ATTACHMENT

An attachment can be defined as a close two-way emotional bond between two individuals in which each individual sees the other as an essential for their own emotional security.

Attachment in humans takes a few months to develop and we can recognise an attachment when people display the following behaviours:

• Proximity: people try to stay physically close to to whom they are attached.
• Seperation distress: people are distressed when an attachment figure leaves their presence.
• Secure-base behaviour: even when we are independent of our attachment figures, we tend to make regular contact with them. Infants display secure-based behaviour when they regularly return to their attachment figure while playing.

From an early age, babies have meaningful social interactions with their carers and it is believed that these interactions have important functions for the childs social development.

From birth, babies and their mothers spend a lot of time in intense and pleasurable interaction. Babies have periodic 'alert phases' and signal that they are ready for interaction and mothers pick up on and respond to infant alertness around two-thirds of the time (Feldman and Eidelman, 2007).

From around three months, this interaction is increasingly frequent and involves close attention to each other's verbal signals and facial expressions (Feldman, 2007).

A key element of this interaction is reciprocity. An interaction is reciprocal when each person responds to the other and elicits a response from them.

Traditional views of childhood have seen the baby in a passive role, receiving care from an adult. However, it seems the baby takes an active role. Mother and child both initiate interactions and they appear to take turns in doing so.

Brazleton et al (1975) described this interaction as a dance because it is just like a couple's dance where each partner responds to each other's moves.

Two people are 'synchronised' when they carry out the same action simultaneously. Interactional synchrony can be defined as the temporal co-ordination of micro-level social behaviour (Feldman, 2007).

It takes place when mother and infant interact in such a way that there actions and emotions mirror the other.

Meltzoff and Moore (1977) observed the beginnings of interactional synchrony in infants as young as two weeks old. An adult displayed one of three facial expressions or one of three distinctive gestures. The child's response was filmed and identified by independent observers. An association was found between the expression or gesture the adult had displayed and the actions of the babies.

It is believed that interactional synchrony is important for the development of mother-infant attachment. Isabella et al (1989) observed 30 mothers and infants together and assessed the degree of synchrony. The researchers also assessed the quality of mother-infant attachment. They found that high levels of synchrony were associated with better quality mother-infant attachment.

Parent-infant attachment - Schaffer and Emerson (1964) found that the majority of babies did become attached to their mother first (around 7 months) and within a few weeks or months formed secondary attachments to other family members. In 75% of the infants studied, an attachment was formed with the father by the age of 18 months. This was determined by the fact that the infants protested when their father walked away.

The role of the father - Grossman (2002) carried out a longitudinal study looking at both parents' behaviour and its relationship to the quality of children's attachments into their teens. Quality of infant attachment with mothers but not fathers was related to children's attachments in asolescence, suggesting that father attachment was less important. However, the quality of fathers' play with infants was related to the quality of adolescent attachments. This suggets that fathers have a different role in attachment to do with play and stimulation.

Fathers as primary carers - Tiffany Field (1978) filmed 4-month old babies in face-to-face interaction with primary caregiver mothers, secondary caregiver fathers and primary caregiver fathers. Primary caregiver fathers spent more time smiling, imitating and holding infants than the secondary caregiver fathers. This behaviour is more important in building an attachment with infants. The key to attachment is the level of responsiveness.

• It is hard to know what is happening when observing infants: what is being observed in studies is merely hand movements or changes in expression. It is extremely difficult to be certain, based on these observations, what is taking place from the infant's perspective. This means that we cannot really know for certain that behaviours seen in mother-infant interaction.
• Controlled observations capture fine detail: observations of mother-infant interactions are well controlled-procedures, with both mother and infant being filmed, often from multiple angles. This ensures that very fine detials of behaviour can be recorded and later analysed.
• Observations don't tell us the purpose of synchrony and receprocity: Feldman (2012) point out that synchrony simply describe behaviours that occur at the same time. However, there is some evidence that reciprocal interaction and synchrony are helpful in the development of mother-infant attachment, as well as helpful in stress responses, empathy, language and moral development.

• Inconsistent findings on fathers: research into the role of fathers is confusing because different researchers are interest in different research questions. Some psychologists are interested in understanding the role fathers have as secondary attachment figures whereas others are more concerned with the father as primary attachment figure.
• If fathers have a distinct role why aren't children without fathers different?: the study by Grossman found that fathers as secondary attachment figures had an important role in their children's development. Other studies have found that children growing up in single or same-sex parent families do not develope different from those in two-parent heterosexual families.
• Why don't fathers generally become primary attachments?: the fact that fathers tend not to become the primary attachment figure could simply be the result of traditional gender roles, in which women aare expected to be more caring and nurturing than men. Therefore fathers simply don't feel they should act like that.

Rudolf Schaffer and Peggy Emerson (1964) aimed to investigate the formation of early attachments; in particular the age at which they developed, their emotional intensity and to whom they were directed.

Method: the study involved 60 babies - 31 male, 29 female. All were from Glasgow and the majority were from skilled working-class families. The babies and their mothers were visited at home every month for the first year and againt at 18 months. The researchers asked the mothers questions about the kind of protest their babies showed in seven everyday separations e.g adult leaving the room. This was designed to measure the infant's attachment. The researchers also assessed stranger anxiety - the infants response to unfamiliar adults.

Findings: between 25 and 32 weeks of age, about 50% of the babies showed signs of separation anxiety towards a particular adult, usually the mother (specific attachment). Attachment tended to be the caregiver who was most interactive and sensitive to infant signals and facial expressions. This was not the person who the infant spent most time with. By the age of 40 weeks, 80% of the babies had a specific attachment and almost 30% displayed multiple attachments.

Stage 1, Asocial Stage: the baby is recognising and forming bonds with its carers. However, the baby's behaviour towards non-human objects and humans is quite similar. Babies show some preference for familiar adults in that those individuals find it easier to calm them. Babies are also happer when in the presence of other humans.

Stage 2, Indiscriminate Attachment: from 2-7 months babies display more observable social behaviour. They show a preference for people rather than objects, and recognise and prefer familiar adults. Babies usually accept cuddles and comfort from any adult and do not usually show separation anxiety or stanger anxiety.

Stage 3, Specific Attachment: from around 7 months the majority of babies start to display anxiety towards strangers and to become anxious when separated from one particular adult. At this point the baby is said to have form a specific attachment. This person is not necessarily the person the child spends most time with but the one who offers the most interaction.

Stage 4, Multiple Attachments: shortly after babies start to show attachment behaviour towards one adult they usually extend this attachment behaviour to show multiple attachments with other adults with whom they regularly spend time. These relationships are called secondary attachments. By the age of about one year the majority of infants had developed multiple attachments.

• Good external validity: Schaffer and Emerson's study was carried out in the families' own homes and most of the observation was done by parents during ordinary activities and reported to the researchers later.
• Longitudinal design: longitudinal designs have better internal validity than cross-sectional designs because they do not have the confounding variable of individual differences between participants.
• Limited sample characteristics: the sample size of 60 babies and their carers was good considering the large volume of data was gathered on each participant. These results do not necessarily generalise well to other social and historial contexts.
• Problem studing the asocial stage: babies that are young have poor co-ordination and are generally immobile. It is very difficult to make any judgments about them based on observations of their behaviour.
• Conflicting evidence on multiple attachments: some research seems to indicate that most if not all babies form attachments to a single main carer before they become capable of developing multiple attachments (Bowlby, 1969). Other psychologists believe babies form multiple attachments from the outset (Van Ijzendoorn et al, 1993).
• Measuring multiple attachment: just because a baby gets distressed when an individual leaves the room does not mean that the individual is a 'true' attachment figure. Bowlby (1969) pointed out that children have playmates as well as attachment figure and may get distressed when a playmate leaves the room but this does not signify attachment.
• Schaffer and Emerson used limited behavioural mesaures of attachment: Scaffer and Emerson were able to carry out a scientific study of attachment development because they used simple behaviours.

Imprinting: Lorenz first observed the phenomenon of imprinting when he was a child and a neighbour gave him a newly hatched duckling that then followed him around. Imprinting is when species that are mobile from birth attach to and follow the first moving object they see. Lorenz identified a critical period in which imprinting needs to take place.

Procedure: Lorenz set up a classic experiment in which he randomly divided a clutch of goose eggs. Half the eggs were hatched with the mother goose in their natural environment. The other half hatched in an incubator where the first moving objevt they saw was Lorenz.

Findings: The incubator group followed Lorenz everywhere whereas the control group, hatched with their mother, followed her. When the two groups were mixed up the control group continued to follow the mother and the experimental group followed Lorenz.

Sexual Imprinting: Lorenz also investigated the relationship between imprinting and adult male preferences. He observed that birds that imprinted on a human would often later display courtship behaviour towards humans.

The importance of contact comfort: Harlow observed that newborns kept alone in a bare cage usually died but they usually survived if given something soft to cuddle.

Procedure: Harlow (1958) tested the idea that a soft object serves some of the functions of a mother. He reared 16 baby monkeys with two wire model 'mothers'. In one condition milk was dispensed by the plain wire mother whereas in the second condition the milk was dispensed by a cloth-covered mother.

Findings: It was found that the baby monkeys cuddled the soft object in preference to the wire one and found comfort from the cloth one when frightened regardless of which dispensed milk. That showed that 'contact comfort' was one of more importance to the monkeys than food when it came to attachment behaviour.

Maternally deprived monkeys as adults: Harlow followed the monkeys who had been deprived of a 'real' mother into adulthood to see if early maternal deprivation has a permanent effect. The monkeys reared with wire mothers only were the most dysfunctional but those with a soft toy did not develop normal social behaviour. They were more aggressive and less sociable than other monkeys and bred less often than is typical for monkeys. As mothers some of the deprived monkeys neglected their young and others attached their children, even killing them in some cases.

The critical period for normal development: Harlow concluded that there was a critical period for this behaviour - a mother figure had to be introduced to the infant monkey within 90 days for an attachment to form. After this time attachment was impossible and the damage done by early deprivation become irreversible.

• Generalisability to humans: some of Lorenz findings have influenced our understanding of human development, there is a problem in generalising from findings on birds to humans. The mammalian attachment system is different from that in birds. This means that it is not appropriate to try to generalise any of Lorenz's ideas to humans.
• Some of Lorenz's observations have been questioned: later researchers have questioned some of Lorenz's conclusions. Guiton et al (1966) found that chickens imprinted on yellow washing up gloves would try to mate with them as adults but that with experience they eventually learned to prefer mating with other chickens.

• Theoretical value: Harlow's findings have had a profound effect on psychologists' understanding of human mother-infant attachment. Hawlow showed that attachment does not develop as a result of being fed by a mother figure but as a result of contact comfort. Harlow also showed us the importance of the quality of early relationships for later social development including the ability to hold down adult relationships and successfully rear children.
• Practical value: The insight into attachment from Harlow's research has had important applications in a range of practical contexts. It has helped social workers understand risk factors in child neglect and abuse and so intervene to prevent it (Howe 1998). These findings are also important in the care of captive monkeys.
• Ethical issues: Harlow faces severe criticism for the ethics of his research. The monkeys suffered greatly as a result of Harlow's procedures.

John Dollard and Neal Miller (1950) proposed that caregiver-infant attachment can be explained by learning theory.

Their approach is sometimes called a 'cupboard love' approrach because it emphasises the importance of the caregiver as a provider of food.

Classical Conditioning: a caregiver starts as a neutral stimulus. When the same person provides the food over time they become associated with food and when the baby sees this person there is an immediate expectation of food. The neutral stimulus has become a conditioned stimulus. Once conditioning has taken place the sight of caregiver produces a conditioned response of pleasure.

Operant Conditioning: this can explain why babies cry for comfort. Crying leads to a response from a caregiver. As long as the caregiver providesthe correct response, crying is reinforced. The baby then directs crying for comfort towards the caregiver who responds with comforting social suppressor behaviour.

Sears et al (1957) suggested that as caregivers provide food, the primary drive of hunger becomes generalised to them. Attachment is thus a secondary drive learned by association.

• Counter-evidence from animal research: a range of animal studies has shown that young animals do no attach to those who feed them. In the studies by Harlow and Lorenz is it clear that attachment does not develop as a result of feeding.
• Counter-evidence from human research: Schaffer and Emerson's study showed that babies developed a primary attachment to their biological mother even though other carers did the most of the feeding.
• Learning theory ignores other factors associated with forming attachments: research into early infant-caregiver interaction suggests that the quality of attachment is associated with factors like developing reciprocity and good levels of interactional synchrony. Studies have shwon that the best quality attachments are with sensitive carers that pick up infant signals and respond appropriately.
• Some elements of conditioning could still be involved: we believe that many aspects of human development are affected by conditioning.
• A newer learning theory explanation: Dale Hay and Jo Vespo (1988) proposed a newer explanation for attachment based on social learning theory and they suggest that parents teach children to love them by modelling attachment behaviour.

Bowlby looked at the work of Lorenz and Harlow for ideas and proposed an evolutionary explanation: that attachment was an innate sustem that gave a survival advantage. Imprinting and attachment evolved because they ensure that young animals stay close to their caregives and this protects them from hazards.

Monotropy: Bowlby's theory (1958, 1969) is described as monotropic because he placed great emphasis on a child's attachment to one particular caregiver. Bowlby called this person the mother but was clear that it does not need to be the biological mother. Bowlby believed that the more time a baby spent with the mother-figure, the better. He put forward two principles to clarfiy this:

• The law of continuity stated that the more constant and predictable a child's care, the better the quality of attachment.
• he law of accumulated separation stated that the effects of every separation from the mother add up and the safest dose is therefore a zero dose.

Bowlby suggested that babies are born with a set of innate 'cute' behaviours life smiling, cooing and gropping that encourage attention from adults. He called these social releasers because their purpose is to activate the adult attachment system.

Bowlby recognised that attachment was a reciprocal process. Both mother and baby have an innate predisposition to become attached and social releasers trigger that response in caregivers.

The interplay between infant and adult attachment systems gradually builds the relationship between infant and caregiver, beginning in the early weeks of life. Bowlby proposed that there is a critical period around two years when the infant attachment system is active.

Bowlby viewed this as more of a sensitive period. A child is maxiamlly sensitive at the age of two, but if an attachment is not formed in this time, a child will find it much harder to form one later.

Bowlby proposed that a child forms a mental representation of their relationship with their primary caregiver. This is called an internal working model because it serves as a model for what relationships are like.

It therefore has a powerful effect on the nature of the child's future relationships. A child whose first experience of a loving relationships with a reliable caregive will then to form an expectation that all relationships are as loving and reliable and they will bring these qualities to future relationships.

However, a child whose first relationship involves poor treatment will tend to form further poor relationships in which they expect such treatment from others or treat others in that way.

Most importantly the internal working model affects the child's later ability to be a parent themselves. People tend to base their parenting behaviour on their own experiences of being parented. This explains why children from functional families tend to have similar families themselves.

• Mixed evidence for monotropy: Bowlby believed that babies generally formed one attachment to their primary caregiver, and that this attachment is special. This is not supported by Schaffer and Emerson (1964) as they found most babies did attach to one person first. They also found that a significant minority appeared able to form multiple attachments at the same time.
• Support for social releasers: Brazleton et al (1975) extended their study to an experiment. Primary attachment figures were instructed to ignore their babies' signals - to ignore their social releasers. The babies initially showed some distress but when the attachment figures continued to ignore the baby, some responded by curling up and lying motionless.
• Support for internal working models: Bailey et al. (2007) tested the idea of the internal working models is testable because it predicts that patterns of attachment will be passed on from one generation to the next. They assessed 99 mothers with one-year-old babies on the quality of their attachment to their own mothers using a standard interview procedure. It was found that the mothers who reported poor attchments to their own parents in the interviews were much more likley to have children classified as poor according to the observations.
• Monotropy is a socially sensitive idea: monotropy is a controversial idea because it has major implications for the lifestyle choices mothers make when their children are young.
• Treatment may be as important as attachment: Bowlby's approach emphasises the role of attachment in the child's developing social behaviour. Temperamental differences explain later social behaviour rather than attachment experiences.

Procedure: The Strange Situation is a controlled observation procedure designed to meaure the security of attachment a child displays towards a caregiver, It took place in a room with quite controlled conditions with a two-way mirror through which psychologists can observe the infants behaviour.

The behaviours used to judge attachment included:

• Proximity seeking: an infant with a good attachment will stay faily close to the caregiver.
• Exploration and secure-base behaviour: good attachment enables a child to feel confident to explore, using their caregiver as a secure base.
• Stranger anxiety: one of the signs of becoming closely attached is a display of anxiety when a stranger approachers.
• Separation anxiety: another sign of becoming attached is to protest at separation from the caregiver.
• Response to reunion with the caregiver after separation for a short period of time under controlled conditions.

The procedure has seven episodes, each of which last three minutes.

Beginning: child and caregiver enter an unfamiliar playroom.

1. The child is encouraged to explore - tests exploration and secure base.

2. A stranger comes in and tries to interact with the child - tests stranger anxiety.

3. The caregiver leaves the child and stranger together - tests separation and stranger anxiety.

4. The caregiver returns and the stranger leaves - tests reunion behaviour and exploration/secure base.

5. The caregiver leaves the child alone - tests separation anxiety.

6. The stranger returns - tests stranger anxiety.

7. The caregiver returns and is reunited with the child - tests reunion behaviour.

Ainsworth et al (1978) found that there were distinct patterns in the way that infants behaved. She identified three main types of attachment:

• Secure attachment: explore happily but regularly go back to their caregiver (proximity seeking and secure bas behaviour). Show moderate separation distress and moderate stranger anxiety. Securely attached children require and accept comfort from the caregiver in the reunion stage. About 60-75% of toddlers are classified as secure.
• Insecure-avoidant attachment: explore freely but do not seek proximity or show secure base behaviour. Show little or no reaction when their caregiver leaves and make little effort to make contact when the caregiver returns. Show little stranger anxiety. Do not require comfort at the reunion stage. About 20-25% of toddlers are classified as insecure avoidant.
• Insecure-resistant attachment: seek greater proximity than others and so explore less. Show huge stranger and separation distress but they resist comfort when reunited with their carer. Around 3% of toddlers are classified as insecure-resistant.

• Support for validity: attachment type as defined by the Strange Situation is strongly predictive of later development. Babies assessed as secure typically go on to have better outcomes in many areas, ranging from success at school to romantic relationships and friendships in adulthood.
• Good reliability: shows very good inter-rater reliability. Different observers watching the same children in the Strange Situation generally agree on what attachment type to classify them with.
• The test may be culture-bound: cultural differences in childhood experiences are likely to mean that children respond differently to the Strange Situation. Caregivers from different cultures behave differently in the Strange Situation.
• What does the Strange Situation measure?: Jerome Kagan (1982) has suggested that in fact temperament is more important influence on behaviour in the Strange Situation than attachment. It means that temperament may be a confounding variable.
• There is at least one more attachment type: Ainsworth conceived of three attachment types: insecure-avoidant, secure and insecure-resistant. Main and Solomon (1986) pointed out that a minority of children display atypical attachments that do not fall within types A, B or C.

Marinus van IJzendoorn and Pieter Kroonenberg (1988) conducted a study to look at the proportions of secure, insecure-avoidant and insecure-resistant attachments across a range of countries.

Procedures: the researchers located 32 studies of attachment where the Strange Situation had been used to investigate the proportions of infants with different attachment types. These 32 studies were conducted in eight countries; 15 were in the USA. Overall the 32 studies yielded results for 1,990 children. The data for these 32 studies were meta-analysed, results being combined and weighted for sample size.

Findings: there was a wide variation between the proportions of attachment types in different studies. In all countries secure attachment was the most common classification. However the proportion varied from 75% in Britain to 50% in China. Insecure-resistant was overal the least common type although the proportions ranged from 3% in Britain to around 30% in Israel. Insecure-avoidant attachments were observed most commonly in Germany and least commonly in Japan.

Simonella et al (2014) conducted a study in Italy to see whether the proportions of babies of different attachment types still matches those found in previous studies. The researchers assessed 76 12-month olds using the Strange Situation.

They found 50% were secure, with 36% insecure-avoidant. This is a lower rate of secure attachment that has been found in many studies. The researchers suggest this is because increasing numbers of mothers of very young children work long hours and use professional childcare.

These findings suggest that cultural changes can make a dramatic difference to patterns of secure and insecure attachment.

Jin et al (2012) conducted a study to compare the proportions of attachment types in Korea to other studies. The Strange Situation was used to assess 87 children.

The overall proportions of insecure and secure babies were similar to those in most countries, with most infants being secure.

More of those classified as insecurely attached were resistant and only one child was avoidant. This distribution is similar to the distribution of attachment types found in Japan.

Since Japan and Korea have quite similar child-rearing styles this similarity might be explained in terms of child-rearing style.

• Large samples: in van Ijzendoorn's meta-analysis there was a total of nearly 2000 babies and their primary attachment figures. This overall sample size is a strength because large samples increase internal validity by reducing the impact of anomalous results.
• Samples tend to be unrepresentative of culture: the meta-analysis claimed to study cultural variation but the comparisons were between countries, not cultures. This means that comparisons between countires may have little meaning; the particular cultural characteristics of the sample need to be specified.
• Method of assessment is biased: cross cultural psychology includes the ideas of etic and emic. Etic means cultural universals whilst emic means cultural uniqueness. Trying to apply a theory or technique designed for one culture to another is known as imposed etic.
• Alternative explanation for cultural similarity: van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg suggested that small cross-cultural differences may reflect the effects of the mass media.
• The Strange Situation lack validity: Kagan et al (1986) suggested that attachment type is more related to temperament than to the relationship with the primary attachment figure.

Bowlby proposed a theory of attachment but prior to this he developed the theory of maternal deprivation (1951). This theory focused on the idea that the continual presence of nurture from a mother is essential for normal development of babies and toddlers.

Bowlby said that mother-love in infancy and childhood is as important for mental health as are vitamins and proteins for physical health. Being seperated from a mother in early childhood has serious consequences.

Separation Vs Deprivation: Separation simply means the child not being in the presence of the primary attachment figure. This only becomes an issue for development if the child is deprived i.e they lose an element of her care. Brief separations are not significant for development but extended separations can lead to deprivation, which by definition causes harm.

The Critical Period: Bowlby saw the first 30 months of life as a critical period for psychological development. If a child is separated from their mother in the absence of suitable substitute care and deprived of her emotional care for an extended time during this period then Bowlby believed that psychological damage was inevitable.

Intellectual development: Bowlby believed that if children were deprived of maternal care for too long during the critical period they would suffer delayed intellectual development (an abnormally low IQ). This has been demonstrated in studies of adoption. Goldfarb (1947) found lower IQ in children who had remained in institutions as opposed to those who were fostered and thus had a higher standard of emotional care.

Emotional development: Bowlby identified affectionless psychopathy as the inability to experience guilt or strong emotion for others. This prevents the person developing normal relationships and is associated with criminality. Affectionless psychopaths cannot appreciate the feelings of victims and lack remorse for their actions.

This study examined the link between affectionless psychopathy and maternal deprivation.

Procedure: the sample of this study consisted of 44 criminal teenagers accused of stealing. All thieves were interviewed for signs of affectionless psychopathy and their families were also interviewed in order to establish whether the thieves had prolonged early separations from their mothers. A control group of non-criminal emotionally disturbed young people was set up to see how often maternal deprivation occured in children who were not thieves.

Findings: Bowlby (1944) found that 14 of the 44 thives could be described as affectionless psychopaths. 12 had experienced prolonged separation from their mothers in the first two years of their lives. Only 5 of the remaining 30 thives had experienced separations. Of the control group, only 2 out of 44 had experienced long separations. If was concluded that prolonged early separation/deprivation caused affectionless psychopathy.

• The evidence may be poor: Bowlby drew on a number of sources of evidence for maternal deprivation including children orphaned during WWII. These are all flawed as evidence. War-orphans were traumatised and often had poor after-care, these factors might have been the causes of later developmental difficulties rather than separation.
• Counter-evidence: Hilda Lewis (1954) partially replicated the 44 thives study on a larger scale. In her sample, a history of early prolonged separation from the mother did not predict criminality or difficulty forming close relationships.
• The critical period is actually more of a sensitive period: research has shown that damage is not inevitable. Some cases of very severe deprivation have good outcomes provided the child has some social interaction and good aftercare. Jarmila Koluchova (1976) reported the case of twin boys who were isolated from the age of 18 months until they were seven years old (their step-mother locked them in a cupboard). They were subsequently looked after by two loving adults and appeared to fully recover.
• Animal studies show effects of maternal deprivation: Levy et al (2003) showed that separating baby rats from their mother for as little as a day had a permanent effect on their social development though not other aspects of development.
• Failure to distinguish between deprivation and privation: Rutter (1981) claimed that when Bowlby talked of deprivation, he was muddling two concepts together. Rutter claimed that the severe long-term damage Bowlby associated with deprivation is actually more likely to be the result of privation.

Research on maternal deprivation has turned to oprhan studies as a means of studying the effects of deprivation.

An opportunity to look at the effects of institutional care and the consequent institutionalisation arose in Romania in the 1990's.

Former President Nicolai Ceaucescu required Romanian women to have five children. Many Romanian parents could not afford to keep their children and they ended up in huge orphanages in very poor conditions.

After the 1989 revolution many of the children were adopted, some by British parents.

Procedure: Michael Rutter and colleagues (2011) have followed a group of 165 Romanian orphans adopted in Britain to test to what extent good care could make up for poor early experiences in institutions. Physical, cognitive and emotional development has been assessed at ages 4, 6, 11 and 15 years. A group of 52 British children adopted around the same time have served as a control group.

Findings: when they first arrived in the UK half the adoptees showed signs of delated intellectual development and the majority were severely undernourished. At age 11 the children showed differential rates of recovery that were related to their age of adoption. The mean IQ of those children adopted before the age of six months was 102 compared with 86 for those adopted between six months and two years and 77 for those adopted after two years. These differences remained at age 16. Children adopted after six months showed signes of an attachment style called disinhibited attachment - attention seeking, clinginess and social behaviour directed towards all adults.

Procedure: Zeanah et al (2005) assessed attachment in 95 children aged 12-31 months who had spent most of their lives in institutional care (90% on average). They were compared to a group of 50 children who had never lived in an institution. Carers were asked about unusual social behaviour including clingy, attention-seeking behaviour directed inappropriately at all adults.

Findings: They found that 74% of the control group came out as securely attached in the Strange Situation. Only 19% of the institutional group were securely attached, with 65% being classified with disorganised attachment. The description of disinhibited attachment applied to 44% of institutionalised children as opposed to less than 20% of the controls.

Disinhibited attachment: a typical effect of spending time in an institution. They are equally friendly and affectionate towards people they know well or who are strangers they have just met. This is highly unusual as most children in their second year show stranger anxiety. Rutter (2006) has explained disinhibited attachment as an adaptation to living with multiple caregivers during the sensitive period for attachment formation.

Mental retardation: most children showed signs of retardation when they arrived in Britain. Most of those adopted before they were six months old caught up with the control group by age four. Damage to intellectual development as a result of institutionalisation can be recovered provided adoption takes place before the age of six months - the age at which attachments form.

• Real-life application: studying the Romanian orphans has improved the understanding of the effects of institutionalisation and such results have lef to improvements in the way children are cared for in institutions (Langton 2006). Orphanages and children's homes now avoid having large numbers of caregivers for each child.
• Fewer extraneous variables than other orphan studies: in previous orphan studies the children may have experienced neglect, abuse or bereavement and were often traumatised by their experiences and suffered bereavement. It was very hard to observe the effects in isolation because the children were dealing with multiple factors which functioned as confounding participant variables.
• The Romanian orphanages were not typical: it is possible that conditions were so bad that results cannot be applied to understanding the impact of better quality institutional care or any situation where children experience deprivation.
• The long-term effects are not clear: it is too soon to say with certainty whether children suffered short or long-term effects. It may be that the children who spent longer in institutions and currently lage behind in intellectual development or display attachment difficulties may still 'catch-up' as adults. 

The quality of the child's first attachment is crucial because this template will powerfully affect the nature of their future relationships.

A child whose first experience is of a loving relationship with a reliable caregiver will tend to assume that this is how relationships are meant to be. They will then seek out functional relationships and behave functionally within them i.e without being too uninvolved or being too emotionally close.

A child with bad experiences of their first attachment will bring these bad experiences to bear on later relationships. This may mean they struggle to form relationships in the first place or they may not hehave appropriately when they have them.

Attachment type is associated with the quality of peer relationships in childhood. Securely attached infants tend to go on to form the best quality childhood friendships but insecurely attached infants late have friendship difficulties (Kerns, 1994).

Bullying behaviour can be predicted by attachment type. Rowan Myron-Wilson and Peter Smith (1998) assessed attachment type and bullying involvement using standard questionnaires in 196 children aged 7-11 in London.

Secure children were very unlikely to be involved in bullying. Insecure-avoidant children were the most likely to be victims. Insecure-resistant children were most likely to be bullies.

Gerard McCarthy (1999) studied 40 adult women who had been assessed when they were infants to establish their early attachment type. Those assessed as securely attached infants had the best adult friendships and romantic relationships. Adults classed as insecure-resistant as infants had particular problems maintaining friendships whilst those classes as insecure-avoidant struggled with intimacy in romantic relationships.

Cindy Hazan and Phillip Shaver (1987) conducted a classic study of the association between attachment and adult relationships.

Procedure: they analysed 620 replies to a love quiz printed in an American local newspaper. The quiz had three sections. The first assessed respondents' current or most important relationships. The second part assessed general love experiences such as number of partners. The third section asked respondents to choose which of three statements best described their feelings.

Findings: 56% of respondents were identified as securely attached with 25% insecure-avoidant and 19% insecure-resistant. Those reporting secure attachments were the most likely to have good and longer lasting romantic experiences. The avoidant respondents tended to reveal jealousy and a fear of intimacy.

Internal working models also affect the child's ability to parent their own children.

People tend to base their parenting style on their internal working model so attachment type tends to be passed on through generations of a family.

Bailey et al (2007) considered the attachments of 99 mothers to their babies and to their own mothers. Mother-baby attachment was assessed using the Strange Situation and mother-own mother attachment was assessed using an adult attachment interview.

The majority of women had the same attachment clasfficiation to their babies and their own mothers.

• Evidence on continuity of attachment type is mixed: not all studies support the internal working models. Zimmerman (2000) assessed infant attachment type and adolescent attachment to parents. There was very little relationship between quality of infant and adolescent attachment.
• Most studies have issues of validity: most studies of attachment to primary caregiver and other significant people do not make use of the Strange Situation but assess infant-parent attachment by means of interview or questionnaire, not in infancy but years later. This creates validity problems.
• Association does not mean causality: there are alternative explanations for the continuity that often exists between infant and later relationships. A third environmental factor sich as parenting style might have a direct effect on both attachment and the child's ability to form relationoships with others.
• The influence of early attachment is probabilistic: some attachment researchers have exaggerated the significance of infant attachments on later relationships.
• Self-report is concious but internal working models are not: when participants self-report on their relationships they are relying on their concious understanding of those relationships.