Harlow Attatchment Theory

socialisation agents role

act upon us at different stages of life

family role as a socialiation agent

from infancy to young adulthood, provides safety, reinforces values, and models behavious

media role as a socialisation agent

from childhood to adulthood, enforces stereotypes, cultural measures of value/beauty/success

government role as a socialisation agent

from adolecense to adulthood, sets boundaries, determines punishment, introduces sociopolitical ideologies

school role as a socialisation agent

from childhood to young adulthood, determines curriculum, influences social groups

attatchment definition

the close bond formed between an infant and primary caregiver

attatchment during the critical period

from ages 0 to 5, attatchment is most important to seek closeness with the caregiver, and is necesary for both their survival

consequence of poor attatchment

difficulty establishing future attatchment, poor emotional developmental outcomes, aggression tendancy, emotional regulation issues, delinquancy

learned behaviour definition

children associate comfort and satisfaction with the caregiver, reinforced by food

examples of attatchment having evolutionary advantages

babies are exposed to responsiveness and rejection, able to predict caregiver behaviour from experience, increases survival chances, reproductive maturity and continuation of genes

aim of the rhesus monkeys experiment

to test whether the provision of contact comfort or food were more important in the development of attatchment

variables in the rhesus monkey experiment

IV = feeding milk by wire or cloth mother, DV = the amount of time each monkey cried for their biological mother, CV = age of removal, amount of food given to each

key findings of the rhesus monkey experiment

infants consumed equal amounts of food and growth rates, but cloth mother was favoured, indicating physical contact is important

rhesus monkey experiment contributions to psychology

social workers undersotood the rise of neglection, children at risk may benefit with economic implications

criticism of the rhesus monkey experiments

cruel and unethical, limited contribution to human infants, many monkeys failed to reproduce

year of the rhesus monkey experiment

1958