Attachment

Stages of attachment

Attachment = emotional relationship between child and primary caregiver

Maccoby identified 4 characteristics:

  • seeking proximity

  • distress on separation

  • pleasure when reunited

  • general orientation towards primary caregiver

Stages of attachment identified by Shaffer and Emerson:

  • asocial stage (0-6 weeks) = indiscriminate attachment, attention seeking behaviour e.g. crying but not directed at anyone in particular

  • indiscriminate stage (6 weeks-7 months) = child seeks attention from anyone and happy to receive attention from anyone - but preference shown to familiar faces

  • discriminate stage (7-11 months) = primarily attached to primary caregiver and distress on separation, wary of strangers

  • multiple attachments (12+ months) = child forms secondary attachments

AO3

+Shaffer and Emerson - Glasgow babies = studied 60 babies (observing every 4 weeks for first 1 year and then again at 18 months) - measured strength of attachment with stranger anxiety and separation anxiety - found 50% formed first attachment between 7 and 9 months - by 18 months 31% had 5+ attachments

+babies observed in own homes (natural environment) = high ecological validity - findings can be generalised to real world.

-accuracy of data collection by parents questioned - very busy, social desirability (lie) = reduced validity

-studying asocial stage - babies have poor coordination so difficult to make any judgements about them based on observing behaviour - evidence cannot be relied on

-cultural variation = in some cultures mltiple attachments are the norm e.g. nurseries etc.

Caregiver infant interactions

Reciprocity = infants coordinated actions with caregivers in a kind of conversation e.g. smiling

Brazelton suggested this basic rhythm is an important precursor to later communications

Regularity of infants signals allows caregiver to anticipate behaviour and respond appropriately

Tronick et al = still face experiment - asked mothers to stop moving and maintain static, unsmiling expression - babies would try tempt mother into interaction by smiling and would become distressed when it didn’t provoke usual response

Interactional synchrony = infant and caregiver interact in mirror pattern in terms of facial and body movements

AO3

+Meltzoff and Moore = observed children as young as 2 weeks - parent displayed 1 of 3 facial expressions or gestures - child response was filmed and identified by independent observers - association found between expression/gesture adult displayed and action of baby

-uncertainty in results when testing infant behaviour - many studies involving observation of interactions have shown same patterns of interaction - however what is being observed is merely hand movements/changes in expression - it is difficult to be certain based on observation what the cause is from infant (could be chance)

+controlled observations capture fine detail -well controlled = fine details of behaviour can be recorded and analysed - babies don’t know/care being observed so behaviour does not change from everyday

life (normally problem for observational research) = good validity

Role of father

Shaffer and Emerson found majority of babies became attached to mothers first (primary attachment)

75% of infants formed secondary attachment with father by 18 months

Grossman - carried out longitudinal study looking at both the parents behaviour and its relationship to the quality of attachment into teens

Quality of infant attachment with mothers but not fathers was relating to child’s attachment in teens - suggesting father less important

Fathers role is more to do with play and stimulation and less to do with nurturing

However some evidence to suggest when fathers take on role of main caregiver they adopt behaviour more typical in mothers

Field - filmed 4 month old babies in face to face interaction with primary caregiver mother, secondary caregiver fathers and primary caregiver fathers - primary fathers and mothers both spent more time smiling, holding infant etc. than secondary fathers - shows that attachment relationship dependent on level of responsiveness not gender of parent

AO3

-inconsistent findings - research into role of father is confusing as different researchers interested i different research questions e.g. some researcher interested in understanding role of father as secondary attachment figure (found father act differently to mothers and have a distinct role) whereas others interested in role as primary (fathers can take on a ‘maternal’ role) = psychologists can not easily answer what is the role of the father = conclusions cannot be drawn

-MacGallum and Golombok found children growing up in single/same sex parent families do not develop any differently from heterosexual families

-still a trend towards mothers being primary caregivers can be explained by biology = female hormones (oestrogen) create higher levels of nurturing and therefore women are biologically predisposed to be primary attachment figure - confirms difference between mothers and fathers in attachment

Learning theory for attachment

Attachment can be formed through classical conditioning

Cupboard love theory

Dollard and Miller = attachment is a learned behaviour that is acquired through both classical and operant conditioning via nuture

Classical

  • UCS = food

  • UCR = pleasure response

  • NS = mother

  • CS = mother

  • CR = pleasure

  • associates food and primary caregiver

Operant

  • presence of caregiver reinforcing for infant

  • infant gains reward - food

  • behaviour of infant reinforcing for caregiver e.g. smiles

  • reinforcement = reciprocal = strengthens attachment

Dollard and Miller = secondary drive hypothesis:

  • primary drives are essential for survival e.g. eating

  • secondary drives e.g. emotional closeness

  • the 2 become associated

AO3

-Harlow = evidence suggesting food doesn’t always lead to attachment - conducted a study with monkeys raised on their own by wire mother with food and cloth mother with no food - should have formed attachment with wire mother with food however monkey spent 17 hours a day with cloth mother and would run to cloth mother when frightened = learning theory not full explanation and limited in explaining attachments and there is other impacts

however difficulties generalising animal research to humans - not the same in physiology and cognition

-food may not be most important aspect - Shaffer and Emerson found 39% of babies formed attachments to someone other than person who fed them = cupboard theory may not be full explanation

-ignores other approaches - explanation only looks at nurture and ignores evidence of nature and evolutionary psychology in explaining attachments

-newer and better explanation comes from SLT - Dale Hay and Jo Vespa - parents teach children to love them by modelling attachment behaviour e.g. hugging and rewarding when they display attachment behaviour - based on observation and imitation

Evolutionary theory for attachment

Bowlby’s monotropic theory of attachment

Innate tendancy to form attachment gives us adaptive advantage

5 aspects of theory: ASCMI

  • Adaptive - give humans adaptive advantage = more likely to survive - infant kept safe, warm and fed

  • Social releasers - unlock innate tendancy of adults to care for them - both physical and behavioural

  • critical period - between birth and 2.5 years - if didn’t happen then the child would be damaged socially, emotionally, intellectually and physically for life

  • monotropy - infants form 1 very special attachment with primary caregiver (usually mother)

  • internal working model - special mental schema for relationship - all child’s adult relationships will be based on this

AO3

+Bailey et al - mothers with weaker attachments to their own mothers have weaker attachments to their baby = supports bowlbys idea of internal working model

-temperament hypothesis - children born with innate temperamental differences - baby’s temperament plays a role in determining child’s attachment to their mothers. Belsky and Rovine = newborns show signs of behavioural instability less likely to become securely attached to mothers than those who did not

-monotropy - studies demonstrated infants develop multiple attachments and that indeed child’s social, emotional and cognitive development benefit from a network of attachments. Shaffer and Emerson 18 months 75% had multiple

+universal - Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg - 32 studies of attachment behaviour and found that secure attachment is most common form of attachment is most common form of attachment in all countries

Animal studies of attachment

Harlow = evidence suggesting food doesn’t always lead to attachment - conducted a study with monkeys raised on their own by wire mother with food and cloth mother with no food - should have formed attachment with wire mother with food however monkey spent 17 hours a day with cloth mother and would run to cloth mother when frightened = learning theory not full explanation and limited in explaining attachments and there is other impacts

Lorenz = grey lag geese - 2 experimental conditions - 1 was that he was the first moving object seen by goslings after hatched and 2nd was mother goose first moving object seen after hatched - in condition 1 goslings followed him as if mother, when they were adult they performed mating displays to him and ignored other geese - condition 2 they performed normal mating and followed mother - goslings had critical period of a few hours in which to imprint (12-17 hours)

AO3

-generalisability to humans

-Guitons research challenges Lorenz - challenge idea that imprinting has a permanent effect on mating behaviour - found chickens imprinted on yellow washing up gloves would try to mate with them as adults but with experience they eventually learned to prefer mating with other chickens - imprinting not as permanent as Lorenz believed

+real world application - Harlow’s research helped social workers and clinical psychologists understand that a lack of bonding experience may be a risk factor in child development allowing them to intervene to prevent poor outcomes

Ainsworth’s types of attachment

Aim to determine type and strength of attachment babies have to parents by observing separation anxiety, stranger anxiety, reunion behaviour, exploratory behaviour

Observer takes mother and infant into room then leaves - mother allows baby to explore then stranger enters room and mother leaves - stranger leaves and mother enters before repeating

How baby reacts determines type of attachment

3 types:

  • secure

    • distress on separation

    • avoidant of stranger when alone

    • happy when reuited

    • will explore environmentusing mother a safe base

  • resistant

    • intense distress of separation

    • fearful of stranger

    • seek and rejects when reunited

    • less exploratory

  • avoidant

    • no distress on separation

    • normal with stranger

    • little interest on reunion

    • happy to explore

70% secure

10% resistant

20% avoidant

AO3

-overt observation used - parents knew they were being observed = displayed demand characteristics e.g. overly affectionate due to social desirability = altered childrens behaviour = lowers internal validity

-culture bias - based on western ideals - categorising a higher proportion of children from other cultures as avoidant e.g. Germany or resistant e.g. Japan

+high reliability - observations under strict and controlled methods using predetermined behavioural categories - several observers who had to agree on attachment - 94% agreement rate = results are meaningful

+Ainsworth types are incomplete - Main and Solomon suggested 4th type - looked at Ainsworth ls videos and noted some infants showed inconsistent patterns of behaviour which they labelled disorganised - further support comes from meta analysis by Ijzendoorn which found 15% of infants classed as disorganised = Ainsworth unable to fully explain all different types of attachment

Cultural differences in attachment

Strange situation used to assess variations of attachment cross culturally

Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg meta analysis:

  • summarised findings from 8 countries - including UK, US, sweden, china, japan, holland, germany and israeel

  • 32 studies

  • average findings consistent with ainsworth - 65% secure, 21% avoidant, 12% resistant

intra cultural variation larger than cross cultural

Japand and Israel had a higher incidence of resistant than avoidant

China had lowest rate of secure at 50%

AO3

+Jin et al - similar study with korean children - overall proportions of insecure and secure similar to most countries (secure most common) - strong comparison between Japanese resistant levels and Korean = similar parenting styles

+Simonelli - mother working

-ethnocentric - assuming western values and parenting styles are the norm (imposed etic) - applying these to other cultures could explain why we see an increase in resistant attachment types from Jin et al’s research - in these cultures it is unusual for child to be separated in 1st year but in USA many children will go to daycare from young age

-variations within country - many subcultures and their differences suggest it is not very useful to compare countries - sample not representative in terms of parenting styles or factors such as economic status (confounding variable = reduce validity)

-alternative explanation why secure most - Bowlby’s evolutionary explanation - forming attachment necessary for aiding survival - also says attachment are innate and universal = understand results of meta analysis

Effects of institutionalization

Growing up in an orphanage/childrens house

Disinhibited attachment = pervasive pattern of attention seeking behaviour with a relative lack of selectivity in social relationships

Rutter et al (2007) = investigated Romanian orphans adopted by UK families - 58 babies were adopted before 6 months, 59 between ages of 6-24 months, 48 babies adopted between 2-4 years - children adopted after 6 months showed signs of disinhibited attachment, infants before 6 months rarely displayed type of attachment - also later adopted children showed more difficulty with peers and more likely to be bullies, also showed reduced cognitive ability - before 6 months had IQ = 102 at 11. 6m-2yrs = 86, 2+ yrs = 77 - LINK TO AO3 - THIS SHOWS MORE INSTITUTIONALISED = MORE PRONOUNCED EFFECTS

AO3

-issues with generalisability - conditions of orphanages so bad that results may not apply to general institutional care - had particularly poor standards of care when forming relationships with children = situational variables

+important practical applications - led to improvements in way children are cared for in institutions (childrens homes now avoid large numbers of caregivers for each child = allows for attachments)

-children not randomly assigned to conditions as rutter didn’t interefere with adpotion process - children adopted later may be less sociable (confounding variable)

Bowlby’s theory of maternal deprivation

separation or loss of mother as well as failure to develop an attachment

monotropy helps form template for other relationships - IWW

When maternal bond is broken (and no substitute provided) within critical period it will have serious effects on intellectual, social and emotional development - this is permanent and irreversable

deprivation may arise because of prolonged separation or a series of shorter separations

children subjected to maternal deprivation may develop affectionless psychopathy - inability to show affection or concern for others and have little regard for consequences of actions

AO3

+Goldfarb - followed up 30 war orphaned children to age of 12 - ½ fostered by age of 12, ½ fostered by age of 4 - fostered by 4 had IQ of 96, fostered by 12 has IQ of 68

+Bowlby’s 44 thieves - 44 teenagers accused of stealing interviewed, control group of non criminal but emotionally disturbed also interviewed - found that 14/44 were affectionless psychopaths and 12/14 had experienced prolonger separation in critical period - of controls only 2/44

-investigator bias - Bowlby carried out investigation himself - may have interpreted findings in bias way to get evidence for theory = bias results = inaccurate = reduce validity

-critical period more of sensitive period - Koluchova - czech twin boys isolated from age of 18 months - later looked after by 2 loving adults and recovered fully

influence of attachment on childhood and adulthood attachment

Bowlby’s evolutionary theory of attachment - attachment type formed as infant provides infant with internal working model of relationships - guides relationship behaviour as an adult

adult:

secure child as adult will view relationships as positive, trust other and believe love lasts, they will have a positive image as mother being dependable and caring

avoidant as adult will fear closeness, love not durable and not necessary for hapiness, remember mother as cold and rejecting

resistant as adult will love easily, have conflicting memories of mother being cold and rejecting

influence of attachment on childhood can be seen through peer relationships:

Myron-wilson and Smith - longitudinal study on 196 7-11 year olds

findings showed association between early attachment type and bullying - those with secure attachment generally not involved, avoidant are more likely to be victims, resistant more likely to bully