Attachment

• Overall effects of institutionalization

  • Physical underdevelopment
  • Disinhibited attachment
  • Intellectual disability
  • Poor parenting
• Institutionalization

  The effects of living in an institutional setting for a prolonged period of time (living arrangements outside of the family/family home which are often provided by the state) e.g. hospitals, orphanages
• In the context of attachment

  Can result in a child adopting rules and norms of the institution that can impair functioning, leading to a loss of identity
• Procedure


  1. Longitudinal study

  2. 165 Romanian participants adopted by families in Britain

  3. 111 adopted before age 2

  4. 54 adopted by age 4

  5. Children tested at 4,6,11,15 and 22-25

  6. Interviews with teachers and parents

  7. 52 British children adopted around same time as control group
• Maternal deprivation is the separation between a child and mother for a prolonged period of time
• Bowlby's beliefs about maternal deprivation

  Infants need a constant relationship with their mother, with no breaks. If another person becomes the primary caregiver, it's okay as long as it's a permanent substitute.
• Main areas of maternal deprivation

  • Deprivation
  • Critical period
• Deprivation

  Occurs when the separation experienced by the mother and child is over a long period of time, resulting in loss of the attachment figure's care
• Critical period

  A period of time in which a bond must form or it will not form at all. Prolonged separation before age 2.5 can lead to serious psychological and emotional damage.
• Bowlby's Monotropic theory

  Infants form one specific attachment to their mother, who is the most sensitive to their needs. Attachment is an innate evolutionary adaptation to increase infant survival.
• Internal working model

  The first attachment an infant forms becomes their model for how future relationships should be
• Critical period

  Bowlby believed attachment should form in the first 3 years of life, preferably the first, or there will be negative psychological effects
• Social releasers

  Innate things infants do to enable attachment, e.g. crying, smiling, enabling the caregiver to form an attachment
• Cupboard love theory

  Emphasis on attachment figure as provider of food, infants attach via classical/operant conditioning
• Classical conditioning of attachment

  Food is the unconditioned stimulus, pleasure is the unconditioned response. Pairing mother with food leads to conditioned response of pleasure when mother is present.
• Operant conditioning of attachment

  1. Positive reinforcement: Infant's crying is positively reinforced by caregiver's response, leading to attachment

  2. Negative reinforcement: Caregiver's actions are negatively reinforced as crying stops when infant is fed
• Attachment via positive reinforcement


  Caregiver response results in a positive response, forming an attachment
• Attachment via negative reinforcement


  Caregiver's actions are negatively reinforced as the baby's crying stops when their needs are met
• Caregiver's actions are negatively reinforced


  Because the crying stops when the baby is fed
• Animal studies have shown that animal infants don't necessarily get attached/imprint on those who feed them
• Examples of animal studies

  • Lorenz's geese experiment
  • Harlow's monkeys
• Geese imprinted on the first moving objects they saw before they were fed and they continued to keep those attachments no matter who fed them
• Harlow's monkeys formed an attachment to a soft surrogate mother instead of a wire mother which dispensed milk
• Research on human infants shows that feeding isn't really an important factor in forming attachments
• Examples of human studies

  • Shaffer and Emmerson's study
• Many of the babies studied developed their primary attachments with their biological mothers even if other carers did most of the feeding
• Infants attach to those who are most sensitive to their needs and signals rather than the person who feeds them
• Conditioning


  Babies may associate the feeling of being warm and comfortable with a particular adult, influencing their choice of attachment figure
• Social Learning Theory


  Caregivers/parents teach infants to love them by modeling attachment behaviors and rewarding them
• Babies play an active role in the formation of attachment, they actively seek stimulation
• Ainsworth's Strange Situation


  Aimed to investigate individual differences in attachment, especially in secure and insecure attachments
• Ainsworth's Strange Situation procedure

  1. Mother and child introduced to room

  2. Mother and child left alone

  3. Stranger enters and interacts with child

  4. Mother leaves child with stranger

  5. Mother returns and greets child

  6. Child is left alone

  7. Stranger returns and interacts with child

  8. Mother returns and greets child
• Behaviors observed in Ainsworth's Strange Situation

  • Proximity seeking
  • Exploration of secure base
  • Stranger anxiety
  • Separation anxiety
  • Response to reunion
• Types of attachment identified

  • Type B: Secure
  • Type A: Insecure Avoidant
  • Type C: Insecure Resistant
• Sensitive mothers tend to have securely attached infants, insensitive mothers tend to have insecurely attached babies
• Evaluation of Ainsworth's Strange Situation

  • High inter-observer reliability
  • Real world application
  • Potential cultural bias
• Infants may have different attachment types with different caregivers
• Imprinting


  Part of the process of forming an attachment with the parent animal
• Examples of imprinting research

  • Lorenz's geese
  • Guiton's chick study
• Imprinting research has limited generalisability to human attachment