Psychology - attachment

What is interactional synchrony?

When a mother and infant reflect each other’s emotions and actions in a coordinated way

What are Schaffer’s stages of attachment?

Asocial
Indiscriminate
Specific
Multiple

What are the roles of the father according to research?

• Play and stimulation role (Grossman 2002)

• Can be primary caregivers and adopt behaviours of mothers (Tiffany Field 1978)

What is an internal working model and why is it important?

• IWM is mental representation a child has of how the relationship with their primary caregiver is

• Bowlby believes these have a powerful effect on future relationships as IWMs serve as models for other relationships

• Children will later form relationships similar to and in line with their IWMs

What are weaknesses of research into internal working models?

• IWMs are unconscious, but self-reports are conscious

What is used to measure attachment type in children?

Ainsworth’s strange situation

What are Ainsworth’s behaviours used to judge attachment?

• Proximity seeking

• Exploration and secure base behaviour

• Stranger anxiety

• Separation anxiety

• Response to reunion

What are the strange situation episodes?

• Child and mother enter unfamiliar playroom

• Child encourage to explore

• Stranger comes in and tries to interact with child

• Mother leaves child and stranger together

• Mother returns and stranger leaves

• Mother leaves

• Stranger returns

• Mother returns and is reunited with child

What are 3 attachment types?

• Insecure-avoidant (Type A)

• Secure attachment (Type B)

• Insecure-resistant (Type C)

What personality will an insecure-resistant child tend to develop?

Controlling and argumentative

What conclusions can be reached from Harlow’s research?

• Monkeys have an innate, unlearned need for comfort

• Suggests attachment concerns emotional security more than food

• Contact comfort is associated with lower levels of stress and a willingness to explore

What are Bowlby’s two laws from his monotropic theory?

Law of continuity - the more constant and predictable the relationship with the mother, the stronger the attachment

Law of accumulated separation - for there to be no future problems and the attachment to be secure and healthy, there should be no separation between the mother and infant

What is imprinting?

When a young animal eventually comes to recognise another animal/person or thing as a parent

What are two examples of cultural variation studies into attachments?

• Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg (1988) did a meta-analysis of 32 studies in 8 countries which looked into proportions of attachment types

• Simonella et al (2014) - Italian study where the strange situation was used to measure attachment in 70 6-12 month-old babies

What is maternal deprivation?

Describes the emotional and intellectual consequences of separation between a child and his or her mother

What is the limitation of Bowlby’s theory of maternal deprivation?

• Failed to properly distinguish between deprivation and privation

• Rutter (1981) attempts to distinguish between the two by saying privation is the failure to form attachment whereas deprivation is the loss of attachment

• Argues privation is more likely to lead to long-term damage than deprivation

What are 3 effects of institutionalisation?

• Poor peer interactions

• Disinhibited attachment

• Mental retardation

What are social releasers?

A set of innate ‘cute’ behaviours e.g. smiling and gripping which children elicit to activate an adult’s attachment system

What is the learning theory explanation of attachment?

• Through classical conditioning, attachment can start through a child learning to associate a mother with food which brings pleasure to the child

• Through operant conditioning this association can be strengthened

• Through positive reinforcement when a baby cries the mother feeds the baby so it reinforces the crying behaviour

• Through negative reinforcement the mother knows the baby stops crying when she feeds it, and continues to do so to prevent crying