attachment

• what is attachment?

  a close two way emotional bond between two individuals in which each individuals see the other as essential for their own emotional security
• what is interactional synchrony?


  a simultaneous interaction between caregiver and infant with coordinating behaviour and matching emotional states
• what is reprocity?


  mutual turn taking where the caregiver and infant respond to eachother's cues
• what does it mean if a study has individual differences?


  it can’t be generalized
• what is limited hawthorne effect?


  when people aren’t susceptible to conformity (babies)
• what are the 4 features that identify if a baby has formed an attachment?

  separation anxiety, stranger anxiety, secure base behaviour, reunion behaviour
• what are the 4 stage of attachment?

  asocial, indiscriminate, specific attachments, multiple attachments
• what is the asocial stage of attachment?

  it lasts until 6 weeks after birth, no discrimination between humans
• what is the indiscriminate stage of attachment?

  6 weeks to 6 months old, can tell people apart, still no fear of strangers
• what is the specific attachment stage of attachment?


  7 months old, separation anxiety from their caregiver, stranger anxiety, can recognize faces
• what is the multiple attachment stage of attachment?

  10 months old, attachment grows with caregiver, the child form attachments with more adults
• what was the aim of Schaffer and Emerson’s study?

  to investigate the development of infant attachments
• what were the findings of Schaffer and Emerson’s study?

  between 25 and 32 weeks of age, about 50% of babies showed signs of separation anxiety towards a particular adult (usually the mother). Attachment tended to be towards the caregiver who was the most interactive and sensitive to infant signals and facial expressions. By the age of 40 weeks 80% of the babies had a specific attachment and almost 30% displayed the multiple attachments.
• what was the conclusion of Schaffer and Emerson’s study?

  attachment develops in stages.
• what are the 4 attachment styles?

  secure, avoidant, resistant, and disorganized
• what was the aim of mary Aisnsworth’s strange situation?

  to observe key attachment behaviours as a means of assessing the quality of attachment
• what was the procedure of of Mary ainsworth’s strange situation?


  baby and their mother are placed in a room with a two way mirror. Psychologists test secure base behaviour, stranger anxiety, separation anxiety, and reunion behaviour
• what were the findings of mary Ainsworth’s strange situation?

  she identified 3 types of attachment
• what is a secure attachment?


  regularly explore but return to their caregiver, stranger anxiety, upset when the mother leaves but happy when she returns. The most common attachment type
• what is insecure -avoidant attachment?

  explore frequently but don't show secure base behaviour, little reaction when the mother leaves and returns, little stranger anxiety
• what is insecure-resistant?


  don't explore much, high levels of stranger and separation anxiety, resist comfort when caregiver returns. Rarest attachment type
• what is the evaluation of Mary Ainsworth’s strange situation?


  may be culture bound as a child in the USA may be different from children in other cultures. Good reliability as it was filmed and watched by observers. It only had 3 attachment styles.
• what was the procedure of Harlow’s comfort and love?

  16 monkeys were separated from their mothers immediately after birth. They were placed in cages with 2 surrogate mothers - wire and cloth. 8 of the monkeys were weaned on the wire mother, and the others by the cloth mother. They were studied for various lengths of time
• what were the results of Harlow’s comfort and love?

  both groups of monkeys spent more time with the cloth mother. The second group only went to the wire mother for food. In scary situations, they sought comfort with the cloth mother. The infant explored more when the cloth mother was there
• what is the learning theory?

  an explanation for attatchment that emphasizes the importance of the attachment figure as a provider of food
• what is bowlby's monotropic study?

  emphasis on an attachment to ONE caregiver, usually the mother. A child's attachement to this one caregiver is different and more important
• what is the critical period?

  Bowlby proposed there's a critical period around 6 months-2 years. If an attachment is not formed during this time, a child will find it much harderr to form one later/
• what is the internal working model?

  a child forms a mental representation of their relationship with their primary attachment figure, which serves as a model for their future relationships
• what is the evaluation for the learning theory?

  counter evidence - animal (harlow's monkeys) & human research (usually mother anyway, interactional synchrony)

  conditioning - feel warm and comfortable with particular adult
• what did Lorenz research?


  imprinting
• what was the procedure of Lorenz’s study?

  he randomly divided a large clutch of goose eggs. Half the eggs were hatched with the mother goose in their natural environment. Half of them hatched in an incubator where the first moving object they saw as Lorenz
• what were the findings of Lorenz’s experiment?

  the incubator group followed Lorenz everywhere, whereas the control group followed their mother goose. When the two groups were mixed, they continued to follow the same person
• what is imprinting?


  when bird species that are mobile from birth attach and follow the first moving object they see. Lorenz also found that this is a critical period (usually the first few hours)
• what is research support for Lorenz?


  Regolin and Vallortigara exposed chicks to simple shape combinations that moved. A range of shapes were moved in-front them and they followed the original most closely.
• what is a limitation of Lorenz’s experiment?

  the human attachment system is quite different to that of birds e.g. for humans it’s a two-way system. This means it’s probably not appropriate to generalize Lorenz’s ideas to humans
• What was a strength for Harlow’s research?

  it’s important to real-world applications e.g. it’s helped social workers and clinical psychologists understand that a lack of bonding experience may be a risk factor in child development allowing them to intervene to prevent poor outcomes
• what is a limitation of Harlow’s research?


  it lacks an ability to be generalized to findings and conclusions from monkeys to humans. Monkeys are more similar to humans then birds are m, but the human brain and human behaviour is still more complex then that of monkeys
• what are the ethical issues of Harlow’s research?


  it caused severe and long-term distress to the monkeys. However, his findings and conclusions have important theoretical and practical applications
• what did Schaffer and Emerson find out in their study on the role of the father?

  3% of fathers are the primary attachment, 75% of fathers are the secondary attachment by 18 months
• what was Grossman's study on Fathers?


  longitudinal study on babies until they were teenagers, Researchers looked at parent's behaviour and it's relationship to their baby's later attachments. Baby's attachment o mother but not father was related to attachments in adolescence. Suggests that the attachment. to the father is less important. However he also found that the quality of the father's play with the baby was related to the quality of adolescent attachments. Fathers are more related to play and stimulation - not emotional development