Attachment

• Explain Lorenz's study into attachment.

  Divided a clutch of gosling eggs into two groups. One stayed with their mother, the others were placed in an incubator and the first living thing they saw was Lorenz. When they two groups were put back together, the half that were raised by mother followed her, Lorenz's half followed him. Suggests attachment occurs within a critical period.
• Evaluation of Lorenz's study into attachment.

  • Research to support - Guiton found leghorn chicks fed by a rubber glove in the first few weeks of life imprinted on the glove. Males even tried to mate with it. Supports idea that animals will attach to any moving object they see in the critical period.
  • Later research suggests imprinting can be reversed after spending time with own species. Disagrees with Lorenz's conclusions.
• Explain Harlow's study into attachment.

  Created two monkey mothers (one wire, one cloth). 8 rhesus monkeys studied for 165 days, half fed from wire mother, half from cloth. When scared, monkeys ran to cloth mother. In a room full of objects, wire mother offered no comfort but cloth mother did. All monkeys spent 17-18 hours per day with cloth mother. Long term effects inlcuded abnormal mating behaviour, freezing or fleeing when introduced to other monkeys, and harming their young. Suggests there is more to the formation of an attachment than provision of food.
• Evaluation of Harlow's study into attachment.

  • Animals can be a good pointer when looking at human behaviour. HOWEVER, can't necessarily be generalised.
  • Low internal validity due to confounding variables: monkey mothers had different heads. Cloth mother may have resembled an actual monkey more than wire.
  • Unethical - created a state of anxiety in monkeys - also affected their young.
• Main predictions of the learning theory of attachment.

  Motivation to learn is due to drive reduction (hunger, thirst, etc). Children love those who feed them (this is called cupboard love). Attachment behaviour should increase steadily from birth.
• Classical conditioning may explain the formation of an attachment - the association of the caregiver (NS) with food (UCS) causes a conditioned response of pleasure.
• Operant conditioning may explain the strenghtening of the attachment - the infant learns that crying or smiling brings positive responses from caregiver (positive reinforcement). The caregiver learns that responding to cries brings relief from noise (negative reinforcement).
• Evaluation of the learning theory of attachment.

  • Reductionist - focuses on simple stimulus-response links. Explains how but not why.
  • Research against - Schaffer & Emerson studied an African tribe and found more than half of infants were not attached to person primarily involved in their care.
• Reciprocity is a two-way/mutual process between caregiver and infant. It is essentially turn taking. Each party responds to the other's signals to sustain interaction. The behaviour of each party elicits a response from the other.
• Interactional synchrony is when infants mirror the actions or emotions of another person. Simultaneous, coordinated sequences of movement, communications and emotions.
• Explain Meltzoff & Moore's study into interactional synchrony.

  Adult model displayed one of three facial expressions or a hand gesture. Child had a dummy in their mouth to start with but it was then removed and their expressions were filmed. Clear association found between infant's behaviour and that of the model. Suggests interactional synchrony is innate.
• Evaluation of Meltzoff & Moore's study into interactional synchrony.

  • High internal validity - researchers scores tapes twice and judge couldn't see facial expression of adult. Double blind.
  • Research to support - Murray found distress in two month old infants when mothers stopped responding to facial and bodily gestures over a video monitor.
  • Must make inferences (issues of intentionality). 53 were removed for crying, sleeping, bowel movements, spitting, hicupping, etc.
• Explain Schaffer's research into the development of attachment.

  Observed 60 babies from working class homes in Glasgow for over a year and a half. Mothers had to self-report information on stranger distress and separation anxiety. The first attachment usually formed by 8 months, stranger distress a month later. 65% attached to mother only, 30% to mother and another (usually father), and 3% to father only. Suggests attachments form based on responsiveness to play and interaction.
• What are the stages of attachment?

  Asocial, indiscriminate, specific and multiple attachments.
• Explain the asocial stage of attachment.

  Develops around birth - 2 months. Infants produce a similar response to all objects both animate and inanimate. Towards the end of this stage, infants start to prefer social stimuli. Reciprocity and interactional synchrony start to take place here.
• Explain the indiscriminate stage of attcachment.

  Develops around 2-7 months. Separation anxiety begins (children cry when primary caregiver puts them down and show joy when they return). They child starts to display stranger distress when picked up by someone unfamiliar.
• Explain the specific stage of attachment.

  Develops around 7+ months. Occurs after the main attachment is made and is based on how many consistent relationships the child has. Attachment forms with the person who provides the most interactions and responds to the baby's signals. In 65% of cases, this is the baby's mother.
• Explain the multiple attachment stage.

  This is when secondary attachments are formed. In Schaffer's study, 29% of the children had made multiple attachments within the first month of being attached. The infants displayed separation anxiety in these relationships too. The majority of babies formed multiple attachments in the first year.
• Evaluation of Schaffer's research.

  • Longitudinal study means the same children were observed regularly - good internal validity compared to if you studied and compared different babies.
  • Good external validity - carried out in homes and most observation was done by parents. Behaviour unlikely to be influenced by presence of researcher.
  • Self-reports may be unreliable. Potential bias?
• 'Father' refers to a child's closest male caregiver.
• Explain Schaffer & Emerson's study into attachment to fathers.

  Found that the majority of babies attach to mother around 7 months. 75% formed an attachment to father after 18 months. This was shown through babies protesting when father walked away. Most fathers go on to become important attachment figures.
• Explain Grossman's study into the distinctive role of fathers.

  Conducted a longitudinal study in which babies were observed into their teen years. They looked at both parents' behaviours and its relationship to the quality of their baby's later attachments. The quality of the baby's attachment to their mother was related to adolescent attachment, but not fathers. However, quality of father's play was related to quality of adolescent attachments. Suggests dad = play and stimulation, mum = emotional development.
• Explain Field's study into fathers as primary attachment figures.

  When fathers take on the role of PCG, they are able to adopt the emotional role of a mother. They filmed 4 month old babies with PCG mothers, PCG fathers and SCG fathers. PCG fathers spent more time smiling, imitating and holding babies than SCG fathers. Suggests fathers have the potential to become the emotion-focused primary attachment figure.
• When a man becomes a father, his testosterone levels drop and he faces increased dopamine and oxytocin levels. Both mother and father experience exactly the same neural changes.
• Benefits of fathers taking paternity leave.

  Increased domestic equality, decrease mothering tax, and decrease gender pay gap.
• Evaluation of research into the role of the father.

  • Real world application - offers advice to parents - parental anxiety can be reduced (who should stay home to be PCG?). Helpful in single mother/lesbian parent families.
  • Hrdy suggested biological differences - oestrogen elicits caregiving response (men less biologically suited to attachments). Fathers less able to detect infant distress. Suggests father's role is biologically determined.
  • Clarity over question (role depends if they are PCG/SCG).
  • Observer bias due to ideas about how fathers should behave. May record what they expect to see.
• Explain Ainsworth's strange situation.

  Baby encouraged to explore unfamiliar room (tests exploration & secure base). Stranger enters, talks to CG and approaches baby. CG leaves baby & stranger together. CG returns, stranger leaves. CG leaves baby alone. Stranger returns. CG returns and is reunited with baby.
• Explain a secure attachment type.

  Moderate proximity seeking and secure base (explores happily but regularly goes back to caregiver). Moderate stranger distress and separation anxiety. Require and accept comfort from caregiver upon reunion. 60-75% of British babies are secure.
• Explain an insecure avoidant attachment type.

  Low proximity seeking and high exploration and secure base. Little/no reaction when caregiver leaves. Little stranger distress and separation anxiety. Avoids reunion behaviour when caregiver returns. 20-25% of British babies are insecure-avoidant.
• Explain an insecure-resistant attachment type.

  High proximity seeking and low levels of exploration and secure base. High levels of stranger distress and separation anxiety. Resist comfort when reunited with caregiver. 3% of British babies are insecure-resistant.
• Evaluation of the strange situation and types of attachment.

  • Good predictive validity - McCormick found babies who were securely attached were less likely to be involved in bullying and grew up with fewer mental health issues.
  • Good reliability - Bick had agreement of attachment type in 94% of cases.
  • May not measure attachment - Kagan suggested genetically influenced anxiety levels could explain findings.
  • Culture-bound - Takahashi found Japanese babies often described as IR due to unusual nature of baby being away from mother.
• Explain Van Ijzndoorn & Kroonberg's study.

  Tested the strange situation in 8 countries. Found that secure attachment was the most common in all nations. In Western cultures it was secure (B), insecure avoidant (A), then insecure resistant (C). In non-Western cultures it was B, C, A. There was a 150x greater variation within cultures than between cultures, and they found significant differences found between distributions of A and C.
• Explain Simonelli's cultural variation study.

  Replicated the strange situation in Italy with 76 babies 12 months old. 50% were secure, and 36% were insecure-avoidant. Less babies were secure and more were insecure-avoidant because mothers work longer hours and hire more childcare than they used to.
• Explain Jin's cultural variations study.

  Replicated the strange situation in Korea with 87 babies. Most babies were secure, more babies were insecure resistant and one was insecure avoidant. This was similar to Japan due to child rearing styles.
• Similar findings across strange situation studies (Ainsworth, Simonelli and Jin) support Bowlby's theory that forming an attachment in innate and is a universal norm. However, the slightly different findings of these studies suggest culture does have an impact on attachment style.
• Evaluations of cultural variation studies.

  • Most of the psychologists were indigenous so certain problems can be avoided (misinterpretation of language or behaviour, and difficulty communicating instructions to them). Avoids bias, enhances validity.
  • Confounding variables - studies done in different countries weren't checked to see if they used the same method so factors like poverty, social class or urban/rural makeup could confound results.
  • Imposed etic - hard to impose a test designed for one culture to others.
• Maternal deprivation theory suggests that continual presence of care from a mother or mother-substitute is essential for babies' normal psychological development. Bowlby said mother love in infancy is just as important to mental health as vitamins are to physical health. Being separated from mother in early childhood has serious consequences on development.
• Separation is when a child is not with their primary caregiver. This is only a problem if the child lacks emotional care during this time. This can still happen if mother is present but not providing emotional care.
• Deprivation is extended periods of separation from mother or mother-substitute. Can lead to psychological harm such as delayed intellectual development measured by low IQ. Goldfarb (1947) found children with lower IQ had remained in institutions as opposed to those who had been fostered and had higher IQs.
• The critical period for psychological development is around 0-2.5 years. If a child is deprived of emotional care for an extended period of time during the critical period, psychological damage is inevitable.