Attachment

• There is evidence that early interactions are important for development, such as interactional synchrony predicting good quality attachment
• Contact comfort


  More important than food in the development of attachments
• Monkeys with cloth-bound mothers were less skilled at mating, aggressive towards their own children, and socially reclusive
• There were significant ethical breaches in Harlow's research, including inflicting long-term psychological harm on the monkeys
• Learning Theory of Attachment

  Children are born with blank slates and learn to form attachments through classical and operant conditioning
• Classical conditioning

  1. Baby forms association between mother (neutral stimulus) and pleasure of being fed (unconditioned response)

  2. Mother becomes conditioned stimulus that also causes pleasure
• Operant conditioning

  1. Child carries out action like crying, which triggers response like mother comforting or feeding

  2. Action is reinforced as child associates mother with rewards
• Evidence contradicts Learning Theory - Harlow showed contact comfort was more important than food, and human studies emphasised interactional synchrony and reciprocity over food as the basis for attachment
• Bowlby's Monotropic Theory of Attachment

  Attachments are innate and you can only form one special intense attachment, typically with the mother
• Bowlby's Monotropic Theory

  • Adaptive - attachments are beneficial for survival
  • Social releasers - e.g. cute baby face activates attachment system
  • Critical period - attachment must form by 2.5-3 years old or never will
  • Monotropy - one primary attachment figure
  • Internal working model - mental schema for relationships
• Evidence contradicts monotropy - some children form multiple attachments, especially in collectivist cultures
• Ainsworth's Strange Situation

  Procedure to assess type of child-caregiver attachment
• Attachment types identified

  • Secure
  • Insecure resistant
  • Insecure avoidant
• The Strange Situation only measured relationship with one attachment figure (usually the mother)
• The Strange Situation wrongly assumes the child will be closer to the mother than any other adult figure
• Insecure avoidant

  Infant shows no separation anxiety when carer leaves the room and no stranger anxiety when a stranger enters the room. They may show anger and frustration towards their carer and actively avoid social interaction and intimacy with them. They are able to explore and play independently easily, no matter who is present.
• Insecure avoidant attachment type accounts for around 20% of children
• Van Izjendoorn and Kronenberg (1988) conducted a meta-analysis of 32 studies using 8 countries, all investigating the patterns of attachment across a variety of cultures
• Maternal deprivation

  Being deprived/separated from a mother-like figure
• Negative consequences of maternal deprivation

  • Inability to form attachments in the future
  • Affectionless psychopathy
  • Delinquency
  • Problems with cognitive (brain) development
• Attachments are commonly disrupted in situations when a child is put in day care, has prolonged stays in hospital care or were put in institutional care to be separated from abusive/neglectful or unintentionally absent parents
• Privation

  When a child fails to form any attachments at all
• One of the most common causes of privation has been institutional care
• Bowlby conducted his 44 juvenile thieves study to assess the effects of maternal deprivation
• Rutter et al (2007) investigated the effects of institutionalisation on attachment in a Romanian orphanage
• Romanian orphans adopted after six months

  • Showed disinhibited attachment
  • Had problems with peers
• When children do not form attachments (i.e continuing failure of attachment) then the consequences are likely to be severe
• Attachment disorder

  A distinct psychiatric condition where some children experience disruptions of early attachments, affecting their social and emotional development
• Characteristics of attachment disorder

  • No preferred attachment figure
  • An inability to interact and relate to others that is evident before the age of five
  • Experience of severe neglect or frequent change of caregivers
• Types of attachment disorders

  • Reactive or inhibited: shy and withdrawn, unable to cope with most social situations
  • Disinhibited attachment: over-friendly and attention seeking
• The main advantage of Rutter's study, compared to other adoption studies, is that he was able to study the effects of institutionalisation in isolation through removing the confounding and extraneous variables of PTSD and trauma often associated with war orphans
• A key methodological issue associated with Rutter's study is the focus on short-term recovery, rather than long-term rates
• Some researchers have criticised the findings from Rutter's study as having very low ecological validity because the conditions of the Romanian orphanages were especially poor
• Bowlby suggested that there will be continuity (a similarity or connection) between your experiences as a baby/your attachment type or quality, and your relationships later in life (in childhood and adulthood)
• Early attachments have also been found to determine various personality types, which can influence many parts of your life, but one notable part is your parenting style when you have a child of your own
• It has been found that we are more likely to raise our children similarly to how we were raised, as our internal working model was built using our parent's' parenting style as a template, which was demonstrated by Bailey et al (2007)
• A result of this is that you and your child will have a similar attachment type to that of you and your parents
• The internal working model affects your expectations of others and subsequently your attitude towards them, which would have an impact on the quality of romantic relationships in adulthood
• If they experience abuse or neglect in their childhood, they may grow up to resist or reject intimacy in their adult relationships