Attachment

What is attachment?

Attachment can be defined as an emotional bond between two people in which each seeks closeness and feels more secure when in the presence of the attachment figure

What are caregiver-infant interactions like in humans?

Interactions between very young babies and their parents are baby led, with the adult responding to the behavior of the baby.

Two kinds of caregiver-infant interactions in humans?

Reciprocity and Interactional synchrony

What does reciprocal mean?

How does this relate to the infant-caregiver bond?

The word reciprocal means two-way, or something that is mutual. Infant and caregiver are both active contributors in the interaction and are responding to each other.

So what is reciprocity in terms of infant caregiver interactions?

An example?

Reciprocity is a form of interaction between infant and caregiver involving mutual responsiveness, with both parties being able to produce response from each other.

Smiling is an example of reciprocity – when a smile occurs in the infant it triggers a smile in the caregiver, and vice versa.

How does reciprocity impact and infleunces the infant?

Reciprocity influences the child’s physical, social and cognitive development.

It becomes the basis for development of basic trust or mistrust, and shapes how the child will relate to the world, learn, and form relationships throughout life.

What is interactional synchrony?

A general example of this?

Interactional synchrony is a form of rhythmic interaction between infant and caregiver involving mutual focus, reciprocity and mirroring of emotion or behaviour. Infants coordinate their actions with caregivers in a kind of conversation.

From birth, babies move in a rhythm when interacting with an adult almost as if they were taking turns.

The infant and caregiver are able to anticipate how each other will behave and can elicit a particular response from the other.

For example, a caregiver who laughs in response to their infant's giggling sound and tickles them is experiencing synchronised interaction.

When is interactional synchrony most likely to develop?

Interactional synchrony is most likely to develop if the caregiver attends fully to the baby's state, provides playful stimulation when the infant is alert and attentive, and avoids pushing things when an overexcited or tired infant is fussy and no longer seeks stimulation

Whose study evidences the importance of interactional synchrony?

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An issue with the study?

Heimann showed that infants who demonstrate a lot of imitation from birth onwards have been found to have a better quality of relationship at 3 months.

However, it isn’t clear whether imitation is a cause or an effect of this early synchrony.

How does this study relate to other studies?

An issue with the other studies?

Many studies involving observation of interactions between mothers and infants have shown the same patterns of interaction.

However, what is being observed is merely hand movements or changes in expression. It is extremely difficult to be certain, based on these observations, what is taking place from the infant’s perspective. Is, for example, the infant’s imitation of adult signals conscious and deliberate?

This means that we cannot really know for certain that behaviours seen in mother-infant interactions have a special meaning.

Strengths of these other studies?

Observations of mother-infant interactions are generally well-controlled procedures, with both mother and infant being filmed, often from multiple angles. This ensures that very fine details of behavior can be recorded and later analysed.

Furthermore, babies don’t know or care that they are being observed so their behaviour does not change in response to controlled observation which is generally a problem for observational research.

This is a strength of this line of research because it means the research has good validity.

Who studied the stages of attachment in babies?

How many babies? How often

and for how long?

What is this known as?

Rudolph Schaffer and Peggy Emerson (1964) studied 60 babies at monthly intervals for the first 18 months of life (this is known as a longitudinal study)

How were the babies studied?

The children were all studied in their own homes and a regular pattern was identified in the development of attachment.

The babies were visited monthly for approximately one year, their interactions with their carers were observed, and carers were interviewed.

What else was done?

The details off this?

A diary was kept by the mother to examine the evidence for the development of an attachment.

The following measures were recorded:•

Stranger Anxiety - response to the arrival of a stranger.•

Separation Anxiety - distress level when separated from a carer, degree of comfort needed on return.•

Social Referencing - a degree that child looks at the carer to check how they should respond to something new (secure base).

What did Schaffer and Emerson discover?

The stages?

At what age did each occur?

They discovered that baby attachment develops in a sequence of steps.

The steps are the

Asocial stage (0-6 weeks),

Indiscriminate attachment (6 weeks to 7 months),

Specific attachment (7-9 months)

Multiple attachment (10 months onwards)

What are babies like in the asocial stage?

Very young infants are asocial in that many kinds of stimuli, both social and non-social, produce a favourable reaction, such as a smile.

What are babies like in the indiscriminate attachment stage?

Infants indiscriminately enjoy human company and most babies respond equally to any caregiver.

They get upset when an individual ceases to interact with them.

From 3 months infants smile more at familiar faces and can be easily comfortable by a regular caregiver.

What are babies like in the specific attachment stage?

Special preference for a single attachment figure.

The baby looks to particular people for security, comfort and protection.

It shows fear of strangers (stranger fear) and unhappiness when separated from a special person (separation anxiety).

Some babies show stranger fear and separation anxiety much more frequently and intensely than others, but nevertheless they are seen as evidence that the baby has formed an attachment.

This has usually developed by one year of age.

What are babies like in the multiple attachment stage?

The baby becomes increasingly independent and forms several attachments.

By 18 months the majority of infants have formed multiple attachments.

First finding of the study?

What was this called?

The results of the study indicated that attachments were most likely to form with those who responded accurately to the baby's signals, not the person they spent more time with.

Schaffer and Emerson called this sensitive responsiveness.

Two other findings? So what is key to attachment?

Intensely attached infants had mothers who responded quickly to their demands and, interacted with their child Infants who were weakly attached had mothers who failed to interact.

The most important fact in forming attachments is not who feeds and changes the child but who plays and communicates with him or her.

Therefore, responsiveness appeared to be the key to attachment.

What did Schaffer and Emerson find in terms of multiple attachments?

Many of the babies from the Schaffer and Emerson study had multiple attachments by 10 months old, including attachments to mothers, fathers, grandparents, siblings and neighbours.

By 18 months 31% had five or more attachments.

The mother was the main attachment figure for about half of the children at 18 months old and the father for most of the others.

The multiple attachments formed by most infants vary in their strength and importance to the infant.

Attachments are often structured in a hierarchy, whereby an infant may have formed three attachments but one may be stronger than the other two, and one may be the weakest.

Weaknesses of the study?

The Schaffer and Emerson study has low population validity.

The infants in the study all came from Glasgow and were mainly from working-class families.

In addition, the small sample size of 60 families reduces the strength of the conclusion we can draw from the study.

The accuracy of data collection by parents who were keeping daily diaries whilst clearly being very busy could be questioned.

A diary like this is also very unreliable with demand characteristics and social desirability being significant issues.

Mothers are not likely to report negative experiences in their daily write up.

Why do fathers now have a more active role in their childrens' lives than in previous generations?

There is now an expectation in Western cultures that the father should play a greater role in bringing up children than was previously the case.

Also, the number of mothers working full time has increased in recent decades, and this has also led to fathers having a more active role.

How do the roles of fathers and mothers typically differ?

When do infants tend to prefer one over the other?

However, whereas mothers usually adopt a more caregiving and nurturing role compared to father, fathers adopt a more play-mate role than mothers.

For example, fathers are more likely than mothers to encourage risk taking in their children by engaging them in physical games.

Most infants prefer contact with their father when in a positive emotional state and wanting to play.

In contrast most infants prefer contact with their mother when they are distressed and need comforting.

Which factors impact the effect a father has on his child?

What does this result in

Numerous factors effect the father's role and the impact he has on his child's emotional development.

For example, culture, father's age, and the amount of time the father spends away from home.

The existence of so many factors means it difficult to make generalisations about the father's role.

How does culture impact a father's role?

There are also cultural differences in the role of the father.

Until very recently men were expected to be breadwinners and not to have direct involvement in their children’s care.

However this might be a very stereotypical view rather than reflect reality as fathers might not have been directly involved in the day to day care but they were involved in factors like play, instruction and guidance.In modern families fathers are less likely to engage in physical play in middle class Indian families.

How does social policy impact a father's role?

In the UK, fathers until last year were not given any paternal leave so the responsibility for child care was implicitly given to the mothers.

This could change the attachment the children make with their fathers.

However, this is not the case in every country so the pattern of attachment between father and children might be different.

How do biological factors impact a father's role?

Whose evidence is used?

Men seem to lack the emotional sensitivity to infant cues (Heerman, et al. 1994) that women offer spontaneously this could be due to the fact that women produce a hormone, oestrogen which increases emotional response to other’s needs.

However Frodi et al. (1978) found that men’s physiological response was the same than women’s.

How does the age and gender of the child impact the father's role?

Who found this?

Age and gender: Freeman et al. (2010) found that male children are more likely to prefer their father as an attachment figure than female children.

He also found that children are more likely to be attached to their fathers during their late childhood to early adolescence.

Infants and young adults are less likely to seek attachment to their fathers.

How does temperament of the child affect the role of the father?

Who found this?

Temperament:

According to Manlove et al. (2002) fathers are less likely to be involved with their infant if the infant has a difficult temperament.

What did Harlow aim to do?

Why?

Harlow wanted to study the mechanisms by which newborn rhesus monkeys bond with their mothers.'

These infants were highly dependent on their mothers for nutrition, protection, comfort and socialization.

What, exactly, though, was the basis of the bond?

What would the behavioural theory of attachment suggest about the formation of an attachment?

What was Harlow's explanation?

The behavioural theory of attachment would suggest that an infant would form an attachment with a carer that provides food.

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In contrast, Harlow’s explanation was that attachment develops as a result of the mother providing “tactile comfort”, suggesting that infants have an innate (biological) need to touch and cling to something for emotional comfort.

What was the procedure of this experiment?

16 monkeys were separated from their mothers immediately after birth and placed in cages with access to two surrogate mothers, one made of wire and one covered in soft terry towelling cloth.

Eight of the monkeys could get milk from the wire mother

Eight monkeys could get milk from the cloth mother

What were the results?

Both groups of monkeys spent more time with the cloth mother (even if she had no milk).

The infants of the second group would only go to the wire mother when hungry.

Once fed they would return to the cloth mother for most of the day.

If a frightening object was placed in the cage the infant took refuge with the cloth mother.

The infant would explore more when the cloth mother was present.

How did Harlow's monkeys compare to other monkeys?

Then Harlow observed the difference in behavior differences between the monkeys who had grown up with surrogate mothers and those with normal mothers.

They found that:

a) They were much more timid.

b) They didn’t know how to act with other monkeys.

c) They were easily bullied and wouldn’t stand up for themselves.

d) They had difficulty with mating.

e) The females were inadequate mothers.

What affected whether Harlow's monkeys showed these behaviours or not?

These behaviors were observed only in the monkeys who were left with the surrogate mothers for more than 90 days.

For those left less than 90 days the effects could be reversed if placed in a normal environment where they could form attachments.

What were Harlow's two conclusions?

Harlow concluded that “contact comfort” (provided by the cloth mother) was more important than food in the formation of attachment.

This also shows that contact comfort is preferable to food but not sufficient for healthy development.

He also concluded that early maternal deprivation leads to emotional damage but that its impact could be reversed in monkeys if an attachment was made before the end of the critical period.

However if maternal deprivation lasted after the end of the critical period then no amount of exposure to mothers or peers could alter the emotional damage that had already occurred.

What did Harlow also notice?

How did he test this? What did he find?

Harlow found therefore that it was social deprivation rather than maternal deprivation that the young monkeys were suffering from.

When he brought some other infant monkeys up on their own, but with 20 minutes a day in a playroom with three other monkeys, he found they grew up to be quite normal emotionally and socially.

Two problems with Harlow's study?

Two examples of the former?

Harlow’s work has been criticized. His experiments have been seen as unnecessarily cruel (unethical) and of limited value in attempting to understand the effects of deprivation on human infants.

It was clear that the monkeys in this study suffered from emotional harm from being reared in isolation.

This was evident when the monkeys were placed with a normal monkey (reared by a mother), they sat huddled in a corner in a state of persistent fear and depression.

In addition Harlow created a state of anxiety in female monkeys which had implications once they became parents.

Such monkeys became so neurotic that they smashed their infant's face into the floor and rubbed it back and forth.

Two strengths of Harlow's study?

Harlow's experiment is sometimes justified as providing valuable insight into the development of attachment and social behaviour.

At the time of the research, there was a dominant belief that attachment was related to physical (i.e. food) rather than emotional care.

It could be argued that the benefits of the research outweigh the costs (the suffering of the animals).

For example, the research influenced the theoretical work of John Bowlby, the most important psychologist in attachment theory.

It could also be seen as vital in convincing people about the importance of emotional care in hospitals, children's homes and daycare.

What was the procedure of Lorenz's study?

Lorenz (1935) took a large clutch of goose eggs and kept them until they were about to hatch out.

Half of the eggs were then placed under a goose mother, while Lorenz kept the other half beside himself for several hours.

When the geese hatched Lorenz imitated a mother duck's quacking sound, upon which the young birds regarded him as their mother and followed him accordingly. The other group followed the mother goose.

What did Lorenz find?

What is this known as?

What does it suggest?

Lorenz found that geese follow the first moving object they see, during a 12-17 hour critical period after hatching.

This process is known as imprinting, and suggests that attachment is innate and programmed genetically.

Other notable things about imprinting?

Imprinting has consequences, both for short-term survival, and in the longer term forming internal templates for later relationships.

Imprinting occurs without any feeding taking place.

If no attachment has developed within 32 hours it’s unlikely any attachment will ever develop.

How did Lorenz ensure that imprinting had occurred?

What did he find?

To ensure imprinting had occurred Lorenz put all the goslings together under an upturned box and allowed them to mix.

When the box was removed the two groups separated to go to their respective 'mothers' - half to the goose, and half to Lorenz.

What is notable about the process of imprinting? '

Who tested this? What did they find?

What did he and Lorenz both believe?

Imprinting does not appear to be active immediately after hatching, although there seems to be a critical period during which imprinting can occur.

Hess (1958) showed that although the imprinting process could occur as early as one hour after hatching, the strongest responses occurred between 12 and 17 hours after hatching, and that after 32 hours the response was unlikely to occur at all.

Lorenz and Hess believe that once imprinting has occurred it cannot be reversed, nor can a gosling imprint on anything else.

Another definition for attachment?

Who created this definition?

Dollard & Miller (1950) state attachment is a learned behaviour that is acquired through both classical and operant conditioning

How does attachment occur in terms of classical conditioning?

According to classical conditioning food (Unconditioned stimulus) produces pleasure (unconditioned response).

So the child simply associates food and mother together.

The mother becomes the conditioned stimulus and happiness becomes the conditioned response…attachment has formed.

How does attachment occur in terms of operant conditioning?

The presence of the caregiver is reinforcing for the infant.

The infant gains pleasure / reward as they are being fed.

The behavior of the infant is reinforcing for the caregiver (the caregiver gains pleasure from smiles etc. – reward).

The reinforcement process is therefore reciprocal (two way) and strengthens the emotional bond / attachment between the two.

What is the term for attachment through conditioning?

Who used it?

Dollard & Miller (1950) used the term secondary drive hypothesis to describe the processes of learning an attachment through operant and classical conditioning.

How does the secondary drive hypothesis work?

Secondary drive hypothesis explains how primary drives which are essential for survival, such as eating when hungry, become associated with secondary drives such as emotional closeness.

They extended the theory to explain that attachment is a two way process that the caregiver must also learn, and this occurs through negative reinforcement when the caregiver feels pleasure because the infant is no longer distressed.

Three pieces of evidence against this hypothesis?

Schaffer and Emerson found less than half of infants had a primary attachment to the person who usually fed them.

Harlow’s research suggested monkeys became attached to the soft surrogate mother rather than the one who fed it.

This goes against the learning theory of attachment.

Lorenz found goslings imprinted on the first moving object they saw which suggests attachment is innate and not learnt.

What does the monotropic theory of attachment state?

Bowlby’s monotropic theory of attachment suggests attachment is important for a child’s survival.

Attachment behaviours in both babies and their caregivers have evolved through natural selection.

This means infants are biologically programmed with innate behaviours that ensure that attachment occurs.

What does this theory suggest to be the critical period for developing an attachment?

What happens if an attachment is not made by this time?

This theory also suggests that there is a critical period for developing at attachment (about 0 - 2.5 years).

If an attachment has not developed during this time period then then it may well not happen at all.

What is monotropy?

What does it suggest?

A child has an innate (i.e. inborn) need to attach to one main attachment figure.

This is called monotropy.

This concept of monotropy suggests that there is one relationship which is more important than all the rest.

Although Bowlby did not rule out the possibility of other attachment figures for a child, he did believe that there should be a primary bond which was much more important than any other (usually the mother).

So how do attachments other than the primary attachment develop?

Other attachments may develop in a hierarchy below this.

An infant may therefore have a primary monotropy attachment to its mother, and below her the hierarchy of attachments may include its father, siblings, grandparents, etc.

What impact does the child's early relationship with the caregiver have on them?

What does this consist of?

How does it work?

The child’s relationship with a primary caregiver provides an internal working model which influences later relationships.

This internal working model is a cognitive framework comprising mental representations for understanding the world, self and others.

A person’s interaction with others is guided by memories and expectations from their internal model which influence and help evaluate their contact with others.

What are the three main features of a healthy working model?

When does this become part of a child's personality?

There are three main features of the internal working model:

(1) a model of others as being trustworthy,

(2) a model of the self as valuable, and

(3) a model of the self as effective when interacting with others.

Around the age of three these seem to become part of a child’s personality and thus affects their understanding of the world and future interactions with others.

Who supports Bowlby's theory?

How?

Konrad Lorenz (1935) supports Bowlby's monotropic theory as the attachment process of imprinting is an innate process which has a critical period.

Also, the geese also attached to a single person/animal or object, thus showing monotropic behavior.

The idea of monotropy and hierarchy is supported by research into attachments formed by the Efe tribe of Congo.

Efe women share the care of infants in the tribe and take turns to breast feed them, however the infants return to their natural mother at night and form a stable bond with the mother.

The idea of monotropy and hierarchy is supported by research into attachments formed by the Efe tribe of Congo.

Efe women share the care of infants in the tribe and take turns to breast feed them, however the infants return to their natural mother at night and form a stable bond with the mother.

Who does not support Bowlby?

Why?

However, Rutter's Romanian Orphan Study showed that attachments can form after the critical period.

What are the implications of the monotropy theory?

Implications (including economic implications) of monotropy theory: eg role of fathers, mothers returning to employment, use of daycare etc.

What did Ainsworth and Bell do?

Ainsworth and Bell (1971) conducted a controlled observation recording the reactions of a child and mother (caregiver), who were introduced to a strange room with toys.

What was the sample like?

How was it observed?

In the strange situation about 100 middle-class American infants and their mothers took part.

The infant’s behavior was observed during a set of pre-determined activities.

What was the procedure?

The Strange Situation procedure involved the child experiencing eight ‘episodes’ of approximately 3 minutes each.

The child is observed playing for 20 minutes while caregivers and strangers enter and leave the room, recreating the flow of the familiar and unfamiliar presence in most children's lives.

What did observers note?

Observers noted the child’s willingness to explore, separation anxiety, stranger anxiety and reunion behavior.

What percentage of babies were securely attached?

Insecure-resistant?

Insecure-avoidant?

70%,

15%,

15%

How did the researchers observe the babies?

Ainsworth & Bell observed from the other side of a one-way mirror so that the children did not know that they were being observed.

What was the separation anxiety like for secure babies?

Distressed when mother leaves

What about stranger anxiety?

Avoidant of strangers when alone, but friendly when the mother is present

Reunion behaviour?

Positive and happy when mother returns

Other behaviour?

Uses the mother as a safe base to explore their environment

What was the separation anxiety like for insecure-resistant babies?

Intense distress when the mother leaves

What about stranger anxiety?

they cannot be comforted by a stranger and will not interact with them – they treat the stranger and the mother very differently.

Reunion behaviour?

The infant approaches the mother (pelased to see her), but resists contact, may even push her away (cannot be comforted)

Other behaviour?

The infant cries more and explores less than the other two types

What was the separation anxiety like for insecure-avoidant babies?

No sign of distress when the the mother leaves

What about stranger anxiety?

The infant is okay with the stranger and plays normally when the stranger is present

Reunion behaviour?

The Infant shows little interest when the mother returns

Other behaviour?

The mother and stranger are able to comfort the infant equally well.

Infants are strongly avoidant of mother and stranger, showing no motivation to interact with either adult.

The stranger is treated similar to the mother (does not seek contact).

When does secure attachment occur?

This type of attachment occurs because the mother meets the emotional needs of the infant.

When does insecure-resistant attachment occur?

This type of attachment occurs because the mother sometimes meets the needs of the infant and sometimes ignores their emotional needs, i.e. the mother's behaviour is inconsistent.

When does insecure-avoidant attachment occur?

This tyep of attachment occurs because the mother ignores the emotional needs of the infant

Two weaknesses of the study?

A problem of the study is that it lacks population validity. The original study used American infants. The study tells us about how this particular group behaves and cannot be generalised to the wider population and other cultures.

Another criticism of the study is that it has low ecological validity, and the results may not be applicable outside the lab.

The environment of the study was controlled and the eight scripted stages of the procedure (e.g. mum and stranger entering and leaving the room at set times) would be unlikley to happen in real life.

A strength of the study?

One strength of the study is that it is easy to replicate.

This is because it follows a standardised procedure involving the 8 episodes of the mother and stranger entering and leaving the room.

Who studied cultural variations in attachment?

What was their aim?

Van Ijzendoorn & Kroonenberg (1988) wanted to investigate if attachment styles (secure and insecure) are universal (the same) across cultures, or culturally specific (vary considerably from place to place, due to traditions, the social environment, or beliefs about children).

How did they carry out their study?

Their sample?

They did not collect the data for their study, instead they analysed data from other studies using a method called meta anaylsis.

Data from 32 studies in 8 different countries was analysed.

What did the studies have in common?

How did they analyse them?

All 32 studies used the strange situation procedure to study attachment.

Using a meta-analysis (a statistical technique) they calculated the average percentage for the different attachment styles (e.g. secure, avoidant, resistant) in each country.

Findings?

Van Ijzendoorn & Kroonenberg found that secure attachment was the majority of infants (70%).

The lowest percentage of secure attachments was shown in China, and the highest in Great Britain.

It was also found that Western countries that support independence such as Germany had high levels of insecure avoidant.

Whereas Eastern countries that are more culturally close, such as Japan, had quite high levels of insecure resistant. The exception to the pattern was China which an equal number of avoidant and resistant infants.

Two issues with this study?

One problem is that many of the studies used in the meta-analysis had biased samples which cannot claim to be representative of each culture.

For example, only 36 infants were used in the Chinese study which is a very small sample size for such a populated country.

Also, most of the studies analyzed were from Western cultures.

The Strange Situation was created and tested in the USA, which means that it may be culturally biased (ethnocentric), as it will reflect the norms and values of American culture.

This is a problem as it assumes that attachment behaviour has the same meaning in all cultures, when in fact cultural perception and understanding of behaviour differ greatly. For example, the belief that attachment is related to anxiety on separation. This may not be the case in other cultures, e.g. Japan.

More important findings?

There is significant variation of attachments within cultures:

Van Ijzendoorn looked at multiple studies in each country, and found that every study produced different levels of each attachment classification.

This intra-cultural variation suggests that it is an over simplification to assume all children are brought up in the same way in particular country.

Whose theory was maternal deprivation?

What is maternal deprivation?

What is notable about it?

Bowlby’s Maternal Deprivation Hypothesis suggests that continual disruption of the attachment between infant and primary caregiver (i.e. mother) could result in long-term cognitive, social, and emotional difficulties for that infant

. Bowlby originally believed the effects to be permanent and irreversible.

When are the effects of maternal deprivation most likely to occur?

What is this called?

What causes maternal deprivation?

He argued that the first 2.5 years of life, the critical period, were crucial.

If the child was separated from their primary attachment figure (often the mother) for an extended period of time and in the absence of substitute care damage was inevitable.

What are the effects of maternal deprivation?

How do we remember these?

Use the acronym - ADDIDDAS to remember the effects of maternal deprivation:

Aggression,

Delinquency,

Dwarfism,

Intellectual retardation,

Depression,

Dependency,

Affectionless

Psychopathy,

Social maladjustment.

What is affectionless psychopathy?

How do such individuals behave?

Affectionless psychopathy is an inability to show affection or concern for others, a lack of shame or a sense of responsibility.

Such individuals act on impulse with little regard for the consequences of their actions. For example, showing no guilt for antisocial behavior.

Who was Bowlby?

What was his study called?

The 44 Juvenile Thieves

Bowlby was a psychoanalyst and psychiatrist, working at the London Child Guidance Clinic in the 1930s and 1940s.

What was the aim of the study?

To investigate the long-term effects of maternal deprivation.

Who were his sample?

How were they selected?

He selected an opportunity sample of 88 children attending his clinic

Which groups were the sample split into?What was the makeup of each group?

Why was each group referred to him?

Group 1- thief group: 31 boys and 13 girls in the ‘theft group’ were referred to him because of their stealing.

Group 2- control group: 34 boys and 10 girls were referred to him because of emotional problems.

How were the two groups matched?

The two groups were matched for age and IQ.

What was the procedure?

The children and their parents were interviewed and tested by a psychiatrist (Bowlby), a psychologist and a social worker focusing specifically on their early life experiences.