Attachment

• Define attachment?


  infants and caregivers develop deep and lasting emotional bonds; both members seek closeness and feel more secure when close to their attachment figure
• Reciprocity is a mutual turn taking from of interaction. Both caregivers and infants contribute to the interaction by responding to the others signals
• what is interactional synchrony?

  simultaneous interaction; acting rhythmically with co ordinated behaviour and matching emotional states
• what is imitation?


  infant directly copes caregiver expression.
• what is sensitive responsiveness?

  adult correctly interprets the meaning of the infants communication and is motivated to respond appropriately
• strength of caregiver / infant interactions ?

  meltzoff and Moore

  experimenter displayed facial gestures such as sticking out tongue and opening mouth in shock to 12, 21 day old infants

  found that infants had the ability to observe and reciprocate through imitation
• Limitation of caregiver/ infant interactions?

  infants cant directly communicate their thoughts or emotions so any findings are dependent on inferences therefore making it unscientific
• outline and explain the 4 stages of attachment proposed by schaffer?

  stage 1 = asocial; 0-6 weeks, babies display innate behaviours like crying and smiling to any potential caregiver as well as objects like their toys

  stage 2= indiscriminate attachment; 6weeks-7months, infants develop the ability to tell difference between familiar and unfamiliar faces but still dont have a preference

  stage 3= specific attachment;7-9months, babies form strong attachment to primary caregiver (usually mother) stranger and separation anxiety develop at this point

  stage 4= multiple attachment; 9-10months+
• strength of stages of attachment?

  Schaffer and Emerson

  longitudinal observation of 60 working class mothers from Glasgow

  found that sep anxiety occurred in most babies by 25-32 weeks with stranger anxiety setting in a month later

  in 18month follow up 87% had developed multiple attachments; strongest attachment to mothers with consistent caregiver/infant interactions

  suggests that development occurs in the stages outlined by Schaffer and quality of interaction influences strength of attachment
• limitation of stages of attachment ?

  Schaffer and emersons longitudinal study cannot be generalised

  sample only included a group of working class mother in 1960s Glasgow

  ignores fathers role and lacks temporal validity
• Outline lorenz’s study ?

  looked into imprinting on geese which is birds forming a strong bond and following their mothers

  he randomly divided gosling eggs; half were taken to be hatched with Lorenz and the other half hatched with their biological mother
• Outline Lorenz findings?


  goslings that he hatched imprinted on him and followed him

  established a critical period of 32 hours to see a moving object to imprint on and if not they lost their ability to imprint

  this suggests imprinting is a biological/ evolutionary feature of attachment in certain birds
• what are the strengths of Lorenz geese experiment ?

  there are practical applications like physical tough

  his critical period findings have been highly influential; bowlby argued similar critical period for humans
• what is a weakness of lorenz animal study of attachment ?

  the generalisation of animal behaviour to human psychology is problematic due to different biologies; social and cultural experiences that influence behaviour
• outline harlows animal study of attachment ?

  cupboard love theory that babies love their mothers because they feed them

  monkeys were placed in cages with two surrogate mothers

  mother 1 provided milk but no comfort (wire mother)

  mother 2 provided comfort but no food (cloth mother)

  time spent with each mother was recorded as well as which one the monkeys ran to when they were frightened by a robot
• outline harlows findings?


  monkeys spent most time with cloth mother

  only visited wire mother when they needed to eat

  maternal deprivation was caused= permanent social disorders

  shows monkeys have a biological nature for contact comfort
• weaknesses of harlows study ?

  lack of generalisability as tested on animals ; different brains

  ethics; high stress levels for the monkeys and lack of rehabilitation into the monkey world as they were socially outcasted due to maternal deprivation
• strengths of Harlows study?

  highly influential; foundation for bowlbys monotropic theory

  has practical applications
• what is the social learning theory as an explanation of attachment ?

  argues that infants become attached to caregiver because they learn that the caregiver provides food

  occurs through classical conditioning and operant conditioning
• what is classical conditioning ?

  learning through association

  food= unconditioned stimulus > please = unconditioned response

  mother is present every time baby is being fed so she becomes associated with the pleasure of being fed

  mother goes from being neutral stimulus to conditioned stimulus
• what is operant conditioning ?

  learning through consequences

  positive reinforcement; presenting a stimulus to encourage behaviour - baby cries, baby gets food, baby stops crying

  negative reinforcement; encouraging a behaviour by removing a stimuli- parents give food so baby stops crying
• strength of social learning theory?

  research support from behaviourist approach;

  classical conditioning ; pavlovs dogs

  operant conditioning ; skinners rats
• limitations of social learning theory ?

  environmentally reductionist; relationship is more complicated that stimulus association and ignores biological factors

  contradicts Harlows research as his monkeys spent more time with the cloth mother not the food mother
• what is bowlbys mono-tropic theory ?


  argues that infants have an innate and instinctual drive to form an attachment to their mother (monotropy) and this is vital to an infants survival

  babies use signals called social releasers that attract caregivers attention like smiling and crying; bowlby suggests that mothers are biologically programmed to find these behaviours cute or distressing and therefore react
• what is bowlbys critical period ?

  monotropic attachment must be formed in first 30 months after birth and a lack of monotropy results in permanent negative social, intellectual and emotional consequences for the infant
• monotropic attachment forms schema called an internal working model that provides a blueprint for all future relationships
• strength of bowlbys monotropic theory?

  ideas have been developed and applied to early childcare; eg immediate physical contact from mothers after birth is encouraged
• weaknesses of bowlbys monotropic theory ?

  deterministic; states that we have no conscious control over future relationships because of our IWM

  lacks temporal validity; study in 1940s where the societal views were mother cares for the children and father provides but times have changed

  ignores role of father which can be damaging for single father or two father households
• ainsworths types of attachment ?

  identified factors that indicated attachment strength; proximity to mother, exploration behaviour, separation anxiety, reunion response and sensitive responsiveness

  three types of attachment :

  insecure avoidant

  secure

  insecure resistant
• what behaviours shown in insecure avoidant attachment ?


  infants explore freely, not using mother as secure base

  low stranger and separation anxiety

  mother show low sensitive responsiveness
• what behaviours are shown in secure attachment?

  infants use mother as safe base

  moderate separation and stranger anxiety
• what behaviours are shown in insecure resistant attachment ?


  infants are clingy, ambivalent when mothers return

  high stranger and separation anxiety

  seek and reject
• outline the procedure of the strange situation?

  structured observations of infant and mother pairs in a lab setting 8 stages, included mother leaving and stranger entering and then mother returning

  behaviours indicating attachement strength were recorded
• outline ainsworths findings in the strange situation ?

  66%= secure , 34% insecure - 22%= insecure avoidant and 12% insecure resistant

  research suggests that a secure attachment develops due to the attention of a consistently sensitive responsive mother
• strength of ainsworth strange situation ?

  highly controlled and standardised procedures with clear behavioural categories making it replicable
• weakness of strange situation ?

  western culture bias; developed in America so not valid when applied to other cultures as some cultures value dependence or independence more

  low ecological validity; lab setting so demand characteristics more likely

  there could be a third variable like temperament
• outline van ijzendoorns research ?

  researched cultural variations in attachment

  carried out a large meta analysis of 2000 infants in 32 studies from 8 studies

  studied attachment types using the strange situation
• outline van ijzendoorns findings?

  general findings; secure most common in all countries and insecure resistant was least common

  avoidant more common in individualistic western cultures and resistant more common in collectivist cultures

  Germany = highest insecure avoidant (35%)

  japan = highest insecure resistant (27%)

  suggests that secure is most common so globally preferred attachment style but there are cultural variations; german mothers encourage independent behaviour
• strengths of van ijzendoorns research ?

  high validity; very large sample as its a meta analysis so easier to generalise
• weaknesses of van ijzendoorns research ?

  lacks temporal validity

  ethnocentrism; developed in the us (western) so using it in non western countries may suffer from cultural bias due to different parenting types

  many countries only had one study included so no representative of countries population