attachment

• attachment is LEARNED in the same way as other behaviours - CLASSICAL and OPERANT conditioning.

• classical conditioning = infant learns to associate primary caregiver with food, food produces feelings of pleasure.
• infant associates caregiver with food - caregiver becomes a source of pleasure irrespective of whether food is present.

before learning - food(UCS) = pleasure (UCR)

during learning - food (UCS)+ caregiver (CS) = pleasure (UCR)

after learning - caregiver (CS) = pleasure (CR)

CLASSICAL CONDITIONING

• infant learns to asociate primary caregiver with food. Food produces pleasure meaning overtime caregiver becomes a source of pleasure irrespective of whether food is present or not so an attachment forms.

before learning - food (UCS) = pleasure (UCR)

during learning - food (UCS) + caregiver (CS) = pleasure (UCR)

after learning - caregiver (CS) = pleasure (CR)

OPERANT CONDITIONING

infant to caregiver: negative reinforcement

• baby wants to try and avoid feeling hungry so acts happy around parents.

caregiver to infant: negative reinforcement

• to avoid the baby crying, they give the baby lots of attention.

infant to caregiver: positive reinforcement

• infant is rewarded for attaching to caregiver - recieves food.

caregiver to infant: positive reinforcement

• caregiver is rewarded with a happy baby.

• provides a valuable insight into how an infant attaches to its main caregiver -  key role of food. provides a testable explanation.

• oversimplified explanation - ignores role of other factors such as genetics. other explanations should be considered

• infant doesn't always have an attachemnt with food provider. less than 50% of cases primary caregiver was person who fed the child. - reduces validity.

• contradictory research - Harlow's monkeys -   monkey's formed an attachment with the cloth mother that provided comfort rather than the wire monkey that provided food. can however be hard to draw firm conclusions.
• deterministic

CRITICAL PERIOD AND AN INTERNAL WORKING MODEL

• explanation is based on evolutionary principles - humans are genetically motivated to develop an attachment to a maternal figure.
• humans are helpless at birth and need to attach to increase survival chances.
• infants are born with behaviours (social releasers) such as smiling and crying that help them make an attachment.

• monotropy bond - a special bond with primary caregiver because they respond best to child's social releasers.
• monotropy bond - template for all future relationships which is an internal working model.
• can be used to predict how people will act as parents themselves.
• attachment to mother figure has critical period of between 6 months and 3 years. if bond is not formed = negative, irreversable outcomes.

• face validity - provides valuable insight into how an infant attaches to main caregiver. Theory has been widely accepted by further researchers.
• practical applications - variety of settings such as hospitals where policies were updated allowing mothers to have contact with their baby from birth to enable a bond to develop.
• economic value - could help social workers as they would ensure that children were fostered or adopted before age 2.5. This could then prevent future negative outcomes which could cost the government more money.

• lack of evidence - most psychologists suggest there is a sensitive period where attachments are most likely to be developed but argue they can be formed at other times. children can devleop attachments long after the critical period.
• multiple attachments from 9 months old -babies start to develop attachments eg with grandparents which contradicts basic principles of Bowlby's theory and reduces the validity.

• evolutionary theory argues that there is a critical period in which an attachment needs to develop or there will be negative consequences. learning theory would suggest attachment is learned through a caregiver who shows care but there isn't a critical period.

• learning theory argues that food is essential for formation of relationship whereas evolutionary theory would argue this is only one part of attachment.

• evolutionary theory would argue attachments are formed to the need to survive whereas the learning theory suggests attachment is through the process of classical and operant conditioning and is not innate.

• carried out observations in Uganda and USA. she noticed important responses from infants which could be used to identify security of attachments.

• secure children: cried infrequently, happiest with mother, used mother as a safe base in which to explore their environment.
• insecure infants: cried frequently when alone with mothers and craved attention from her were ambivalent about her presence. Other's weren't bothered about being left alone and did not resond to mother's return.

• standardised procedure
• contained 7 different episodes each lasting 3 minutes
• 1 - mother and child in the room
• 2 - stranger enters and talk to the mother
• 3 - mother leaves and stranger tries to interact with child
• 4 - mother returns and stranger leaves
• 5 - mother leaves child alone
• 6 - stranger enters and tries to interact with the child
• 7 - mother returns and the stranger leaves.

type A = insecure avoidant 20-25% of infants

type B = secure 60-75%

type C = insecure resistant less than 10%

insecure avoidant - mother rejects/avoids contact with child and child learns that if it seekes attention it will be ignored so becomes emotionally self-sufficient.

• exploration - does not seek contact from mother
• separation anxiety - seems unconcerned when mother leaves
• stranger anxiety - child shows few signs of distress and ignored/avoided stranger
• reunion behaviour - child ignores mother on return

secure - mother is available, helpful and sensitive to child's needs and signals so child can see her as a safe base that will provide protection and comfort.

• exploration - mother is seen as a safe base from which child can explore
• separation anxiety - child cries shortly after mother leaves
• stranger anxiety - child is wary of strangers, maintains closeness to mother
• reunion behaviour - child seeks contact when mother returns and is easy to comfort

insecure resistant - mother is not always sensitive to child's needs and will be seen as helpful and loving on some occassions but not on others.

• exploration - child is wary of mother and don't explore their environment.
• separation anxiety - child shows intense distress when mother has left.
• stranger anxiety - child is extremely distressed when left with the stranger.
• reunion behaviour - hard to comfort as it seeks both comfot and rejects the mother eg by pushing away.

• reliable measure of attachment - standardised procedure, used in studies all over the world. quick and easy method that can be performed on lots of participants.

• lack of external validity - unrealistic situation for both infant and caregiver. questions whether the findings can be applied to everyday life.
• cultural bias -based on USA attacment behaviours, ignores child rearing behaviours in other cultures eg in Japan, infant is rarely separated from mother and could be wrongly classified.
• low validity -  fails to account for all attachment types. Infants may not fit into attachment due to inconsistent responses, proposesd a fourth type - insecure disorganised.
• only shows relationship between mothers and child - other research demonstrates primary attachment. An insecurely attached child may have a secure attachment with another relative.

• studied cross- cultural diferences, using strange situation procedure. studied meta - analysis of 32 studies in 8 different countries including UK,USA, Netherlands, Germany, Sweeden and non-western countries - Israel, China, Japan.  There were nearly 2000 infants.

there were many differences in attachment in the countries:

• secure was most common
• insecure avoidant were most common in western countries
• insecure resistant was most common in Israel and Japan
• China had equal numbers of insecure avoidant and resistant.

He concluded that there are universal characteristics of attachments due to high levels of secure attachments. Greater differences within cultures rather than between suggests widespread variations of child rearing in different cultures.

• reliable measure of attachment types - standardised procedure, experiment conducted in same controlled way. would achieve consistent results.

• lacks population validity -   there were only 8 countries in the study, not representative and can't be generalised.
• only 3 non- western countries used - different patterns seem to represent culture's values and practises. eg more of anxious avoidant in Germany may be because of focus on early independence whereas there was a complete absence of this type as the care for the infant involves immediate nursing and constant closeness to mother.
• different meaning in different cultures - we need to know about child rearing practises in order to get valid results.
• meta- analysis - limits drawing conclusions, only show that differnces exist between cultures but fails to explain why they exist - limits internal validity.

• studied Dogon people of Mali. Infants are kept physically close, breastfeeding needs and signs of distress are immediately dealt with.
• wanted to assess if infant attachments are different in a culture that uses these natural parenting methods. 42 mother and infant pairs from rural villages were used. Infants ranged from 10 - 12.5 months. strange situation was used.
• during the day many children were cared for by grandmother but this did not affect attachment types as the mothers were still closely involved with breastfeeding and co-sleeping.
• positive correlations were found between maternal sensitivity and infant security ratings.
• natural child rearing practises have higher levels of secure attachment.

• strange situation is a reliable procedure, more consistent results are achieved, study can be generalised more.
• low population validity - small sample size.
• ethical issues with children being distressed.

If a child is deprived of care from mother during critical period of 6 months and 3 years, there are irreversable negative consequences.

IQ is lowered, maternal deprivation can affect intellectual development.

deprivation could lead to emotional consequences - AFFECTIONLESS PSYCHOPATHY - do not feel strong emotion/ guilt towards others.

JUVENILE THIEVES STUDY

• compared 44 juvenile theives to control group who had a emotional problems but weren't criminals.
• 14 of thieves were diagnosed as affectionless psychopaths.
• 12 of 14 had experienced prolong separation from mothers within first 2 years.
• none of the control group showed signs of affectionless psychopathy.

Bowlby concluded that deprivation can produce negative side effects - affectionless psychopathy.

• research evidence - provide clear support for predictions of theory, prolonged separation = negative consequences. increases validity of theory. 
• practical applications - hospital policies when caring for young children, increase visiting hours so children maintain good attachments with parents.

• cross cultural research contradicts - children who experience deprivation and are kept in a widowless hut with little contact with primary caregiver. However, children are able to make a recovery without social and intellectual impairment.
• extraneous variables could have affected research - conducted after second world war, many pressures on orphanages at this time. children may have experienced war trauma, bereavement, poor after care, difficult to conclude if behaviour was due to maternal deprivation or other factors.
• unreliable data - collected retrospectively, parents were asked to recall events from up to 14 years previously meaning as well as relying on other people's opinions and suffering from social desirability bias, answers may have been mistaken.

EFFECTS OF INSTITUTIONALISATION   Rutter et al - aim was to see if loving and nurturing care could overturn the effects of privation children had suffered. 3 different groups of children - all were taken from Romanian orphanages and brought to Britain.

condition 1 - children were adopted before 6 months

condition 2 - children were adopted between 6 months and 2 years

condition 3 - children who were adopted after 2

children were assessed on cognitive functioning on arrival and again at 4 years old. 50% were classed as retarded and were underweight. There were 52 adopted british children used as a control group.

those adopted <6 months were doing as well as British adopted children, conditions 2and3 often were being equally friendly to people they know as they are to strangers.

conclusion: negative effects of institutional care can be overcome by sensitive, nurturing care espeically the earlier the adoption.

Zeanah et al - assessed 95 children aged 12-31 months who spent an average of 90% of their time in institutional care. compared these to control group of 50 children who had never lived in an institution. used strange situation to measure attachment types and asked caregivers to describe any unusual behaviour.

74% of control group = securely attached

19% of instituionalised group = securely attached and 65% = disorganised.

• practical applications - orphanages and children's homes try and assign a key worker to each child, so they can develop attachments and reduces the chances of disinhibited attachments.
• high internal validity due to less extraneous variables.
• situational variables - generalisability can be questioned from romanian orphan studies.
• efffects are short term - further longitudinal research needs to be conducted before drawing firm conclusions.
• children weren't randomly assigned to groups in Rutter's research, cofounding variables such as personality could have had an impact.

continuity hypothesis = children's attachment types are reflected in later relationships. Internal working model where an infant's primary attachment forms a model for future relationships.  A child who has a secure attachment are less likely to be isolated and be more confident with friends.

Hazan and Schafer - wanted to see if there was a correlation between infant's first attachment type and their future approach to romantic relationships. Composed a "love quiz" consisting of a measure of attachment type and a love experience questionnaire. They analyzed 620 replies sent from a newspaper ad between 14-82 and classified respondents' according to Mary Ainsworth' infant attachment types.

secure - love experiences - happy, accepting, romantic love never fading, happy depending on others and others depending on them.

anxious-resistant- obsessive, emotional high and lows, extreme sexual attraction and jealousy, worried partners didn't really love them.

anxious-aviodant - feared intimacy, emotional high and lows, didn't believe they needed love to be happy.

concluded that there was a very high correlation between the infant attachment types and adult romantic love styles. evidence to support concept of internal working model having a life-long effect.

• can't draw firm conclusions - continuity of attachment does not always occur. continuity decreases as an adult gets older because average person has several relationships.limits temporal validity 
• self-report measures - social desirablility bias, people report themselves in what they think is more favourable. lowers internal validity.
• correlational resarch - does not establish cause and effect, little control over extraneous variables which influence relationships.
• supporting evidence - securely attached individuals had most long term romantic relationships.

• alternative explanation = temperament hypothesis - an infant's temperament affects the way a parent responds and may be a determining factor in infant attachment type. qualities of adult relationship are biologically determined, not possible to change.