AQA Psychology attachment

Reciprocity

an interaction where the caregiver and infant respond to eachother’s signals

Interactional synchrony

temporal co-ordination of behaviour, the caregiver and infant reflect eachother’s actions and behaviour

Alert phases

Phases where the baby alerts the caregiver that they are ready for interaction

Meltzoff and Moore

an adult would display of of 3 expressions/ gestures, the babies responses filmed and observed by independent observers, babies responses mirrored the adults

Imprinting

animals attach to the first thing they see moving after hatching

sexual imprinting

displaying courtship behaviour to the same species imprinted on as an infant

Lorenz’s procedure

Randomly divided a clutch of goose eggs, ½ hatched with mother goose in natural environmentand ½ hatched in an incubator with Lorenz as the first moving object they saw.

Lorenz’s findings

incubator group followed Lorenz, while control group followed their mother, when groups mixed up the incubator group continued to follow Lorenz, demonstrating the concept of imprinting.

When is an animals critical period?

12-16 hours after hatching

Case study showing sexual imprinting

Lorenz 1952 described a peacock that had been brought up in a reptile house in a zoo where first moving object it saw were giant tortoises, as an adult it displayed courtship behavior towards tortoises instead of peacocks.

Harlow’s monkeys procedure

1958 brought up 16 baby monkeys with two wire model mothers, milk dispensed by wire mother but not by soft mother

Harlow’s monkeys findings

found babies cuddled the cloth mother in preference to the wire mother often clinging to it 22 hours a day, sought comfort from cloth mother when frightened, showed contact comfort was of more importance than food when it cam to attachment behaviour

Harlow’s monkeys and maternal deprivation

monkeys reared with only wire mothers only were the most dysfunctional, those with a soft toy did not develop normal behaviour, more aggressive and bred less

Harlow’s monkeys and critical period

concluded there was a critical period for this behaviour, a mother figure had to be introduced to an infant monkey within 90 days for an attachment to form after this time attachment was impossible and damage formed became irreversible

Evaluation of Lorenz

Generalisation to humans - mammalian attachment system very different to birds

Guiton et al 1966 - found chickens imprinted on yellow washing up gloves would try and mate with them as adults BUT with experience learned to prefer mating with other chickens

Evaluation of Harlow

theoretical value - profound effect on psychologist’s understanding of human attachment, evidence against learning theory

Ethical issues - long term harm done to monkeys BUT important study and arguably more ethical than if done to humans

Research on fathers having an important role in attachment

Grossman 2002 - longitudinal study, suggests fathers play a greater role in play rather than the nurturing aspect of attachment

Schaffer and Emerson 1964 - majority of babies attached to mothers first and fathers secondary

Field 1978 - compared fathers who were primary caregivers to mothers who were primary caregivers, found fathers are able to be the primary caregiver, the key to attachment is the level of responsiveness not the gender of the parent

Research of fathers not playing an important role in attachment

Grossman 2002 - suggests that the quality of attachment with the mother and not the father was related to attachment in adolescence

MacCallum and Golombok 2004 - found children growing up in single parent or same sex parents do not develop differently than those who grew up in a heterosexual 2 parent household

Scahffer and Emerson method

Glasgow 1964, 60 babies, visited monthly 1-12mth then once more at 18mth

Attachment measured in 2 ways - mothers responses to series of questions, stranger anxiety

Schaffer and Emerson findings

Between 25 and 32 weeks - 50% significant separation anxiety to particular adults usually mother - specific attachment

By 7 months 60% formed specific attachment

by 40 weeks 80% specific attachment and almost 30% multiple attachments

positives of Schaffer and Emerson

External validity - in own homes, ppts likely to act naturally

Longitudinal - internal validity

negatives of Schaffer and Emerson

sample all from same district

lacks temporal validity

what are the stages of attachment?

asocial, indiscriminate, specific, multiple attachments

Asocial stage

First few weeks, Behaviour towards objects and humans similar, some presence for familiar individuals as they can calm them down, happier in presence of humans

Indiscriminate stage

2-7 months preference for humans, recognise and prefer familiar adults, accept comfort from anyone, no separation or stranger anxiety

Specific stage

7 months stranger anxiety, separation anxiety to specific adult, this adult is their primary attachment figure, someone who offers the most interaction and responds to baby’s signals with most skill

Multiple attachment stage

after specific begin to show attachment behaviour to other adults they spend time with, secondary attachments

how does classical conditioning explain attachment?

baby gains pleasure from feeding and learns to associate pleasure with the caregiver

how does operant conditioning explain attachment?

baby cries and caregiver gives attention - positive reinforcement

baby learns that every time it cries it gets a positive response, carers are reinforced as they stop the crying - negative reinforcement

Drive reduction theory

Dollard and Miller - hungry infant is uncomfortable creating a drive to reduce the discomfort, when infant is fed the drive is reduced and causes feeling of pleasure, food becomes a primary reinforcer as it reinforces the behaviour to stop discomfort, person who provides food is associated with avoiding discomfort

weaknesses of learning theory as an explanation for attachment

animal research - Harlow’s monkey preferred cloth mother even if it did not feed them

Schaffer and Emerson - most infants’ primary attachment figure was their mother even though it was someone else who usually fed them

Tronick - study of tribe in DRC, babies fed by multiple people found the same as Schaffer

what did Bowlby believe to be innate?

proposed human infants have an innate tendency to form attachments

what are social releasers?

behaviours that babies perform to unlock the innate tendency of adults to care fro them, physical - typical baby face, behavioural - crying

what is the critical period?

the time in which babies must form an attachment or the child will be damaged socially, emotionally, intellectually and physically, between birth and 2 ½ years

what is monotropy?

the idea that babes form one very special attachment to an ever present person usually the mother

what is the internal working model?

model of expectations for relationships based on the child’s monotropic relationship

support for monotropic theory

Tronick’s study showing that babies aways formed the closest bond their biological mother even though they were not the only one feeding them

negatives of Bowlby’s theories

could be socially sensitive as it could be perceived as mothers being bad parents if they go to work instead of spending time with their child

support for social releasers

Brazelton - instructed caregivers to ignore baby’s social releasers, after initial distress babies laid motionless, suggests social releasers are a good way to begin interactions between infants and carers, babies need interactions to form attachments

Limitation of Bowlby

Temperament hypothesis - babies born with specific temperament so responsiveness doesn’t matter, Bokhorst found that identical twins had a more similar temperament than non-identical twins suggesting it is genetic

negatives of temperament hypothesis

could excuse parents being insensitive to their child

what studies support the internal working model?

McCarthy, Bailey, Hazan and Shaver’s love quiz

McCarthy’s study

studied adult women who as children had been defined as insecurely attached, problems with romance or friendships

Bailey’s study

99 mothers who had poor attachment experiences with their parents, more likely to have poor attachment to their infant, suggests that attachment patterns are passed down generations, supports IWM

Hazan and Shaver’s love quiz

found securely attached children reported happy lasting relationships, insecurely attached more likely to be divorced, single or separated

support for critical period

Hodges and Tizard - orphanage study showed that children who formed no attachment in infancy had difficulties with their peers

research against critical period

Kulchova longitudinal study - found twins who had no attachment at age 7 were able to fully recover emotionally, cognitively and intellectually

types of attachment

secure (type B), insecure avoidant (type A), insecure resistant (type C)

how frequent did Ainsworth find the attachment types were?

secure - 70%, insecure avoidant - 15%, insecure resistant - 15%

Characteristics of secure attachment

explore happily but regularly go back to caregiver, moderate separation and stranger anxiety, accept comfort from caregiver at reunion stage

characteristics of insecure avoidant attachment

explore freely do not seek proximity, little separation and stranger anxiety, do not require comfort at reunion stage

characteristics of insecure resistant attachment

seek greater proximity, lots of separation and stranger anxiety, resist comfort at reunion stage

positives for reliability of Ainsworth

good inter-observer reliability as the different observers judged behaviour with 94% accuracy

cultural variations of Ainsworth

Simonella et al - Italy 76 infants, 36% insecure avoidant 50% secure, explained by mothers working long hours

Jin et al - Korea found same proportion of insecure-secure attachments as Japan (more insecure), similar childrearing patterns

Takahashi et al

strange situation in Japan, childrearing practices where mother and child would not be separated for 2 years, mothers found the separation artificial would impact the way the mother acted and then also the baby

problems with the strange situation

ethnocentrism - culture, calling babies and mothers in other countries deficient, ethical issues - causes distress, sample sizes from studies too small

Myron-Wilson and Smith

bullying could be predicted by attachment types, questionnaire children aged 7-11, secure - unlikely to be involved in bullying, avoidant - likely to be victims, resistant - bullies

Main and Soloman 1986

analysed 200 strange situation videos, proposed 4th attachment type - insecure-disorganised, lack of consistent social behaviours, lack of coherent strategy for dealing with stress of separation, usually from children neglected or abused

positives of research into effects of early attachment

the finding that insecure is negative for children’s development highlights the need for educational and social work support for parents

problems of self report studies

individuals recall may be affected by the mood they are in at recall - encoding specificity principle, social desirability bias

Goldfarb’s study

followed 30 orphans up to age 12, half fostered before 4 months, age 12 IQ assessed, fostered group - 96, those in orphanage - 68, maternal deprivation leads to poor intellectual development

Bowlby’s thieves study

44 juvenile offenders, assessed for affectionless psychopathy - 14/44, 12 of the 14 experienced lengthy separation from their mothers before age 12, only 5 of the other 30 had been separated, maternal deprivation leads to poor emotional development

weaknesses of evidence regarding maternal deprivation

many studies conducted a while ago where parenting styles were different, Golfarb’s participants were war orphans

contradiction of Bowlby’s thieves study

Lewis 1945 - replicated study with 500 ppt, found no link between extended separation and criminality

Bucharest early intervention project - Zeanah et al 2005

allocated children randomly to stay in orphanage or be fostered, used strange situation to measure behaviours of children who had spent 90% of their life in care versus those who had never been in care, only 19% secure, 65% disorganised, 44% signs of disinhibited attachment

disinhibited attachment

attention seeking, clingy, lacking stranger anxiety

Rutter et al

monitored 165 romanian orphans adopted by english families vs UK children also adopted by english families, assessed physical, cognitive and emotional development

age 11 IQ assessed

if adopted before 6 months - 102

if adopted between 6 months and 2 years - 86

if adopted after 2 years - 77

found differences remined at 16

Eval of romanian orphan studies

findings can be applied to care homes - one key worker for a child

poor care in romanian orphans - hard to generalise

Rutter - no random allocation, long term effects unknown and ppts can withdraw