory.
Classical conditioning - food (UCS) produces pleasure (UCR). The child associates food and mother together. The mother becomes the conditioned stimulus and happiness becomes the conditioned response leading to an attachment formed (Cupboard Love Theory)
Operant conditioning - the presence of the caregiver is reinforcing for the infant. The infant gains pleasure/reward as they are being fed. The behaviour of the infant is reinforcing for the caregiver (from smiles). The reinforcement process is therefore reciprocal and strengthens the emotional bond between the two.
Evaluation for SLT.
Harlow’s research suggested monkeys became attached to the soft surrogate mother rather than the one who fed it which suggests that attachment has more to do with comfort than food.
Lorenz found goslings imprinted on the first moving object they saw which suggests attachment is innate and not learnt.
Describe bowlby’s theory.
Infants are born with a set of instinctive behaviours which have evolved through natural selection.
Social releasers are signals that are appealing to caregivers and involve the way the infant looks, cries, smiles etc which leads to responses such as feeding and comforting.
There is also a critical period where infants much form an attachment to a caregiver (0-5 years). If ‘window of opportunity’ is missed, the ability to form an attachment is lost.
The child’s relationship with a primary caregiver provides an internal working model which influences later relationships. This concept of monotropy suggests that there is one relationship which is more important than all the rest.
Evaluate bowlby’s theory.
Harlows monkeys - showed that monkeys reared in isolation from their mother suffered emotional and social problems in older age. The monkeys never formed an attachment and grew up to be aggressive and had problems interacting with other monkeys.
Describe secure attachment.
1) distress on separation
2) pleasure at reunion
3) explored playroom when caregiver was present
Describe insecure-resistant attachment.
1) very distressed on separation
2) resisted contact on reunion
3) express anger
4) not willing to explore
Describe insecure-avoidant attachment.
1) did not show distress on separation
2) showed very little pleasure on reunion
3) willing to explore
Summary of strange situation
1) child plays with mother
2) stranger enters/ mother leaves
3) stranger comforts child
4) mother returns/ stranger leaves
5) child is left alone
6) stranger enters
7) mother enters/ stranger leaves
Attachment type stats
Secure = 70% Avoidant = 20% Resistant= 10%
Evaluation of SST
Lacks population validity - used American infants so cannot be generalised.
Low ecological validity.
Easy to replicate - standardised procedure
Discuss research findings on cultural variations.
Ijzendoorn & Kroonenberg found that secure attachment was the majority of infants.
Lowest % of secure in China = 50%
Highest % of secure in UK = 75%
Western countries that support independence such as Germany had high levels of insecure avoidant.
Evaluation of cultural variations.
Many studies used in the meta analysis had biased samples which cannot claim to be representative of each culture. E.g only 36 infants where used in the Chinese study which is a very small sample size for such a populated country.
Based on assumptions and norms of behaviour in western cultures.
What is disruption of attachment?
When children have formed an attachment and are then separated from their attachment figure.
What is deprivation?
Being separated from loved ones.
What is privation?
Never having had an attachment bond.
Attachment disorder (effect of disruption)
Caused by experience of neglect or frequent change of caregivers.
May be withdrawn, lack social skills.
Inhibited (reactive) or disinhibited (overfriendly).
Poor parenting (effect of D)
Ex-institutionalised women of ten had difficulties as parents (cycle of privation)
Deprivation dwarfism (effect of D)
Children who experience P+D are often physically smaller.
Emotional disturbance may affect the production of hormones.
Explain the Genie Case Study. (Effect of privation)
(Failure to form an attachment)
Found at the age of 13. Spent all her life severely neglected and abused. No opportunity to interact with other people.
Genie’s motor skills were very poor and so were her language and cognitive skills. Her language did not develop properly.
Evaluation of Genie Study.
She never fully recovered despite spending time with psychologists that worked hard to help her overcome the effects of her early experiences. However, she was able to to develop attachments to her foster carers despite suffering from privation.
Problems with this conclusion as we cannot be sure that Genie’s developmental problems were not present from birth, and not due to experiencing privation.
What is institutional care?
Situations where children spend part of their childhood in a hospital, orphan, or a residential home.
Describe an effect of institutional care study.
Hodges and Tizard studied the social and emotional development of 65 children who had been in institutional care from a few months old. Carers were discouraged from forming attachments and the children had an average of 50 different caretakers by the age of 4. (Natural experiment)
Describe the results of the effect of institutional care study.
All children who had spent their early years in care were more attention seeking and showed some difficulties in their social relationships. For example, they were more likely to be bullies and have no friends. This shows that IC effects peer relationships.
At 16, those adopted were securely attached to new families, but those who returned to biological families were not securely attached.
