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