attachment case studies

schaffer and emerson (1964)

- 60 babies from working class families in Glasgow

- researchers visited every month for 1 year and thnen again at 18 months

- mothers were asked about the kind of protest their babies showed to everyday separation to measure attachment and stranger anxiety

- most babies developed a fear of strangers at the same time they gained a specific attachemnt to their mothers

stages of attachment

1. asocial

- (first few weeks) babies have a preference for familiar people and objects, but had mostly similar behaviour towards anything

2. indiscriminate attachment

- (2 - 7 months) babies have a more clear and observable preference for other people rather than objects, do not show usually separation or stranger anxiety and may accept cuddles from anyone

3. specific attachment

- (7+ months) babies display a preference towards a specific person and start to show anxiety, this primary attachment figure was the mother 65% of the time

4. multiple attachments

- (by 1 year) secondary attachments are formed in the months after the primary attachment to people they regularly spend time with

schaffer and emerson eval

- high external validity as observations were made by parents in the babies natural environment

- mothers may not have been objective observers or know how to observe accurately as they're not trained researchers

- the asocial stage is hard to assess as babies are fairly immobile and will find it hard to display feelings like anxiety

- real world application as it helps people plan around the specific attachment stage

- may be culturally bound to working class, individualist cultures

grossmann (2002)

- longitudinal study on the attachment between parents and children from being babies to teens

- fathers may have more of a 'play' role rather than nurturing

grossmann eval

- you would then assume that children of lesbian or gay parents would develop poorly or differently compared to those of straight parents but they do not, meaning fathers might not have a distinctive role

- however, gay families and single parents may be able to adapt to had both the nurturing and play role regardless of the presence of a mother or father

field (1978)

- filmed 4 month old babies in face to face interaction with primary mothers, secondary fathers and primary fathers

- primary caregivers spent more time smiling and holding the baby than secondary caregivers

- fathers can therefore take an emotional role but only as the primary caregiver

lorenz (1952)

- randomly divided a clutch of goose eggs so one half was hatched with their mother and one half hatched with lorenz

- the chicks imprinted to the first moving object they saw be it the goose or lorenz, and when mixed up they still split up into their birth groups

- there is a 'critical period' and if imprinting doesn't occur during this time then it won't happen

- imprinting can also lead to sexual imprinting

lorenz eval

- bird attachment is less complex than mammal attachment so the research is not very generalisable to humans

- research support like chicks imprinting on a moving shape like a triangle that they were shown at birth

harlow (1958)

- 16 baby monkeys with two wire mothers, one that was only covered in cloth and one that only dispensed milk

- monkeys stayed with the cloth mother and wet to her when scared and only went to the bare mother quickly for food, showing the need for 'contact comfort'

- the maternal deprivation caused these monkeys in adulthood to be aggressive, unskilled at mating or caring for young and made them less sociable

harlow eval

- we now understand the importance of attachment figures for both animal and human babies + how a lack of attachment can lead to problems in the future

- rhesus monkeys are more similar to humans than birds, but human behaviour is still more complex than monkeys which limits generalisability

ainsworths strange situation (1969)

1. baby is encouraged to explore - tests exploration and secure base

2. strange comes, talks to caregiver and approaches baby - tests stranger anxiety

3. caregiver leaves stranger and baby together - tests separation and stranger anxiety

4. caregiver returns and stranger leaves - tests reunion and secure base behaviour

5. caregiver leaves baby alone - tests separation anxiety

6. stranger turns - tests stranger anxiety

7. caregiver returns - tests reunion behaviour

TYPE A INSECURE AVOIDANT - explore freely, don't seek proximity, little separation or stranger anxiety, little reaction when caregiver leaves or returns

TYPE B SECURE ATTACHMENT - explore happily but seek proximity regularly, moderate separation and stranger anxiety, accept comfort in reunion stage

TYPC C INSECURE RESISTANT - explore less and seek a lot of proximity, high stranger and separation anxiety, resist comfort when caregiver returns

ainsworth eval

- culture bound test that does not necessarily work in collectivist cultures like japan (takahashi found a large amount were insecure-resistant because baby mother separation is rare in japan

- may be a type d which is a combo of all three types

- 94% inter-rater reliability which reduces observer bias

- the types are good for predicting the baby's later development eg type b tends to have lowest bullying involvement and highest school performance

van ijzendoorn and kroonenberg (1988)

- meta analysed 32 strange situation studies from around the world

- secure attachment most common in all countries from 75% in uk to 50% in china

- insecure resistant rates were increased in collectivist cultures

ijzendoorn and kroonenberg eval

- used studies from researchers indigenous to the country they studied (like takahashi from japan) which reduced the chance of an imposed etic

- 15 of the 32 studies were from the us which decreases global generalisability

- the studies aren't matched for methodology so some could have had lots of confounding variables

simonelli (2014) and jin (2012)

- two studies from similar years in different cultures

- in italy high secure rates, but also high avoidant rates as new mothers are working and using childcare

- in korea high secure, but also high resistant like japan as culturally its not common for baby and mother to be separated

bowlbys 44 thieves

- 44 criminal teenagers accused of stealing, 44 control

- interviewed for signs of affectionless psychopathy (lack of affection, lack of guilt)

- families were interviewed to see if there was prolonged separation from the mother

- 14 had affectionless psychopathy and 12 of these had prolonged mother separation

- only 2 in control had prolonged separation

bowlby eval

- bowlby did the whole study on his own and knew who to expect to be a psychopath

- bowlby was influenced by goldfarbs study on iq of those in orphanages which was also a flawed study

- bowlby didn't differentiate between deprivation and privation from the mother,the severe issues are probably from privation

- recent studies to replicate 44 thieves either fail to get the same results or only find a weak positive correlation

romanian orphans

study one:

- 165 romanian adoptees, assessed at various ages from 4 - 25 on physical, cognitive and emotional development

- mean iq was 86 if adopted between 6 months and 2 years, 77 if adopted after 2 years

- those adopted after 6 months often had disinhibited attachment = attention seeking behaviour, clinginess, indiscriminate social behaviour towards adults

study two:

- strange situation for 95 romanian children who spent avg 90% of their lives in an orphanage

- only 19% were secure and 44% had disinhibited attachment traits

romanian orphans eval

- improved understanding of the impacts of institutionalised care (care homes avoid having large numbers of children

- the romanian orphanage quality was remarkably poor and so its hard to generalise the findings elsewhere

- longitudinal study so we don't have any adult data about development

- social sensitivity issues, people might expect adopted children to perform worse which becomes a self fulfilling prophecy

myron-wilson and smith (1998) + mccarthy (1999)

- 196 children from london

- secure = least involved in bullying, avoidant = likely to be bullied, resistant = likely to be bullies

- 40 adult women

- secure as babies = least problems with adult relationships, avoidant = struggled with intimate romantic relationships, resistant = struggled to maintain friendships

myron-wilson and smith + mccarthy eval

- relies on participants responding honestly and accurately about their relationships

- factors used to assess early attachment do not really apply later in life, so actually two different things are being measured in retrospective studies

- other factors between childhood and time of the second study could have influenced a personality change ie a traumatic incident