Attachment
Bowlby came up with the concept of attachment.
attachment is an emotional bond between a caregiver and infant, where both members seek closeness & feel more secure when close to the attachment figure.
Caregiver Infant Interactions
there are two types of caregiver interactions;
Reciprocity - responding to the actions of another with a similar action
the actions of one person triggers a response from the other partner
Jaffe et al. - from birth, babies move in rhythm when interacting with an adult (turn-taking)
Interactional Synchrony - co-ordinated and mirroring behaviours between individuals during social interactions
Meltzoff & Moore (1977)- infants as young as 2-3 weeks old imitated specific facial gestures
procedure - a dummy was placed in the child’s mouth to prevent any reaction, the dummy was removed & child was filmed, an adult model does faces (kissy face, tongue out, & mouth open).
they found that there was an association between the infant behaviour and the adult model.
Meltzoff & Moore (1983) - they did the same research but with 3 day olds, they got the same results and it ruled out the possibility that imitataion behaviours were learnt.
Real or pseudo-imitation?
Piaget - true imitation only develops towards the end of the first year. what the infant was doing is repeating a behaviour that would be rewarded (e.g. sticking it’s tongue out so the adult would smile at them). the infant has not consciously translated what they see into a matching movement.
The Development of Attachment
Shaffer & Emerson - created the stages of attachment by using 60 infants from Glasgow.
there are 4 stages;
STAGE 1: asocial stage
from birth to 2 months, the infants produce a similar response to all inanimate and animate objects. Reciprocity and Interactional synchrony start to play a big role
STAGE 2: indiscriminate
from 2-7 months, infants become more social and prefer human company to inanimate ones, they start to distinguish between familiar and unfamiliar people, but not enough for stranger anxiety.
STAGE 3: specific attachment
from 7-9 months, they start to distinctively protest when one specific person puts them down (separation anxiety). they also start to show stranger anxiety and another sign of having a specific attachment to a person → primary attachment figure
65% mother was sole object, 30% the mother was the joint subject of attachment, 27% the father was the joint subject of attachment, 3% father was the sole object.
STAGE 4: multiple attachments
from 9+ months and after the main attachment, the infant develops a wider circle of attachment. within: 1 month = 29% gain more attachments, 6 months = 75%
Role of the Father
Shaffer & Emerson found that fathers were far less likely to to be the primary attachment figure because they spnd less time with the baby.
Lamb - studies have shown little relationship between father accessibility and infant-father attachment
this may be due to biological (female hormone oestrogen underlies caring behaviour) and social (it is thought that being sensitive or caring is rather feminine) factors
Animal Studies of Attachment
Lorenz (1935):
Procedure:
divided a clutch of gosling eggs into two groups, one with the mother and the other in the incubator
Lorenz made sure that the first thing the group in the incubator saw was himself
The goslings in the incubator started following him around
to test this effect of imprinting, Lorenz marked the two groups to distinguish between them and placed them together.
Findings:
the goslings quickly divided themselves up, one following the mother, the other following Lorenz
Lorenz concluded that imprinting has a critical period, if the animal is not exposed to a moving object, it would not imprint.
imprinting is an innate readiness to develop a strong bond with the mother
Lorenz also found lost lasting effects of imprinting (1952), animals will choose to mate with the same kind of object upon which they were imprinted
Harlow (1959):
procedure:
created two wire mothers with different heads - one was monkey like and was wrapped with a soft cloth, and the other was plain wired, an abnormal head, but had food (milk bottle)
8 infant rhesus monkeys were studied - four on each mother
the measurements were made up of the amount of time that was spent with either mother
Findings:
all 8 monkeys spent most of their time with the cloth covered monkey.
when frightened, all the monkeys clung to the cloth mother
these findings suggest that infants do not develop an attachment to the person that feeds them but to the person that provides them contact comfort
Harlow also found lost lasting effects, the monkeys developed abnormally, socially - froze/fled when other monkeys approached them, & sexually - did not show normal mating behaviours and did not cradle their babies. he also found a critical period, at 3 months old, they could recover, but at 6 months old, they could not recover.
Explanations of Attachment
Learning Theory
the name given to groups of explanations (operant & classical conditioning) which explains behaviour in terms of learning rather than any inborn tendencies or higher order thinking. children are born as blank slates.
Classical conditioning - learning through association
Pavlov - food (UCS) = pleasure (UCR), Mother (NS) = no response, Mother (NS) + food (UCS) = pleasure (CR). the NS is now a CS.
Operant Conditioning - learning through reinforcement (first investigated by Skinner)
Dollard & Miller - drive reduction theory. a ‘drive’ is something that motivates behaviour, e.g. when an animal is uncomfortable, this creates a drive to reduce this comfort. When the infant is fed, the drive is reduced and produces a feeling of pleasure. this is a negative reinforcement, as they escaped from something unpleasant. food then becomes a primary reinforcer as it supplies a reward
Social Learning Theory - learning through observing others and imitating behaviours that are rewarded
Hay & Vespo - modelling could be used to explain attachment behaviours
Bowlby’s Theory
Bowlby’s Monotropic Theory (1969) - evolutionary explanation, infants have an innate and instinctual drive to form a strong attachment
Monotropy - the idea that the one relationship that the infant has with their primary attachment figure is of special significance in emotional development
the child’s monotropic attachment provides a blueprint for future relationships
Babies have a critical period of 3-6 months, this is for development processes (like walking or crawling) and infants who do not have the opportunity of having an attachment seem to have difficulty in forming attachments later on.
Social releasers are social behaviours/characteristics that elicits caregiving which leads to attachment (e.g. crying or smiling)
monotropy forms a mental representation of this relationship called an internal working model - the thinking process someone relies on that is built on past experiences (schemas). this modeal as several consequences (1) gives child insight into caregiver’s behaviour & enables the child to influence caregivers behaviour (2) acts as a template for all future relationships because it generates expectations about what relationships are like
the strength of monotropic relationships can be seen through safe base behaviour → those with good attachments are willing to explore their environment
Continuity Hypothesis - individuals that are strongly attached as infants continue to be socially and emotionally competent, whereas individuals that were NOT STRONGLY attached as infants have more socially and emotional difficulty throughout life.
Types of Attachments
Ainsworth’s Strange Situation (controlled observatino designed to test attachment security)
procedure
Used 106 middle class infants
8 episodes, each designed to highlight certain behaviours
KEY FEATURES: caregiver & stranger alternatively stay with or leave the infant.
this enabled the observation of infants response to;
separation from caregiver (separation anxiety)
reunion with caregiver (reunion behaviour)
response to stranger (stranger anxiety)
the environment, which aims at encouraging exploration and testing the safe base concept
recorded what the infants were doing every 15 secs by using these categories
(1) proximity & contact seeking
(2) contact-maintaining
(3) proximity & interaction-avoidance
(4) contact & interaction-resisting
(5) search behaviours
findings
3 kinds of attachments
secure attachment (Type B)
those who have more harmonious & cooperative interactions with the caregiver
not likely to cry if caregiver leaves the room
shows some distress when left with stranger
uses caregiver as safe base to explore
insecure avoidant (Type A)
avoids social interaction & intimacy
shows little response to separation
doesn’t seek the proximity of caregiver on reunion
happy to explore without caregiver’s presence
insecure resistance (Type C)
resists social interactions & intimacy
responds to separation with immediate & intense distress (behaves similarly with strangers)
on reunion, children show conflicting desires for & against contact
Type B Type A Type C
willingness to explore high high low
stranger anxiety moderate low high
separation anxiety some easy to soothe indifferent distressed
behaviour at reunion with caregiver enthusiastic avoids contact seeks & rejects
percentages of infants 66% 22% 12%
Cultural Variations in Attachment
Cultural variations - the ways that different groups of people vary in term of their social practices & the effect of these practices have on development & behaviour
Van IJzendoon & Krooneberg
Procedure:
meta-analysis of findings in 32 studies
were interested to see whether there would be evidence that inter-cultural differences (between countries/cultures) and intra-cultural differences (within countries/cultures) exist
findings:
the differences between countries were low, as their differences were small
secure attachments were the most common classification, expect from Israel & Japan, as they are collectivist countries
they found that differences within cultures were 1.5x greater than between cultures