Paper 1: Attachment

Define caregiver-infant interaction

Define caregiver-infant interaction

Any social interaction between caregiver and infant

1. Reciprocity

2. Interactional Synchrony

What is the difference between reciprocity and IS?

Reciprocity is any two-way interaction between a caregiver and infant like a conversation in which both are active contributors

IS is a two-way interaction between caregiver and infant wherein both behaviour and emotions are mirrored, which allows us to discern the quality of interaction

Outline Meltzoff and Moore's study

Meltzoff and Moore found newborns younger than 2 weeks old reciprocated an adult's expression (based on behavioural categories of tongue protrusion and mouth opening) with a .92 inter-observer reliability

Evaluate caregiver-infant interactions

• DeYong found that infants who interacted with objects simulating the behavioural categories in Meltzoff and Moore’s study made little response, which suggests them to be social

• Isabella found that mothers with low or high interactional synchrony had children with insecure attachment types

• Social Sensitivity; Negative implications for working mothers and certain social groups

Outline Schaffer and Emerson's Study

A longitudinal study of babies in Glasgow where babies were visited and mothers interviewed every month for 12 months, then at 18 months

• 50% of babies displayed separation anxiety by 30 weeks

• 80% of babies displayed separation anxiety by 40 weeks

• 78% of infants developed multiple attachments by one year

Outline Schaffer's stages of attachment

1. Pre-Attachment (0-2 months): Preference for social stimuli, no stranger or separation anxiety

2. Indiscriminate Attachment (2-7 months): Attachments with people and objects

3. Discriminate Attachment (7-9 months): Separation anxiety with primary attachment figure

4. Multiple Attachment (9 months+): Stranger Anxiety

Evaluate Schaffer's stages of attachment

• Methodology; Longitudinal study but only composed of 60 infants from middle-class in Glasgow

• Bushnell found 2/3rd of newborns preferred their mother's face to strangers, indicating that the pre-attachment stage may be wrong

• Cultural relativism; Sagi observed that babies in collectivist cultures formed multiple attachments from the onset

Outline Lorenz's study

Lorenz found that goslings hatched naturally imprinted onto their natural mother, while goslings hatched in an incubator imprinted onto Lorenz.

• Goslings only imprinted during a critical period of 4-25 hours and Lorenz noted the process to be irreversible

Evaluate Lorenz's study

• Guiton found chicks imprinted onto rubber gloves while being fed for their first few weeks, which supports imprinting as not being specific to species

• Guiton additionally found that while chicks initially tried mating with rubber gloves, the chicks would later engaged in normal sexual behaviour with chicks

Outline Harlow's study procedures

Harlow placed 16 baby monkeys into 4 conditions

• Cloth mother effigy with milk

• Wire mother effigy with milk

• Cloth mother effigy without milk

• Wire mother effigy without milk

Harlow found that monkeys preferred the cloth mother over the wire mother regardless of whether the cloth mother produced milk, as the monkeys would cling to the cloth mother even in distress

Evaluate Harlow's study

• Green states that all mammals possess the same biological brain structure

• Ethics; Monkeys suffered extreme mental distress and long-term consequences

Define Bowlby's attachment theory

Bowlby believed attachment was innately programmed to help babies survive through monotropy, a single emotional bond between an infant and primary attachment figure, who would be attached with during the infant's critical period

Outline CrIIMPS

Cr - Critical Period (2 years) I - Innate Programming I - Internal Working Model M - Monotropy P - Proximity S - Social Releasers

Evaluate Bowlby's Monotropic Theory

• Based on imprinting in Lorenz's study, which is an animal study and may not be applicable to humans

• Harlow found baby monkeys preferred close contact with their mother over food

• Social sensitivity; Burman and feminists believe Bowlby places too much emphasis on women and pushes them into a particular lifestyle

Outline the Learning Theory of attachment

1. Classical conditioning

2. Operant conditioning

Define classical and operant conditioning

CC: NS becomes associated with UCS, which evokes an UCR, and becomes the CS that evokes an CR

OC: Animals have 'drives' that motivates behaviour, such as discomfort, which is alleviated by the PR that is supplied and associated with the SR

Evaluate the learning theory of attachment

• Based on animal studies such as Pavlov's dogs and Skinner's research with mice and pigeons, which may not be generalisable to humans

• Harlow found that monkeys would prefer the cloth mother even if the wire mother produced food

• Reductionist; calls attachment a stimulus response but Isabella found that the quality of child-caregiver interaction was important

Define Ainsworth's Strange Situation

A controlled experiment to test the nature of attachment in infants aged between 9-18 months through a stressful situation

Outline types of attachment

1. Secure

2. Insecure Avoidant (Avoids social interaction)

3. Insecure Resistant (Seeks but rejects intimacy)

Outline Ainsworth's Strange Situation procedures

1. Caretaker plays with infant

2. Caretaker sits and lets infant play alone

3. Stranger enters room and speaks with caretaker then mother; caretaker leaves

4. Stranger talks to infant while caretaker is absent

5. Stranger leaves and caretaker returns

6. Infant alone in room

7. Stranger enters room and interacts with infant

8. Stranger leaves and caretaker returns

Outline Ainsworth's Strange Situation findings

• 66% secure attachment

• 22% insecure avoidant

• 12% insecure resistant

Evaluate Ainsworth's Strange Situation

• Vaughn and Waters conducted the SS at the child’s home and found similar results to Ainsworth

• Bick found Ainsworth's SS to have a .94 inter-observer reliability, and Vaughn and Waters did a SS variation at the infants' homes and found similar results

• Cultural relativism; Japanese children rarely separated from mothers, so Takahashi found children displayed high separation anxiety

Outline Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg's study

A meta analysis of 32 SS studies across the world from 8 different countries

• Secure attachment was most common

• Insecure-avoidant was the second most common in individualist cultures

• Insecure-resistant was the second most common in Japan and Israel (collectivist cultures)

• Intra-cultural differences were 1.5 times greater than inter-cultural differences

Evaluate Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg's study

• SS is highly controlled and replicable, which leads to less confounding variables, though highly controlled nature may lead to demand characteristics

• Ethnocentric research; Based on American ideals, but Rothenbaum found negative 'clingy' behaviour in the west was considered healthy in Japan

• Posada found the nature of security to be similar across cultures, which suggest universality and nurture over nature

Define Bowlby's theory of maternal deprivation.

Separation from their mother, especially during a child's 2.5 year CR, leads to the degradation of the child's mental health, which could risk intellectual and behavioural disorders such as affectionless psychopathy

Outline Bowlby's 44 Thieves study

Bowlby studied 88 children from his child clinic, 44 of which were referred for stealing

• Bowlby diagnosed 16 of 44 thieves as 'affectionless psychopaths'

• 86% of affectionless psychopaths experienced early separation from their mother

Evaluate Bowlby's 44 Thieves study

• Spitz found many institutionalised children in South America suffered anaclitic depression, which Bowlby attributed to disruption of attachment with their mother

• Real world applications; incentivised parents to be with their children, and hospitals have allowed parents to visit their children

• Rutter argues privation was the reason behind delinquency as some children experienced changes in caregiver and were unable to form a bond

• All children came from Bowlby's clinic and Bowlby came up with the term affectionless psychopaths, which may lead to potential researcher bias

Define prototype and revisionist perspectives

Prototype: Internal working model is consistent and can be used to predict future relationships in childhood Revisionist: Internal working model revises throughout life due to life experiences

Outline research into prototype and revisionist perspectives

• Belsky found securely attached children were more likely to form close relationships

• Smith found insecure-avoidant children were more likely to be bullied and insecure-resistant children were more likely to become bullies

Outline Hazan and Shaver's study procedure

Questionnaire in Rocky Mountain News, a newspaper in a small American town with 620 participants (205 men, 415 women) and asked them 3 types of questions

1. Current or most important relationship

2. Judgement of attitudes toward love

3. Invesitgation of attachment history

Outline Hazan and Shaver's study results

• Positive correlation found between attachment type and love experiences (Securely attached people had a more positive outlook on love)

• Securely attached people had longer relationships

• Avoidant people were more jealous and feared intimacy

• Resistant people were the most prone to loneliness

Outline Hazan and Shaver's study findings

Suggests correlation between early attachment styles and future relationships, supporting the prototype perspective.

Later research showed 22% of adults changed their attachment type over the last year, which supports the revisionist perspective

Evaluate Hazan and Shaver's study

• Biological Determism; Prototype Perspective claims that a poor internal working model will lead to poor relationships

• Zimmerman found that life events such as counselling and parenthood changed insecure attachment types to secure attachment

• Fraley found low correlations between attachment type in childhood and later relationships

How does early attachment influence parenting?

• Harlow found motherless monkeys went on to be bad mothers

• Bailey found women raised in institutions had more difficulty parenting and sent their children to care more than home-raised women

Define institutionalisation

The effect that living in an institutional setting, such as an orphanage, may have on child development

Define privation

Inability of a child to form an attachment due to displacement

Outline Rutter's study procedure

Assessed 111 Romanian institutionalised children adopted in the UK and Canada on their abilities

• Average IQ for Romanian orphans was 63; for those older than 6 months, it was 45

• 51% of Romanian orphans were in the bottom 3% of weight and shorter than average

• Poor emotional development for all orphans

Outline Rutter's study findings

• Average IQ increased to 110; those adopted after 6 months had an IQ increased to 90

• By 10, physical differences ceased

• O'Connor found late adoptees showed slower signs of development than earlier adoptees

• Kumsta identified 4 patterns due to deprivation available in children: quasi autism, inattention, disinhibited attachment, and cognitive impairment

Evaluate Rutter's study

• Longitudinal nature allows experimenter to see change; without such studies, we may believe effects of institutionalisation are irreversible due to lack of immediate evidence

• Natural experiment leads to extraneous variables, as different orphans were treated differently

• Real life applications; shows that institutionalisation effects can be reversed, and has led to reform in institutions, such as key workers and caretakers