Studies

• Cassidy (1986)- link between attachment security and cognitive development
• Waters (1978)- classification of attachment style is reliable and stable over time
• Warther et al. (1994) - 78% of children classification at 1 year old remained the same at 6 years old
• Artificial scenario and environment - do infants feel insecure or is it the testing situation which makes them act insecure?
• Van Ijzendoorn & De Wolff (1997) - secure attachment with mum but maybe not with dad
• Cox et al. (1992) - can have different attachment styles with different parents
• Shaw & Vondra (1993) -low socio-economic status > affects area of living, culture, access to open spaces, amount of time spent with children (working a lot to make ends meet)
• Belsky & Isabella (1988) - marital discord such as domestic abuse, divorce affect attachment
• Britain - more secure attachments / West Germany - more insecure avoidant attachment style

  parenting style impacts attachment style, while culture impacts parenting style
• Bowlby - maternal deprivation
• Rutter - privation (never forming an attachment) and deprivation (loss of attachment)
• Roberston & Bowlby (1952)- protest (crying), despair (apathetic, self-comforting), detachment (unresponsive, may ignore caregiver on return)?


  3 stages of deprivation (Short-term effects)
• Bowlby (1944) - 86% of delinquent children before age of 2 have been in foster home or hospitalised (often not visited by families)


  Correlation between maternal deprivation and delinquency
• Rutter et al. (1976)- 2000 boys aged 9-12 four times more likely to become delinquent if separation was due to marital discord rather than if it was death/illness?


  Marital discord (long-term effect of maternal deprivation)
• Rutter (1998) - Romanian adoptees received no emotional care which could lead to cognitive deficits at the age of 4 if it carried on for longer than the first 6 months after birth


  Gross early privation
• Arend et al. (1979) - secure children were more sociable
• Bates et al. (1985)- secure children have fewer behaviour problems, better at solving problems, more persistent & enthusiastic, socially competent
• Meins et al. (1998) - secure children have better understanding of how beliefs and preferences of others affect their emotional reactions
• Belsky et al. (1996) - secure children are more likely to remember positive emotional events unlike insecure children
• Teti et al. (1995) - 80% of infants insecurely attached compared to 30% of infants in the non-depressed group 


  Post-natal depression
• Duncan & Browning (2009)-harder to make secure attachments as adults and a range of attachment problems 


  Schizophrenia
• Belsky et al. (1984)- insecure attachment related to mother sensitivity (ability to interpret and respond to infant attachment signals quickly)

  However, there are several studies supporting and failing to support this hypothesis as it depends on the time of assessment


  Sensitivity hypothesis
• Lewis & Feiring (1989) - less sociable children at 3 months are more likely to have insecure-avoidant attachment style at 12 months
• Goldsmith & Alansky (1987) - link between neonatal irritability and resistant attachment style
• Ainsworth & Wittig (1969) - Strange situation 


  1. Mum and infant + experimenter (toys around the room to see if child will explore)
  2. Mum and infant alone
  3. Stranger joins
  4. Mum leaves
  5. Mum returns and stranger leaves
  6. Infant left alone (mum leaves)
  7. Stranger returns
  8. Mum returns and stranger leaves
• Harlow (1958) - two surrogate mothers, with monkeys preferring cloth mother who provided comfort contact rather feeding which is a primary need