ATTACHMENT

• Ainsworth investigated infant attachment types
• The Monotropic Theory states that the first person who provides consistent care will be attached to more than anyone else.
• Monotropy suggests that there can only ever be one primary attachment figure at any given time.
• Bowlby's theory is that infants are born with an innate need to form attachments, which helps them survive by ensuring they stay close to their caregiver.
• Secure Attachment - The child explores but returns to the parent if they are distressed.
• Insecure Resistant/Anxious Attachment - The child shows signs of distress when separated from the parent and may not explore as much.
• Attachment behaviour refers to behaviours such as crying or clinging onto someone when distressed.
• Ainsworth identified three different patterns of attachment behaviour - secure, avoidant, and resistant/ambivalent.
• Insecure-Avoidant Attachment - The child shows little distress when separated from the parent and does not seek comfort upon reuniting.
• Disorganised Attachment - The child appears confused about how to respond to separation and reunification.
• Attachment styles have been linked to adult relationships.
• Stranger Anxiety occurs between six months and two years old, where children become wary of strangers and prefer familiar people.
• Separation Anxiety is seen around nine months old, where babies show anxiety when left alone or out of sight of their mother.
• Internal Working Models (IWM) refer to mental representations of relationships formed during early childhood experiences.
• Ainsworth observed children aged between six months and two years old in a strange room with their parents present. She used the Strange Situation Procedure to assess attachment styles.
• Critics argue that there are other factors besides attachment that contribute to adult personality development.
• The Criticisms of Bowlby's Theory include the lack of control groups in his research, making it difficult to determine causation.
• Ainsworth found that children who had secure attachments were more likely to have positive relationships later on.
• The Strange Situation Procedure involves separating children from their parents and observing how they react upon reunion.
• The quality of early relationships can have long term effects on adult mental health according to Bowlby.
• Bowlby's theory suggests that infants form attachments based on proximity and responsiveness from caregivers.
• Insecurely attached individuals may struggle with intimacy or experience difficulties in their relationships.
• Attachment


  A strong emotional bond
• Attachment


  A close emotional relationship between a child and their caregiver
• Securely attached infants


  • Show a desire to be close to their primary caregiver
  • Show distress when separated, and pleasure when reunited
• Features of caregiver-infant interaction


  1. Sensitive responsiveness - The caregiver responds appropriately to signals from the infant

  2. Imitation - The infant copies the caregiver's actions and behaviour

  3. Interactional synchrony - Infant reacts in time with the caregiver's speech and conversation

  4. Reciprocity - Taking turns in interaction flows back and forth between the caregiver and infant

  5. Motherese - The slow, high-pitched way of speaking to infants
• Stages in attachment formation (Schaffer)


  • Pre-attachment asocial phase (0-3 months)
  • Indiscriminate attachment phase (6 weeks - 7 months)
  • Discriminate attachment phase (7-11 months)
  • Multiple attachment phase (from 9 months)
• Schaffer and Emerson (1964) study


  • Found Schaffer's stages of attachment formation
  • Around 1/3 of infants had at least 5 attachments, though the original attachment was still the strongest
• The father's role


  • The father plays an important role in attachment too
  • Infants may have their primary attachment to their father rather than their mother
• Goodell and Meldrum (2000) found that infants with a secure attachment to their mother were also more likely to have a secure attachment to their father
• The more involved a father is in caregiving, the stronger the attachment between father and child
• A mother's relationship may be more focused on caring, while a father's relationship is more focused on play
• Imprinting


  The automatic attachment of young animals to the first moving object they see after hatching
• Lorenz's study on imprinting in geese


  1. Randomly divided a clutch of greylag goose eggs

  2. Observed that goslings from incubator eggs followed Lorenz around just like those from mother's eggs

  3. Determined imprinting occurs in a 'critical period' of 13-16 hours after hatching
• Imprinting


  • Fast, automatic process
  • Unlikely to occur in humans, whose attachments take longer to develop
• Using animals in psychological research


  • Findings may not always generalise to humans
  • Precocial species like Lorenz's geese are very different from human infants
  • Provides valuable information that may influence theories and policies, but raises ethical concerns
• Learning theory of attachment

  Links attachment to pleasure and reward, through classical and operant conditioning
• Strengths and weaknesses of learning theory


  • Supported by scientific research
  • Overly simplistic, doesn't fully explain complex attachment
  • Much evidence from animal research, not always generalizable to humans
  • Doesn't fully explain Schaffer and Emerson's findings
• Bowlby's monotropic theory of attachment


  • An evolutionary theory - we have a biological need to attach to our primary caregiver
  • We form one special attachment, usually to our biological mother, which has evolutionary value for survival
• Bowlby argued that attachment can be explained by evolution - it developed through natural selection to ensure child survival