attachment 👩‍🍼🦧

Define attachment

A two-way emotional bond between two individuals in which each individual sees the other as essential for their emotional security

Why do we carry research out on animals?

• To find out about the evolution of psychological functions

• To better understand psychological principles that apply across different species

• To do experiments that would be unethical to do on humans

• To understand what’s special about the human species

Define contact comfort

The physical and emotional comfort that an infant receives from being in close physical contact with their mother

Define critical period

A biologically determined time frame in which an organism must develop an attachment or else it may never happen

Define imprinting

When animals form an extremely close and dependent bond with the first animal they see after being born

Ethical guidelines on animal research

• Smallest number of animals sufficient to accomplish research goals should be used

• Costs and benefits must be evaluated

• Welfare of animal must be considered - researchers must seek to minimise any pain, suffering or distress that may arise

• Should use alternatives to animal research whenever possible

When was Lorenz’ geese study?

1935

Lorenz’s Geese: procedure + findings

• Randomly divided a clutch of goose eggs into two groups

• Half hatched with mother

• Other half hatched in incubator (first moving object they saw was Lorenz/researcher)

• He marked the two groups and put them all together with him and the mother present to see who they went to

• Those who hatched with Lorenz went to him and showed no recognition to mother

• Control group went to mother

• Lorenz called this imprinting and defined the critical period as 13-16 hours

Critical period according to Lorenz

13-16 hours

Does Lorenz (1935) support nature or nurture?

Nurture - we form attachment to whoever is in our environment, not who we are biologically born from

Sexual imprinting

• Found that baby birds that imprinted on humans would often show courtship behaviours towards humans and that this process is irreversible

• Peacock case study:

  • born in reptile house at zoo

  • first moving object peacock saw was a giant tortoise

  • as an adult, peacock directed all courtship towards giant tortoises

Lorenz (1935) evaluation

• Strength: Research support

  • Lorenz’s peacock case study

  • Guitton et al (1959) - supports imprinting

• Weakness: Lack of generalisability

  • only done on geese

  • other animals/humans may respond differently

• Weakness: Opposing research

  • Guitton et al (1959) found that chicks would imprint on yellow washing up gloves

  • However, over time the chickens learnt to prefer other chickens suggesting that imprinting doesn’t last forever

What percentage of genes do we share with monkeys?

97.5%

When was Harlow?

1958

Harlow (1958) procedure

• 16 infant rhesus monkeys taken away from mothers and raised in lab

• Reared each with two mothers: a wire mother and a cloth mother

• Alternated which of the mothers dispensed food

• Observed who they spent more time with and went to when frightened

Harlow (1958) findings

• Spent more time with cloth mother and ran to her when scared

• Concluded that monkeys didn’t attach to who fed them but rather who offered them comfort - emphasising importance of contact comfort in attachment

• Defined critical period as 90 days

Later life:

• Monkeys reared only with wire mother were most dysfunctional

• However those reared with cloth mother also displayed abnormal behaviour

• Aggressive, less sociable, bred less often and when mothers, neglected their own youth

Critical period according to Harlow

90 days

Harlow (1958) evaluation

Strengths:

• Theoretical value

  → attachments not simply result of being fed by caregiver

  → massively changed research into attachment

• Practical applications

  → helps social workers understand child neglect more

  → monkeys in captivity now being treated better

Weaknesses:

• Unethical

  → caused harm to monkeys by scaring them and taking them away from their mothers

  → BPS ethical guidelines state welfare of animals must be considered and researchers must seek to minimise harm

  → could have used less monkeys to achieve same goal

• Lacks generalisability

  → monkeys a different species

  → critical period for humans may be different than monkeys

  → BUT we share 97.5% of genes with monkeys so more useful than Lorenz

Who proposed the learning theory of attachment?

Dollard and Miller (1950)

What does the learning theory of attachment suggest?

We learn our attachment relationships rather than it being an innate behaviour

→ often known as ‘cupboard love theory’ as it emphasises importance of food

Learning theory: Classical conditioning

• Classical conditioning - learning through association

• Food is unconditioned stimulus which produces unconditioned response of pleasure

• At the start, the carer is the neutral stimulus and so produces no response

• Over time, when carer regularly feeds the child, they become associated with food and the pleasure that comes from it, becoming a conditioned stimulus

Learning theory: Operant conditioning

• Positive reinforcement = adding a positive consequence to a behaviour, making it more likely to continue

• Negative reinforcement = removal of a negative consequence, making a behaviour more likely to continue

• When baby is fed, the pleasure from food acts as a positive reinforcer and removal of hunger acts as a negative reinforcer

• When child stops crying, this acts as a negative reinforcer for the parent and child smiling acts as a positive reinforcer

• An attachment is formed between adult and child

• Therefore attachment is a two-way process

Learning theory: Secondary drive

• Describes how processes of classical and operant conditioning lead to an attachment

• Primary drives (essential for survival) such as eating when hungry, become associated with secondary drives, such as emotional closeness

• Therefore attachment is a secondary drive

Learning theory evaluation

Strengths:

• Some elements of conditioning could be involved in attachment behaviour

  → Rather than feeding being the main unconditioned stimulus, it is probable that safety plays a more significant role

  → Bosmans et al (2020)

Weaknesses:

• Opposing evidence

  → Lorenz (1935) - attachment formed through imprinting

  → Harlow (1958) - comfort more important than food

• Opposing human research

  → Schaffer and Emerson (1964) - observed babies over period of 18 months and interviewed mothers about baby’s separation anxiety and stranger anxiety

  → found babies tended to form their main attachment to their mother regardless of whether she was the one that usually fed them

• Views baby as passive

  → Feldman and Eidelman (2007) found that mothers are very alert to their baby’s active signalling

  → hence babies aren’t the passive recipient proposed by learning theory

Who suggested that safety is more likely to be the unconditioned stimulus rather than food?

Bosmans et al (2020)

→ classical conditioning - occurs when attachment figure becomes associated with low anxiety

→ operant conditioning - occurs when attachment behaviour (proximity-seeking) is rewarded with anxiety reduction

Who found that babies tended to form their main attachment to their mother regardless of whether she was the one that usually fed them?

Schaffer and Emerson (1964)

Who found that mothers are very alert to their baby’s active signalling, opposing learning theory?

Feldman and Eidelman (2007)

Bowlby’s Monotropic Theory: key concepts

• Adaptive

• Monotropy

• Social Releasers

• Critical Period

• Internal Working Model

Bowlby’s Monotropic Theory: Adaptive

• Humans have innate tendency to form attachments with a caregiver

• Proximity-seeking behaviour gives us an adaptive advantage (we are more likely to survive)

Bowlby’s Monotropic Theory: Monotropy

• Infants have innate tendency to make an initial attachment with primary caregiver, usually the mother

• Put forward two principles:

  • Law of continuity - the more constant and predictable a child’s care is, the better the quality of their attachment

  • Law of accumulated separation - the effects of every separation from the mother add up

Bowlby’s Monotropic Theory: Social Releasers

• Can be physical (typical baby face features) and behaviour (crying, smiling)

• Purpose is to activate adult interaction and encourage adults to adapt to baby

Bowlby’s Monotropic Theory: Critical Period

• 6 months - 2 years

• If an attachment is not formed in this time, child will find it much harder to form on later on

• Bowlby later proposed a sensitive period of up to 5 years (negative effects from not forming an attachment during critical period can be reversed if attachment is formed within 5 years)

Critical period according to Bowlby

6 months to 2 years

Sensitive period according to Bowlby

5 years

Bowlby’s Monotropic Theory: Internal Working Model

• Through monotropic bond, infant forms an internal working model

• It is a special mental schema for relationships

• Provides the blueprint for a child’s future relationships and parenting style

• This is known as the continuity hypothesis

Bowlby’s Monotropic Theory: Evaluation

Strengths:

• Supporting evidence

  → Bailey et al (2007) supports concept of internal working model

  → Brazelton et al (1975) supports concept of social releasers

• Challenged by Learning Theory

  → monotropy emphasises nature while LT emphasises nurture

  → very different ideas

  → theory lacks reliability

• Real life applications

  → mothers and fathers encouraged to go to parenting classes → emphasising importance of consistent care (law of continuity)

  → therapy - childhood relationships impact adult ones (internal working model)

Weaknesses:

• Opposing evidence

  → Schaffer and Emerson (1964) found babies formed multiple attachments at one time, reduced validity and reliability of theory

• Negative real-life implications

  → can put pressure on mothers (also reinforces harmful gender stereotypes)

  → may feel guilty for not spending all time with baby

  → may feel less inclined to go back to work, negatively affecting the economy

  → dads may feel less valued

  → what about same-sex couples?

Monotropic AO3: Brazelton et al (1975)

• Observed babies trigger interactions with adults using social releasers

• Babies’ primary attachment figure instructed to ignore their baby’s social releasers

• Babies became increasingly distressed and some eventually curled up and lay motionless

• Hence increasing validity of concept of social releasers

Monotropic AO3: Bailey at al (2007)

• Assessed attachment relationships in 99 mothers and their one-year-old babies

• Also measured the mother’s attachment to their own primary caregivers

• Found that mothers with poor attachment to their own primary attachment figure were more likely to have poorly attached babies

• Hence increasing validity of concept of internal working model

Define monotropy

Innate tendency to form a stronger attachment to your primary caregiver (usually the mother)

Define maternal deprivation

Separation from a primary attachment figure that is prolonged and results in lack of emotional care

What is Bowlby’s Theory of Maternal Deprivation?

• Bowlby proposed that a warm, intimate and continuous relationship with a mother figure is necessary for healthy psychological/emotional development

• Disruption to the attachment during the critical period and early childhood will have serious impacts on ability to form future attachments and cognitive, intellectual and cognitive development

Consequences of maternal deprivation according to Bowlby

• Inability to form future attachments (internal working model)

• Problems with cognitive, intellectual and emotional development

  • Intellectual - abnormally low IQ

    →Goldfarb (1947) found lower IQ in children who had remained at institutions as opposed to those who were fostered (still had time to form an attachment)

  • Emotional - more likely to develop affectionless psychopathy towards others → associated with offending and criminal behaviour

Maternal Deprivation: Goldfarb (1947)

Found lower IQ in children who had remained at institutions as opposed to those who were fostered (still had time to form an attachment)

Maternal Deprivation: What’s the difference between separation and deprivation?

• Separation - the short-term absence of a caregiver

• Deprivation - when an attachment bond is broken or permanently disrupted, leading to long-term emotional and psychological consequences

Bowlby’s Juvenile Thieves: Aim

To investigate the impact of maternal deprivation on children

Bowlby’s Juvenile Thieves: Procedure

• Sample: 88 children from child guidance clinic (44 were ‘juvenile thieves’ and had been referred because of their stealing, 44 ‘controls’ had been referred due to emotional problems)

• Thieves and controls of similar age and intelligence

• At clinic, children were assessed upon arrival using interviews, case history and psychological testing

• These initial reports were given to Bowlby who interviewed child and mother, who then gave a diagnosis

Bowlby’s Juvenile Thieves: Findings + Conclusion

Thieves:

• 12/14 (86%) of the affectionless thieves had also experienced deprivation

Controls:

• No affectionless psychopaths but more depressed children

• Bowlby concluded that those who had experienced maternal deprivation see more likely to be diagnosed as affectionless psychopaths

Maternal Deprivation: Evaluation

Strengths:

• Real life applications

  → MDH highlighted importance of positive attachment experiences and maintaining monotropic bond in first 5 years

  → Some national governments offer more financial support for families during maternity and paternity leave

  → e.g. Sweden offers 480 days parental leave

• Supporting evidence

  → Bowlby’s 44 Juvenile Thieves

Weaknesses:

• Supporting evidence is flawed

  → Bowlby designed and conducted the self-reports himself

  → his presence and interpretation may have influenced the outcome

  → his diagnosis of affectionless psychopathy might have been distorted by confirmation bias

  → conclusions are correlational so may be a third variable

• Incomplete theory

  → Rutter (1981) drew important distinction between deprivation and privation

  → Deprivation refers to loss of a caregiver after attachment has been developed, whereas privation is the failure to form any attachment at all

  → privation more likely to occur when children brought up in institutional care so severe long-term damage Bowlby associates with deprivation is more likely a result of privation

  → reduces validity of theory

What did Ainsworth do differently to Bowlby?

• Bowlby considered the universality of attachment

• Ainsworth considered the individual differences in attachment

What type of study is Ainsworth’s Strange Situation?

Controlled observation

Stages of the Strange Situation

1. Mother and child enter the playroom

2. Child is encouraged to explore

3. Stranger enters and attempts to interact with child

4. Mother leaves while stranger is present

5. Mother enters and the stranger leaves

6. Mother leaves

7. Stranger leaves

8. Mother returns and interacts with child

What behaviours does the strange situation test?

• Separation anxiety

• Reunion behaviour

• Stranger anxiety

• Exploration and secure base

• Proximity-seeking behaviour

Define the strange situation

A series of 8 stages which measure the security of a baby’s attachment to their caregiver

When was Ainsworth et al (different types of attachment)?

1978

Ainsworth et al (1978)

• Carried out the strange situation

• Categorised the babies into three main types of attachment:

  • Type A - insecure-avoidant

  • Type B - secure

  • Type C - insecure-resistant

• 70% secure (type B)

• 15% insecure-avoidant (type A)

• 15% insecure-resistant (type C)

• Therefore, most US children appeared to be securely attached

Ainsworth et al’s study was replicated in Britain also in 1978. What did they find?

• Secure - 65-75%

• Insecure-avoidant - 20-25%

• Insecure-resistant - 3%

• Again, most British children appeared to be securely attached

Type A: Insecure-avoidant

• Separation anxiety: little/no response to separation

• Stranger anxiety: little

• Exploration and secure base: happy to explore with or without caregiver present

• Proximity seeking: do not seek to be close to caregiver, show no secure base behaviour

• Reunion behaviour: infants do not seek proximity

Type B: Secure

• Separation anxiety: moderate distress

• Stranger anxiety: moderate distress

• Exploration and secure base: use caregiver as a secure base from which to explore

• Proximity seeking: regular check in with parent, but independent

• Reunion behaviour: easily comforted when parent returns

Type C: Insecure-resistant

• Separation anxiety: intense distress

• Stranger anxiety: intense stranger anxiety

• Exploration and secure base: no desire to explore/be aware from caregiver

• Proximity seeking: always want to be close to caregiver

• Reunion behaviour: conflicting behaviour, desire contact but angrily resist being picked up

What type of attachment is type A?

Insecure-avoidant

What type of attachment is type B?

Secure

What type of attachment is type C?

Insecure-resistant

Evaluation of Ainsworth’s Strange Situation: Strengths

• Positive real-life implications

  → ‘Circle of Security Project’ which teaches parents to understand their infant’s signs of distress. Infant’s classification to securely attached rose from 32% to 40%

  → suggests that quality of attachments can improve by teaching caregivers important strategies to support their children

  → this will reduce the detrimental effects from poor attachments in childhood

• Observations were reliable

  → supported by her use of videotaping and near perfect inter-rather reliability of +0.94

  → suggests observers were in agreement with their observations in identifying the different attachment styles

  → therefore suggests the strange situation is an extremely reliable method in assessing attachment

Evaluation of Ainsworth’s Strange Situation: Limitations

• Later opposing research

  → Main and Solomon (1986)

  → suggests not all infants conform to Ainsworth’s original attachment types

  → therefore, Ainsworth’s original conclusions may be considered too simplistic for the complexity of everyday attachment behaviours

• Procedure suffers from cultural bias

  → based off westernised ideas of attachment

  → would be an imposed ethic if we applied to other cultures (e.g. collectivist cultures)

  → therefore, shouldn’t be applied elsewhere

Main and Solomon (1986)

• Analysed 200 strange situation videotapes

• Put forward a fourth attachment type - insecure-disorganised (type D), didn’t really fit into any of the other three categories

When was Main and Solomon?

1986

Who investigated cultural variations in attachment?

Van ljzendoorn and Kroonenberg (1988)

When was Van ljzendoorn and Kroonenberg?

1988

Van ljzendoorn and Kroonenberg (1988) procedure

• Conducted a meta-analysis of 32 studies using Ainsworth strange situation to assess cultural variations in types of attachment

• Studies from 8 countries: USA, Netherlands, Germany, Japan, Israel, Sweden, UK, China

  → 18 samples from USA, over half

Van ljzendoorn and Kroonenberg (1988) findings

• Secure (type B) most prominent attachment type across all countries

• Highest proportion of insecure-avoidant (A) babies - Germany

• Highest proportion of securely attached babies (B) - Great Britain

• Highest proportion of insecure-resistant (C) - Israel

Difference between individualistic and collectivist cultures?

• Individualistic - emphasises personal independence and achievement, e.g. UK

• Collectivist - emphasises the importance of family and shared goals above individual needs and desires, e.g. China

Cultural variations in attachment: evaluation

Strengths:

• Most of studies done by indigenous psychologists

  → researchers often from same cultural background as ppts

  → e.g. I+K included research by German team (Grossman et al) and Japanese team (Takahashi)

  → means many problems associated with cross-cultural research can be avoided such as researchers misunderstanding the ppts - increasing validity of data collected

Limitations:

• Imposed etic

  → Ainsworth’s strange situation was designed within western norms of attachment

  → behaviours may not have same meaning across cultures

• Impact of confounding variables on a meta-analysis

  → studies conducted in different countries are not usually matched for methodology

  → characteristics such as poverty, social class can confound results

  → environmental variables such as size of room, availability of toys can differ

Define institutionalisation

The effect of living in an institutional setting, such as a hospital or orphanage

Characteristics of an institution

• High child-to-caregiver ratio

• Lack of stimulation

• Few opportunities to form attachments

ERA procedure

• Followed group of 165 Romanian orphans that had been adopted by families in the UK

• Aimed to investigate the extent to which good care could make up for poor early experiences in institutions

• Physical, cognitive and emotional development was assessed at 4, 6, 11, 15 and 22-25 years

• A group of 52 adopted children from the UK acted as a control group

ERA: Rutter et al (2011): At what ages did they assess physical, cognitive and emotional development in the orphans?

4, 6, 11, 15 and 22-25 years

What does ERA stand for?

The English and Romanian Adoptees project

ERA: Rutter et al (2011): Findings

• First arrived in UK - showed signs of delayed intellectual development (low IQ) and were severely malnourished

• Age 4 - half were intellectually delayed

• Age 11 - showed differential rates of recovery that were related to their age of adoption

  → those adopted earlier quickly caught up with the British children

• Mean IQ

  • adopted before 6 months - 102

  • adopted between 6 months and 2 years - 86

  • adopted after 2 years - 77

• Age 16 - differences remained, some symptoms very similar to ADHD and autism

• Attachment type

  • adopted before 6 months - no signs of disinhibited attachment

  • adopted after 6 months - disinhibited attachment (attention-seeking behaviours, clingy)

  • acted the same to all adults regardless if they knew them or not

ERA: Sonuga-Barke et al (2017)

• Followed up the adoptees when they were between 22 and 25 years old

• Found a similar pattern of emotional and intellectual difficulties in those who were adopted after six months old

When was Sonuga-Barke et al?

2017

ERA: Who followed up the adoptees when they were between 22 and 25 years old?

Sonuga-Barke et al (2017)

ERA conclusions - what did the study highlight?

• The critical role of early attachment

• The lasting impact of institutionalisation

Effects of institutionalisation

• Disinhibited attachment

  → being equally friendly and affectionate towards familiar people and strangers

  → attention seeking behaviour

  → Rutter (2006) stated this is an adaptation to living with multiple caregivers during sensitive period

  → in Romania, a child may have 50 carers but won’t spend enough time to secure attachments

• Intellectual disability

  → abnormal IQ levels

  → can be recovered, provided adoption takes place before the age of six months (when attachments form)

• Quasi-autism

  → refers to autism-like behaviours such as intense, restricted interests and communication difficulties

How is what Bowlby and Rutter say different?

• Bowlby says that any deprivation will have long-term effects on a child, especially if this happens before 2 years

• Rutter argues that there can be no negative effects if a child forms a healthy attachment before 6 months

• Bowlby is more deterministic

Romanian Adoptees (ERA) Studies: Evaluation

Strengths:

• Real life application to improve the prospects of children growing up without parental care

  → studying the Romanian adoptees has improved psychologists understanding of the effects of institutional care and how to prevent these effects (Langton 2006)

  → improvements within care system - children homes now smaller and employ fewer caregivers, children have one or two ‘key workers’ who become attachment figures and play a central role in emotional care

  → now have better chance to develop secure attachments and avoid disinhibited attachment

• Fewer extraneous variables

  → adoptees has commonalities between them - most had been given up by loving families who were too poor to care for them, rather than being institutionalised due to war, abuse, parental death

  → hence, results are less likely to be affected by negative early experiences

  → study has higher internal validity

• Large body of evidence supporting concept of critical period

Limitations:

• Current lack of data on adult development

  → Rutter et al (2011) only went up to age 16

  → hence, we cannot sure what the long-term effects are on these children

  → COUNTER: Sonuga-Barke (2017)

• Socially sensitive + may have negative implications for these children

  → study says those who are not adopted before 6 months typically have poorer developmental outcomes

  → results were published while the children were growing up, meaning their parents/teachers/friends may have lowered their expectations and treated them differently, perhaps even creating a self-fulfilling prophecy

  → however, much has been learnt that may benefit future institutionalised children