Attachment
- Created by: @jasanascu
- Created on: 22-03-17 14:00
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- Attachment
- Caregiver-infant interactions
- Reciprocity
- Jaffe et al found that infants coordinated their actions with their caregivers.
- Brazelton suggested that this leads to a template for later conversations and attachments.
- Interactional synchrony
- Meltzoff and Moore found that infants as young as 2 or 3 weeks old imitated specific facial and hand gestures. They later found the same results in babies as young as 3 days.
- Real/pseudo imitation; Piaget suggested that true imitation only developed towards the end of the first year of life.
- Caregivers
- Attachment
- Problems with testing infant behaviour; babies' mouths move a lot so it's hard to tell whether they're acting on purpose or not; therefore it may just be general activity
- Other studies have failed to replicate Meltzoff and Moore's findings; Marian et al found that babies couldn't distinguish between live and videotaped interactions with their mothers; therefore Meltzoff and Moore's study may lack some validity
- Other research suggests that infant imitation is a conscious decision; Abravanel and DeYong found that infants aged 5-12 weeks made little response to objects; this suggests that imitations is a specific reaction to humans
- Reciprocity
- The development of attachment
- Asocial attachments (stage 1):
- Between birth and 3 months
- Start to display signs of interactional synchrony and reciprocity
- Start to show a preference for social stimuli
- In - discriminate attachments (stage 2)
- Between 6 weeks and 7 months
- Infants become more social
- Infants prefer human company to inanimate objects
- Distinguish between familiar and unfamiliar people
- Don't yet show stranger anxiety or separation protest
- Specific attachments (stage 3)
- From 7-11 months
- Show joy upon reunion with caregiver
- Show stranger anxiety
- Show separation protest
- Multiple attachments (stage 4)
- 9+ months
- Wider circle of attachments depending on how many consistent relationships the child has
- Schaffer and Emerson
- 60 infants in Glasow
- Stranger anxiety was measured by how the infant reacted to the interviewer
- At the start of the study, infants were aged 5-23 weeks and finished as 1 year old
- Mothers visited every 4 weeks and reported the infants' responses to 7 everyday situations, intensity of protests and to whom the protests were directed
- Between 25 and 30 weeks, 50% of babies showed separation proest
- By 40 weeks, 80% of infants had a specific attachment and 30% had multiple attachments
- The sample was bias in a number of ways; culturally bias and all ps were working class too; therefore sample was unrepresentative
- 60 infants in Glasow
- Evaluation
- Unreliable data; some mothers may have been less sensitive to their infants and therefore be less likely to pick up protests; this would therefore create a systematic bias due to individual differences
- Schaffer and Emerson
- 60 infants in Glasow
- Stranger anxiety was measured by how the infant reacted to the interviewer
- At the start of the study, infants were aged 5-23 weeks and finished as 1 year old
- Mothers visited every 4 weeks and reported the infants' responses to 7 everyday situations, intensity of protests and to whom the protests were directed
- Between 25 and 30 weeks, 50% of babies showed separation proest
- By 40 weeks, 80% of infants had a specific attachment and 30% had multiple attachments
- The sample was bias in a number of ways; culturally bias and all ps were working class too; therefore sample was unrepresentative
- 60 infants in Glasow
- Schaffer and Emerson
- All attachments may not be equivalent; Bowlby believed in monotropy; therefore there is a big debate as to whether multiple attachments are important or not
- Developmental psychologists often use stage theories to describe how children's behaviour changes as they age; these theories tend to be too rigid and may lead to negative stigmas if a child doesn't meet a certain criteria
- Unreliable data; some mothers may have been less sensitive to their infants and therefore be less likely to pick up protests; this would therefore create a systematic bias due to individual differences
- Asocial attachments (stage 1):
- Animal studies of attachment
- Lorenz
- Baby geese
- 1st group; left with natural mother
- 2nd group; incubated. 1st thing they saw moving was Lorenz
- Marked them group 1 and 2 and put them together with their natural mother
- He found that group 2 showed no recognition of their natural mother
- Group 2 followed Lorenz away from natural mother
- Group 1 followed their natural mother
- + Other support for imprinting; Guiton showed that newborn chicks exposed to yellow gloves while being fed soon imprinted on the gloves
- - Guition found imprinting could be reversed; after chicks spent time with their own species, they were able to engage in behaviour like other chickens; imprinting may be more forgiving
- Harlow
- 8 infant monkeys
- Wire mother had food
- Cloth mother
- All monkeys spent most time with the cloth mother, only leaving to get milk
- When scared, monkeys clung to the cloth mother
- Critical period; 3 months
- Motherless monkeys developed abnormally socially and sexually
- - Monkey mothers had different heads; confounding variable; lacks internal validity
- - Animals vs humans; humans are guided by conscious decisions, animals by instincts; should look at human research too
- Lorenz
- Learning theory
- Two process model
- Classical conditioning
- UCS = UCR
- UCS + NS = UCR
- CS = CR
- Pavlov's dogs
- Operant conditioning
- Hungry infant + food + mother = feel better (rewarding)
- Reinforcing
- Mother = secondary reinforcer
- Food = primary reinforcer
- Classical conditioning
- Social learning theory
- Imitation
- Observation
- Modelling
- Role models
- Identification
- Evaluation
- Animal research based; humans guided by conscious decisions and animals by instincts; therefore can't really generalise results
- Food may be less important than contact comfort; Harlow's monkeys; therefore, it ignores the effect of contact-confort
- Learning theory has some explanatory power; attention given may be the primary reinforcer; learning theory may put too much emphasis on food
- Two process model
- Bowlby's theory
- Innate drive to attach
- Monotropy
- Critical period = 2.5 years in humans
- Social releasers, e.g. having a baby face, increase chances of attachment because it makes the caregiver want to provide more attention
- Internal working model; template for future relationships and attachments; continuity
- Attachment is necessary for survival
- Evaluation
- Attachment may not be critical for survival; critical period is very late; as age of attachment is related to features of a species' life, it may be adaptive
- Push for sensitive period; it isn't impossible to form an attachment after two and a half years; therefore the critical period may be excessive
- Support for continuity; found secure infants were most competent socially in childhood; support for Bowlby
- Ainsworth's strange situation (**)
- Infants aged 9-18 months
- Measured separation protest and stranger anxiety
- 66% secure
- 22% insecure-avoidant
- 12% insecure-resistant
- Evaluation
- Evidence for other types of attachment; insecure-disorganised attachment is characterised by a lack of consistent patterns of social behaviour; ** overlooked this
- There were two observers; the ** was assessed using inter-observer reliability; therefore has high reliability
- The infant may have attached to another family member - not mother; therefore, she may have just been investigating the quality of one relationship; may lack some validity
- Cultural variations
- Van IJzendoorn and Kroonenberg
- Analysed findings of 32 studies and 2000 ** classifications in 8 different countries
- Differences within or between cultures?
- Secure attachments were always the most common
- Israel and Japan were the only countries showing more resistant than avoidant infants
- Tronick et al:
- African tribe
- Infants breastfed by different women but always slept with natural mother
- Most infants stil showed one prmary attachment to their natural mother
- Grossman and Grossman
- German infants tended to have insecure avoidant attachments
- May be due to German parents keeping distance from their infants and encouraging in- dependence
- Takahashi
- Used ** as template for his research
- He found similar rates of secure and insecure avoidant attachments as Ainsworth but didn't find evidence of insecure avoidant attachments
- Evaluation
- Bowlby suggests that attachment is innate; Van IJzendoorn and Kroonenberg found some cultural similarities may be due to mass media; therefore similarities may not be innately determined
- Van IJzendoorn and Kroonenberg were testing countries not cultures; sub-cultures may use different parenting techniques and they found more differences within cultures than between; their sample may therefore be unrepresentative
- In the **, willingness to explore is a sign of secure attachment; however, Japanese culture suggests that it would be insecure; therefore the ** may lack some validity because it contains imposed etics
- Van IJzendoorn and Kroonenberg
- Maternal deprivation
- Bowlby's theory
- Monotropy
- Irreversible effects of deprivation
- Social releasers
- Internal working model and continuity
- Sensitive period
- Maternal care is invaluable. Those without it may be emotionally disturbed.
- Bowlby's '44 thieves' study
- 88 ps; 44 thieves, 44 control group
- 39% of thieves experienced early separations
- 86% of 'affectionless psychopathic' thieves experienced early separations
- Small number of control group experienced early separations
- Evaluation:
- Bowlby's study and theory impacted the care of children in hospital; observation of Laura in hospital found she was frequently distressed and begged to go home; parents can now stay with children overnight in hospitals
- Deprivation is related to physical and psychological separation; found 55% mothers who were depressed had infants with and insecure attachment; significantly more than those in the control group; this shows that psychological separation can lead to deprivation
- Maternal deprivation doesn't always result in negative outcomes; only 25% later experienced depression or anxiety later in life if they experienced early separations however there is an increased risk of anxiety and depression if you experience early separations
- Bowlby's theory
- Romanian orphan studies: effects of institutionalisation
- Rutter et al
- 165 Romanian orphans
- 52 British children adopted before 6 months
- By 4 years, some orphans caught up, especially if adopted before 6 months
- There are still significant effects if they were adopted after 6 months
- Long-term consequences are less severe if kids have a chance to attach
- Effects
- Physical under - development; deprivation dwarfism
- Intellectual (cognitive) under - functioning
- Disinhibited attachment; kids don't discriminate between attachment figures
- Poor parenting; internal working model
- Evaluation
- Benefits of longitudinal studies are large; without them, we could mistakenly conclude that early institutional care causes severe negative effects; however, longitudinal studies show that the effects may disappear after sufficient time
- Real life applications; adoption now occurs ASAP to prevent breaking attachments; demonstrating real life applications
- Research suggests those who don't form a primary attachment within the critical period are unable to recover; Rutter suggested some of the kids get early attachment experiences, for example, if they had more social releases; individual differences
- Rutter et al
- The influence of early attachment
- Internal working model
- Continuity
- Hazan and Shaver
- 'Love quiz'
- Secure adults = 56% = average relationship length was 10 yrs
- Avoidant adults = 22% = average relationship length was 6 yrs
- Resistant adults = 19% = average relationship length was 5 yrs
- Adult vs infant attachments
- Evaluation
- Correlational research; attachment types and later love styles may be caused by innate temperament rather than internal working model; therefore can't claim cause and effect
- Haznan and Shaver's study relied on retrospective classification (asking adults about their early life); as participants had aged, they may not accurately remember their early experiences; results may lack validity
- Research into the influence of early attachment is overly deterministic; it suggests that kids who are insecurely attached as infants will be insecurely attached adults; therefore lacks flexibility and doesn't take individual differences into acount
- Caregiver-infant interactions
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