Attatchment

What is attatchment?

A two way bond between two individuals where one relies on the other for emotional security

Behaviours of attatchment

Proximity, separation anxiety, secure-base behaviour

Why are interactions between babies and their caregiver important?

They have important factors in the child’s social development

What is reciprocity?

Going both ways

What is interactional synchrony?

An infant mirroring the actions of their caregiver

What did Isabella (1989) find?

The level of caregiver - infant interaction was positively correlated with the quality of the infants attachment to the caregiver

Schaffers 4 stages of attatchment

Asocial: birth-8 weeks very little social behaviour

Indiscriminate: 2-7 months, clear preference of humans, no separation anxiety

Specific attachment: 7-12 months, attachment to primary caregiver, separation anxiety

Multiple attachment: 12+ months, can form attachments with more than one adult

Evidence that fathers have an important role

Grossman et al found quality of child’s play with their fathers is important for future relationship

What age had 75% of babies made an attachment to their fathers in Shaffers research?

18 months

Research that fathers can adopt motherly traits

Field (1978) found that when fathers take on more of a primary attachment role they become more nurturing and emotional

Evidence against fathers having an important role

McCullum and Golombok (2004) found that children growing up in a single or same sex parent household developed no differently to those in 2 parent homosexual families

What was Conrad Lorenz’ research?

He separated a group of goose eggs into half which where hatched with the mother and half which were hatched into an incubator so that he was the first thing they saw. Found that after being mixed up the chick’s followed the goose/person who hatched them - this was called imprinting

What and how long is the critical period for humans?

The time period that forming attarchemtns occurs, 2 and a half years

Evaluation of Lorenz’ goose study

Human behaviour is more complex than geese so we should be careful when generalising, however animal studies can give us insight into human behaviour e.g. critical period for both

Hallows study and findings

Gave baby monkey option of wire mother who produced food or cloth mother who provided contact comfort

Monkeys spent 18 hours a day with cloth and less than one hour with wire showing that contact comfort is more important than food in attachment behaviours

What is a primary drive?

A basic biological drive e.g. hunger or fear

Learning theory of attachments

Formed from classical conditioning (associates mother with food) and maintained by operant conditioning (given attention when crying)

Endogenous neuroplasticity

Brain changes from within the body

Experience-dependant neuroplasticity

Brain changes through experience

How does the brain change during pregnancy?

Several parts get larger, busy forming attachment so things may be forgotten, emotions are being regulated, all 5 senses get boosted, genes get switched on

stages 1-7 of strange situations and what they test

1. caregiver encourages baby to explore testing secure base

2. stranger enters testing stranger anxiety

3. caregiver leaves testing stranger and separation anxiety

4. caregiver returns and stranger leaves testing reunion behaviour and secure base

5. caregiver leaves so baby is alone testing separation anxiety

6. stranger returns testing stranger anxiety

7. caregiver returns testing reunion behaviour

type A attachment

insecure avoidant, don’t seek proximity to caregiver or require comfort, little to no stranger or separation anxiety

type B attachment

secure attachment, most healthy type, moderate separation and stranger anxiety, quickly calmed by caregiver

type C attachment

insecure resistant, least healthy, lack of trust (may be due to neglection), less confident, needy, extreme stranger and separation anxiety, resist comfort from caregiver

ethnocentrism

treating you own culture as ‘the norm’

cultural relativism

the idea that all behaviours and ideas must be understood in the context of their own culture

Ijzendoorn and Kroonenburg’s meta analysis findings

Secure attachment is the form across all cultures which indicates that behaviours are innate
Collectivist cultures such as China, Israel and Japan have more proportions of insecure resistant, indicating a nurture influence

There is more variation within cultures than across cultures

Ijzendoorn and Kroonenburg’s meta analysis evaluation

+Large samples increase validity

-Study was designed in America meaning ethnocentrism and western cultural bias is possible

Bowlby’s theory of maternal deprivation

a warm, intimate and continuous relationship with a mother is necessary for healthy psychological and emotional development

what impact does maternal deprivation have on children?

emotional - affectionless psychology
intellectual - low IQ in orphans compared to fostered children

Bowlby’s 44 thieves findings

12/14 affectionless psychopaths out of juvenile thieves were deprived of attachment with their mother during the critical period

none of the non juvenile thieves were categorised as affectionless psychopaths

evaluation of Bowlby’s theory of maternal deprivation

strengths: practical application for maternity leave and highlights when children are vulnerable

limitations: the research supporting was carried out by Bowlby himself so may be biased, post WW2 trauma is a possible explanation, replication in 1954 found no link, socially sensitive topic, no control group undermines theory, retrospective and social desirability bias from mothers self reporting, lacks temporal validity

summarise the English and Romanian adoptees study (ERA)

longitudinal study carried out by Michael Rutter, began in 1990 monitoring the long term effects of deprivation shown by 165 Romanian adoptees who moved to England

findings of the ERA

the more of the child’s critical period spent in the institution resulted in a lower IQ - if adopted…

before 6 months = 102

6-18 months = 87

after 2 years = 77

what is disinhibited attachment?

a separate category of attachment style found in severely deprived children with behavioural categories such as clinginess, being attention seeking and trying to form attachments with any adult who gives them attention. they show no stranger anxiety or secure base behaviour

what is insecure disorganised attachment?

a mix of insecure resistant and insecure avoidant attachments

evaluate the ERA

+good internal validity

+rwa: improvements to social care for children e.g. max of 2 key workers per child, adoption over institutions
-confounding variables: may have been due to poor environment
-socially sensitive: results were published when children still growing up
-ongoing study means we still don’t have all the answers

Hazan and Shaver’s study procedure

Advertised a questionnaire in a newspaper, analysed 650 cases ages 14-83 to measure attachment style as a child with attitude towards romantic relationships as an adult

Hazan and Shaver’s study findings

56% were securely attached - healthy long-term relationships, least likely to divorce
25% were insecure avoidant - had feelings of jealousy, fear of intimacy and more likely to divorce

19% were insecure resistant - felt jealousy and most likely to divorce

evaluate Hazan and shavers research

+large samples increase external validity
- social desirability bias when self reporting

-relies on participants remembering distant memories and having a good self awareness

-correlation dosn’t establish causation