Psychology - Attachment

What is attachment?

A two way enduring emotional tie to another specific person where they see the other person as essential for their emotional security

what 3 behaviours do infants show related to attachment?

• proximity, people stay physically close to who they are attached too

• Separation distress, people seem distressed when they are away from an attachment figure

• Distress in the presence of an unknown person

What are 5 key behaviours needed for attachment building?

• bodily contact - breastfeeding

• Mimicking- innate ability to copy

• Caregiverese - “baby talk”

• Interactional synchrony

• Reciprocity

What is Interactional synchrony?

• takes place when the caregiver and infant interact in a way that their actions and emotions mirror each other in a coordinated way

• Parent and child create a sense of timing

• This includes both emotions and behaviours

Overall, better Interactional synchrony between parents and the child mean there is a better attachment

What is recipocity?

• taking turns to elicit a response to behaviours

• This is a non verbal conversation, where babies have an active role on interactions, they initiate interactions through alert phases

• From 1 month, it becomes reciprocal, by 3 months interactions become more frequent and close attention is payed to verbal signals

What was Meltzoff and Moores research into Interactional synchrony?

In 1977 they investigated Interactional synchrony

Procedure:

• they created a controlled observation of 18 babies ages between 12-27 days old. Babies were exposed to 4 different stimuli

• Three of the stimuli were based on facial gestures like sticking out their tongue, 1 of the stimuli was based on manual gestures

• The babies were filmed with an independent observers was asked to note behaviours/movements of the baby, like tongue protrusions and mouth and hand movements. They had no previous interaction with the baby

• Each observer scores tapes twice

Findings:

• the results indicated that babies could imitate expressions and manual gestures

What was Tronicks research into reciprocity?

Procedure:

• it was a controlled lab experiment at Harvard

• They placed the parent and the child face to face, the played together normally

• However, the researcher would then ask the parent to have a blank expression and not to interact with their child

• They did this with babies and 2 year olds

Findings

• the baby and toddler both showed signs of distress, behaviours became upset, emotional and sometimes aggressive

• However, the children would eventually give up

How can we evaluate ideas into the importance of interaction synchronisation and reciprocity?

Strengths

• Lab controlled studies, controlled conditions but also covert observations could take place when studying babies

• Increased reliability, filming the behaviour, one observer could record data and inter-rater-reliability can be established

Limitations

• subjective, it is tricky to interpret babies behaviour, babies have simple movements and lack control of their body. There can’t be certain interactions with special meanings

• Observing behaviour does not tell us developmental importance, Feldman in 2012 found that although Interactional synchrony and reciprocity are important and have face value, they lack purpose of these behaviours

What is inter-rater-reliability?

• two people observed separately, they observed in the exact same way.

• Then there observations were compared to see how reliable findings were

What did animal studies into attachment focus on?

Looked into the formation of early bonds between human parents and their offspring, attachment like behaviour is common to a range of species so animal studies can help us understand humans

What was the procedure of findings of Lorenz’s 1952 study?

• Lorenz randomly divided 12 geece eggs, 6 went and hathced with the mother whilst the other half hatched in an incubator, with the first moving object they saw being Lorenz

• He mixed groups together to see who would follow

Findings

• The incubator group followed Lorenz and the other half followed the mother

• This is called imprinting, attachments are formed with the first moving object within hours,if imprinting doesn’t occur, the goslings don’t attach themselves to a mother figure

What is sexual imprinting?

Birds that imprinted on humans would go on to make courtship behaviour to another human

In his case study in 1952, Lorenz descibed a peacock that had been reared in a reptile house saw a giant tortoise and imprinted upon it, when it became an adult, the peacock would only display courtship behaviour to other Giant tortoises

What was the procedure and findings of Harlow’s study?

• Harlow tested the idea that soft objects can serve functions of a mother, in one experiment he reared baby monkies with two wire model ‘mothers’. One was just a plain wire model that dispenced food whilst the other had cloth.

• The amount of time the monkies spent with the mother was recorded

Findings

• Seperated infant monkies would show attachment towards the cloth mother when frightened rather than the food dispencing mother

• Monkies were happy to explore a room of novel toys when the cloth mother was present but showed phobic behaviours when it was the food dispencing mother or no mother at all. Infant monkies that were reared in an non isolated environment grew up as healthy adults. this didn’t have the same impact in an isolated environment, the monkies were dysfunctional and were bad mothers

Harlow concluded that there is a critical period, if there was no introduction of a mother figure within the 90 days, attachment is impossible and damage is irriveresible

What are some evaluation points for both studies?

• A strength of Lorenz’s study is that it was well controlled, enabling us to establish a cause and effect relationship of the effect of imprinting. e.g 6 goslings that saw Lorenz as the first moving figure followed him. This shows the study has high internal validity

• However, Lorenz’s study lacks population validity, humans are biologically and cognitivly different to geece, This limits his findings application to humans, we aren’t born the same way as geece, it cannot be genralised to humans

• One limitation is that there are ethical issues with their research. In Harlow’s study, the monkies killed their own children and showed agression - physical and psychological harm. In Lorenz’s study, targeted courtship towards humans mean that geece cannot procreate (disrupting their life). However, these ethical issues can have positive effects for humans

• In the UK, we have understood importance of healthy emotional attachment and apply this to intervene with children in negleted homes to put them into foster care/adoption - beneficial to society

What did Dollard and Muller 1950 propose about the formation of attachments?

They proposed attachments form through learning and experience. Attachments develop to the person that feeds the infant - This is called “cupboard love theory”

How do attachments form through classical and operant conditioning?

Classical conditioning

• Before learning, the unconditioned stimulus was the food providing the unconditioned response of pleasure. The neutral stimulus of the parent paired with the unconditioned stimulus of the food also leads to the unconditioned response of pleasure

• Eventually the association between the food and parent is formed into a conditioned stimulus leading to a conditioned response of pleasure = forming attachment

Operant conditioning 

• If behaviours are reinforced they get repeated, this can lead to attachment

• E.g a baby crying and getting attention is positive reinforcement the baby will learn to get attention they will cry leading to attachment

• Food is a primary reinforcer and the person suppling the food is the secondary reinforcer, attachment occurs as the child attaches to the adult who has the food

How can we evaluate learning theory and attachment?

• One limitation of the theory is that it’s reductionist, to state attachment is formed by food is an over-simplification. For instance, people develop attachments with romantic partners, other family members, and friends. This therefore reduces internal validity as it doesn’t consider all elements that affect formation of attachments

• Therefore, a holistic approach may be needed. For instance, in Harlows study the baby monkies formed attachments to the cloth covered mother figure spending up to 18 hours a day with it. So we know at the very least other factors like comfort are involved in attachment

• Learning theories support the nurture debate, infants would become attached to their caregiver based on their environment. Environmental explanations can be useful at reducing maladaptive attachment behaviours in children and adults and they can be supported through therapy

• However, there is strong evidence of the biological explanation, for instance in Lorenz’s study attachment is an inate behaviour where goslings imprinted on the first moving object they saw, this undermines credibility

• in order to understand formation of attachment, we need to take an interactionst approach with nature and nurture

What was Schaffer and Emerson’s study in 1964?

• they researched into attachment and developed 4 stages of attachment

• They studied 60 Glaswegian babies from working class families, researchers visited homes and studied mothers and babies.

• They visited every month for a year and then again at 18 months (Longitudinal study)

• They asked mothers to report behaviours of babies in seven everyday separations (like the parent leaving the room)

• They measure separation and stranger anxiety

Overall their study led to understanding stages of attachment

What are the 4 stages of attachment?

• 1st stage: Asocial

first few weeks, behaviour towards inanimate objects and people are similar but babies prefer company of other adults

• 2nd stage: indiscriminate

between 6 weeks to seven months, they have more social behaviours and prefer familiar adults. No stranger or separation anxiety.

• 3rd stage: Specific

from around 7 months, with stranger and separation anxiety, baby has specific attachment to primary caregivers

• 4th stage: multiple attachments

By one year, secondary attachments with other adults, by one year the majority of infants have these

what are the strengths of the idea of stages of attachment and Schaffer and Emerson’s study?

Strengths

• It has high external (in this case ecological) validity, most observations were typical activities that would occur. Behaviour of babies would be likely unaffected by observers

• The idea has practical applications in nurseries, in asocial and discriminate stages, nursery is straightforward as babies are comforted by skilled adults. However starting nursery at the specific stage is a problem as it’s with an unfamiliar adult. Research can be used to introduce children to nursery

• Longitudinal study, better internal validity as observations continued

What are the limitations with the stages of attachment and Schaffer and Emerson’s study?

Limitations

• Has low internal validity, mothers gave self report so they were unlikely to have objective observations, they may have been biased to present themselves as better mothers or they may forget behaviours, therefore there wouldn’t be accurate observations reducing internal validity

• Measures used in the asocial stage lacks validity, babies have poor coordination and anxiety may be subtle. Babies appear social but because of flawed methods they appear asocial

• Lacks temporal validity and its ethnocentric. There are new ways of parenting and in other cultures there are lots of caregivers

What was the context of Bowlbys research of monotropic theory? How did he explain innate evolution?

Bowlby was heavily influenced by animal studies like Harlows research into monkeys and Lorenz gosling research. He rejected learning theory as a result and opted for a more evolutionary approach about how animals will be built with innate systems to stay close to caregivers in the face of danger. In the past this was related to wild predators now this is in modern day traffic, electricity

What is Bowlby’s monotropic theory, what two principles did he propose?

It’s a monotropic theory as it’s based on an infants attachment to their primary caregiver. He empathised the importance of this relationship and put forward two principles

• the law of continuity, the more constant and predictable a child’s care is, the better the attachment

• The law of accumulated separation, effects of separations from attachment figure adds up

What are social releases according to Bowlby?

Babies are born with innate “cute” behaviours like cooing, smiling, etc. these are social releases as they are responsible for capturing the adults attention making the adult love the baby.

What is the critical period Bowlby found?

He proposed there is a critical period around two years when the infant attachment system is active, he believed it was a sensitive period whereby attachment not formed later than 2 years will be difficult to form after

What is Bowlbys idea of the internal working model?

The child will form a mental representation of their primary caregiver relationship. This internal working model is a template of further relationships, if the relationship is caring and reliable, this is likely to go on into adulthood. If the child experiences poor treatment they may believe this in others which may affect their ability to parent themselves

How can we evaluate Bowlbys theories to do with monotropic attachment?

• one strength is that there is clear evidence to support Bowlbys theories to do with social releases. Brazelton et al in 1975 found that from observing babies trigger interactions with adults using social releases. They instructed the primary caregiver to ignore social releases and babies ended up feeling distressed and showed physical reactions of curling up in a ball and being motionless. This illustrates the importance of social releases for emotional development and suggests they are important in attachment

• However, monotropy is a socially sensitive topic, the implications for primary caregivers lifestyles as many are seen as women, this raises the argument from feminists suggesting that woman working is shown to be a bad thing which is harmful for woman’s lives. Feminists like Erica Burman 1994 said that these beliefs set out mothers to be blamed for child’s development. This could be dangerous as it could restrain woman from independence

• On the other hand, prior to Bowlby’s research the mothers role wasn’t as important and for instance fathers were chose in custody cases, also the theory has positive real world applications for nursery workers to build attachments

What was the procedure of Ainsworth’s strange situation experiment?

• the experiment consisted of 8 episodes, each of these lasted around 3 minutes except one lasting 30 seconds

• Every aspect of behaviour was observed and video-taped, most attention was given to reunion behaviours

• Overall 106 infants were observed in a unfamiliar testing room

5 categories were recorded

• proximity and contact seeking behaviours like following the mother

• Contact maintaining behaviours

• Proximity and interaction avoiding behaviours

• Search behaviours

What is stranger anxiety, separation anxiety, and secure base behaviour?

• stranger anxiety is where you are distressed and or withdrawn in the presence of a stranger, an infant may cry and move away

• Separation anxiety, infant becomes distressed when primary caregiver leaves the room and follows them

• Secure base behaviour, where an infant is in a situation that makes them feel uncomfortable and scared making them seek an attachment figure, when the attachment figure is present, the infant may feel comfortable to explore

What are the 8 episodes recorded during ainsworth’s strange situation?

• in the 1st episode, with the mother, infant, and observer. The mother and infant are introduced to the experimental room, the observer leaves

• In the 2nd episode, with the mother and infant, the mother is passive whilst the infant explores

• In the 3rd episode, with the stranger, mother, infant. The stranger will enter and is silent for the first minute, then in the second minute the stranger converses with the mother and in the third minute the mother leaves

• In the 4th episode, stranger and the infant. In the first separation episode, the strangers behaviour is geared towards the infant

• In the 5th episode, with the mother and infant. This is the first reunion episode when the stranger leaves and the mother plays with the infant and leaves again

• In the 6th episode, the infant is left alone

• In the 7th episode, the strangers behaviour re-enters and gears behaviours to the infant

• In the 8th episode, the second reunion takes place the mother re-enters and the stranger leaves

What did Mary Ainsworth find from her strange situation experiment?

Three types of attachment

• type A, insecure avoidant, 15% of infants ignored the mother. The level of play was unaffected with little stress. The baby reacted the mother and stranger in different ways. However they show the most stress alone

• Type B, securely attached, 70% of infants were able to play contently, the mother being present meant the infant had normal behaviour but when she left they would be distressed. They seeked comfort when she returned. The mother and stranger were treated differently

• Type C, insecure attachment, 15% of infants were wary even when the mother was present. When she left the infant was distressed and sought contact

How can we evaluate Ainsworth’s strange situation experiment?

Strength

• it has good inter-rater reliability (agreement between different observers). Bick et al 2012, tested the inter-rater reliability with a team of observers and found attachment type was agreed 94% of the time. Behaviours like crying and moving away from others are easy to objectively identify

Limitations

• The experiment may have given the impression the babies were stressed with the stranger alone with them in the room. However, this just may be a result of them being in a lab experiment. The environment was unfamiliar. It’s likely the baby would be left alone at home if the parent has to leave for instance

• It’s an ethnocentric perspective, meaning it lacks validity. The theory was developed and tested in the USA. Babies have different experiences growing up in different cultures meaning babies have different responses to strangers

What did Schaffer and Emerson find about fathers and their relationship to the process of attachment?

Fathers are less likely to be the PCG. For instance, primary care givers were only found to be 3% of males. However, by 18 months, 75% of fathers were attached to their children with infants showing separation anxiety when the fathers left

What was Grossman et al’s 2002 study into the fathers role in attachment?

They conducted a longitudinal study looking at the quality of attachment from babies to late teens.

• the researchers studied both the parents behaviours and the relationship to the infants later attachments

• The quality of the babies attachments with mothers was related to relationships during adolescents

• However, they did find the fathers role of playing had an impact of the quality of adolescent relationships

This suggests fathers have different roles to mothers, one that is more involved with stimulation

What was Fields (1978) study into attachment with the father?

Filmed 4 month year old babies in face to face interactions with

• PCG mothers, secondary caregiver fathers, and PCG fathers

The PCG fathers spent far more time smiling, cooing, imitating behaviours than secondary caregiver fathers

This shows fathers do have the ability to be emotionally focused

What did Gordon et al in 2010 found about the fathers attachments in relation to hormones?

Male oxytocin (love hormone) rises to female levels if they are the primary caregiver. Typically woman have higher levels, so this shows nurture over nature

What are the strengths in the research into the fathers role of attachment?

• there are practical applications to offer advice to parents when making childcare decisions. Heterosexual parents can be informed that fathers can be the PCG and lesbian or single parent families can be reassured there is no need for a father figure, parental decisions can be more informed

• challenges traditional gender roles. E.g fields study shows fathers can be just as capable in forming secure attachments

What are the limitations of research into the role of the father in attachment?

• It’s far too complicated a question, some researchers want to understand the role of fathers as secondary attachment figures whilst others are more concerned with fathers as PCGs. This makes it tricky to draw conclusions

• Fathers that are not present don’t mean that children develop differently, Grossmans study suggest that fathers have a distinct role in development. However McCallum and Golombok 2004 show children aren’t developed differently with lesbian parents

What are ideas of cultural variations of attachment formed from?

Based on Bowlbys theory, attachment showed to be similar across cultures regardless of child learning styles. Secure attachments should dominate with equal amounts of insecure avoidant and insecure resistant

However, if these patterns of attachment were cross cultural, this would mean its not biological but based on exposure to different child rearing styles

How do child rearing styles vary?

In some cultures there is one primary caregiver and in others there are many carers. There are also differences based on how attachment styles are percieved. For example, insecure avoidant is seen as a negative in England, however a positive in Germany

What was Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenburg’s study in 1988 investigating cultural variations in attachment? What 3 countries demonstrate cultural variations?

The study empathised on cross cultural through a meta analysis of ainsworth’s strange situation

• There were 32 studies of attachment in 8 countries, For instance, the UK, Germany, and China

• In the UK they found from 1 study with 72 pairs that 22% were insecure avoidant, 75% were secure attachment, and 3% were insecure resistant 

• In China they found from 1 study with 25 pairs that 25% were insecure avoidant, 50% were secure attachment, and 25% were insecure resistant

• In Germany they found from 3 studies with 136 pairs that 35% were insecure avoidant, 57% were secure attachment and that 8% were insecure resistant 

What did Ijzendoorn and Kroonenburg find?

That there is a wide variation of attachment types in different cultures.

• In all countries, it can be identified that type B was the most dominant ranging from 75-50%

• In more individualistic cultures, rates of insecure resistant were similar to ainsworth’s study but this isn’t true for collectivist cultures

• More varied results in a country that between different countries

What was Simonelli’s research into cultural variations in attachment?

In 2014, they conducted a study in Italy, they assessed 76, 12 month old babies and matched the strange situation

They found 50% to be secure, and 36% to be insecure avoidant

This may come from the changing role of the Mother and increased use of professional childcare

What are some limitations of research into cultural variations in attachment?

• One issue with cross cultural research is that there are intra-cultural differences in childrearing. This can be seen with results in the US, with secure attachment %s ranging from 90% to 46%. As some countries only have one study like china, it wouldn’t be logical to conclude that this study is representitive

• As well as this, the majority of ppts in the study were from WEIRD countries. This means that more research needs to be completed in order to make conclusions 

What is a strength of research into cultural variations of attachment?

Indigenous researchers would have conducted the study meaning they would understand the context of behaviours. This reduces the issue of etic bias where non-indigenous reseachers could misinterpret behaviours as they don’t understand the culture. For instance, researchers originally concluded that German mothers were cold but this wouldn’t happen with researchers who understand this isn’t the case. This increases validity

However, the toys in the room varied from country and some toys were more engaging than others. this may reduce internal validity

What is the internal working model?

Acts as a template for future childhood and adult relationships

• A babies whose first experience of attachment is loving will make them understand that this is how relationships should be. They will go on to seek functional relationships

• A child with maladaptive experiences will bring poor experiences to relationships and they may struggle to form bonds in the first place

How does attachment styles impact relationships in later childhood?

• securely attached infants form the best quality childhood friendships. However insecurely attached infants have friendship struggles (Kerns 1994)

• Myron-Wilson and Smith in 1998 assessed attachment types and bullying, they conducted a questionnaire for 196 children ages 7-11 from London

• They found secure children were unlikely to be involved in bullying, insecure avoidant to be bullied, and insecure resistant to be bully’s

How does attachment styles impact relationships with romantic partners?

McCarthy 1999 studied 40 year old women who had previously been assessed on their attachment types. Secure attached infants had the best relationships, insecure struggled with intimacy, and insecure resistant had problems maintaining relationships

Hazen and Shaver in 1987 explored the association between attachment and adult relationships

• they analysed 620 replies to the love quiz published in the local newspaper

• They measured three things, 1) current or most important relationships. 2) general love experiences. 3) assessed attachment types

• They found 56% to be securely attached, 25% insecure avoidant and 19% insecure resistant

How does attachment styles impact relationships in adulthood as a parent?

Often attachment styles are passed down through generations of families

• Bailey in 2007 considered attachment of 99 mothers to their babies and their own mothers. This was assessed through the strange situation and interviews between both mothers

How can we evaluate research into attachments impacts on later life?

Strengths

• Supporting evidence, Fearson and Roisman 2017 concluded that early attachment consistently predicts later attachment, emotional wellbeing, and future relations with children. Disorganised attachment for example has been proven to cause mental health issues

• Seems the influence of early attachment is only probabilistic and correlational. Clarke and Clarke 1998 found it doesn’t always lead to issues. Therefore we have the opportunity to help when we know attachment styles. However this view is deterministic and leads to a self fulfilling prophecy

Limitations

• not all evidence supports existence of close links between early attachment and later development. Becker-stoll et al found that there was no continuity when interviewing teenagers they had previously studied

• Most research isn’t longitudinal, adults identifying their attachment type is subjective and there are validity issues