Attachment and Deprivation

The Social Approach: Attachment and Deprivation

What is this approach about?

The social approach explores the links between individuals and how these links impact behaviour, identity, and expectations.

Focus Areas:
  • Attachment and Deprivation
  • Pro-social Behaviour
  • Social Influence

Definitions

  • Attachment: A strong emotional and reciprocal tie between an infant and caregiver(s), leading to a desire for proximity.
  • Attachment deprivation: Bond disruption due to separation from an attachment figure.

Attachment Theory: Introduction

  • Key figures: John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth.
  • Bowlby drew from ethology, developmental psychology, and psychoanalysis.
  • Ainsworth developed a methodology to test Bowlby's ideas.

Psychoanalytic Explanation of Attachment

  • Sigmund Freud: Attachment is due to the child's attempts to stay near the familiar person who satisfies needs.
  • Attachment bond starts in the oral stage (0-12/18 months).
  • Oral stage: focus on mouth (sucking, biting).
  • Important reflexes: Rooting and Sucking Reflexes
  • Evaluation: Schaffer and Emerson (1964) showed that the quality of interaction, not response to biological needs, is most important for attachment.

Behaviorist Explanation of Attachment: Learning Theory

  • Attachment is a result of classical or operant conditioning.
  • Dollard and Millar (1950): Child becomes attached to the mother because she feeds the infant.
  • Classical Conditioning: Parents become associated with pleasant stimuli (e.g., food).
  • Operant Conditioning: Positive reinforcement for parents (infant's comfort), negative reinforcement (less crying).
  • Evaluation: Lorenz (1935) and Harlow (1958) showed infants seek closeness when stressed and look for contact comfort.

Key Study: Harlow’s Monkeys

  • Harlow & Zimmerman (1959): Investigated whether feeding or contact comfort was more important.
  • Infant monkeys preferred cloth mothers over wire mothers, regardless of which provided food.
  • Conclusion: Attachment is not solely related to the association of caregiver with food.

John Bowlby's Explanation of Attachment and Deprivation

  • Bowlby's theory influenced by psychoanalysis, evolutionary theory, and ethology.
  • Imprinting (Konrad Lorenz): birds bond with the first moving object they see; is permanent.
  • Maternal Deprivation Hypothesis: Breaking the maternal bond early in life has serious, irreversible effects on intellectual, social, and emotional development (in 25% of children).
Basic Tenets of Bowlby’s Theory
  • Monotropy: One primary attachment is more important than others.
  • Critical Period: Continuous attention from the primary figure for the first 3 years.
  • Maternal Deprivation: Leads to 'emotionless psychopathy.'
  • Distress & Detachment: Distress follows short-term deprivation; prolonged separation leads to detachment.
  • Internal Working Model: Cognitive representations of past figures guide future interactions.

Internal Working Model

  • Cognitive framework for understanding self, others, and the world.
  • Three main features:
    • Model of others as trustworthy
    • Model of self as valuable
    • Model of self as effective in communication

Deprivation and Privation

  • Deprivation: An attachment forms but is then discontinued.
  • Privation: No opportunity to form attachments.
  • Rutter: effects of deprivation depend on the reason for separation and can be reversed in a loving family.

Real World Observations

  • Rene Spitz (1946): Studied institutionalized children and found depression in those deprived of attachment figures.
  • William Goldfarb (1955): Children fostered later (after 3 months) showed more problems in adolescence.
  • Hodges & Tizard (1989): Children adopted from residential homes formed better relationships than those returning to their families.

Romanian Orphanages

  • Rutter et al. (2010): Longitudinal study of Romanian orphans adopted by British families.
  • Initial delays in cognitive, emotional, and social functioning improved by age 4 (if adopted before 6 months).
  • Some children adopted after 6 months experienced deprivation-specific problems (difficulties in social situations and problematic behaviors).

Patterns of Attachment

  • Strange Situation (Mary Ainsworth): Determines attachment type.

    • Secure Attachment: distress when mother leaves, happy return
    • Avoidant Attachment: Rarely cry when mother leaves, avoid mother on return
    • Resistant/Ambivalent Attachment: Anxious before mother leaves, upset when she leaves, ambivalent on return

Attachment Styles: Evaluation

  • Maternal sensitivity predicts security of infant attachment.
  • Attachment behaviour depends on cultural expectations.
  • Fraley and Spieker (2003): dimensions instead of categories to capture variations in attachment styles.

Understanding Differences in Attachment Styles

  • Maternal Sensitivity Hypothesis: differences in attachment styles are due to maternal responsiveness.

The Role of the Child: The Temperament Hypothesis

  • Kagan (1984): The infant's temperament and personality determine attachment to its mother'.
  • Belsky and Rovine (1987): Caregiver's sensitivity and child's temperament are important in determining attachment

Cross Cultural Research

  • Used to see how people behave in different cultural settings and to investigate whether or not the behaviours identified by research are universal or are only applicable to particular cultural settings.
  • Japan: Children never left alone with strangers.
    *Apparently no avoidant style noticed – possibly because this was a novelty for children.
  • Germany: mostly avoidant children. Possible explanation: German parents may regard behaviours associated with secure attachment negatively (spoilt children).
  • Israel: where children were raised in a Kibbutz – less avoidance (mothers available but mostly taken care of by strangers).

Other Real-Life Stories

  • Genie Wiley, the Czech twins, and the children of Terezin.

Genie Wiley

  • Isolated until age 13, showed some reversible effects of privation (forming attachments) but irreversible cognitive problems.

The Czech Twins

  • Severe privation reversed by loving foster care, challenging Bowlby’s hypothesis.

Freud and Dann: The children in Terezin

  • Despite privation, developed normal intelligence, suggesting reversible effects.

More Common Separations

  • Divorce: Can lead to marital conflicts > Separation > Adjustment by parents and children (e.g. moving, money)
  • Girls cope better than boys BUT, girls find it harder to accept their mother re-marrying
  • The Crisis Phase - the first year (or more).
  • Younger children – more behavioural problems ; Older children – more academic and relational difficulties

The effects of sending children to playschools or child care centres

  • The quality of care children receive at home, and the type of care received away from home
  • Infants that were placed in fulltime day care developed more avoidant attachments (avoidant attachments are associated with problems in later childhood).
  • Factors that determine whether day care has negative effects are:
    • The type of care received at home (Scarr, 1997)
    • Age of the children (worse between ages 6-12 months);
    • Single parent households;
    • The emotional bond of care giver to the child
    • Attention child receives (small number of children with carer);
    • Mother’s satisfaction (when mothers want to work rather than being forced to work due to financial constraints).