Attachment

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  • Created by: Jesssully
  • Created on: 13-06-17 07:16

Bowlby’s theory of attachment

  • Monotropy: Bowlby places emphasis on a child's attachment to one particular caregiver, who is different in quality and importance than others and doesn't necessarily have to be the mother.
    Mixed evidence-S&E-most formed a primary attachment, a small minority were able to form multiple attachments. Suess et al-attachment to mother more important in predicting future behaviour. However, could just mean that this attachment is stronger, not necessarily more important.
  • Social releasers&critical period: born with innate ‘cute’ behaviours that encourage attention from adults and make them feel love towards the baby, a reciprocal process. The critical period is a time in which the attachment must be formed, or one doesn't at all (Harlow-birds and monkeys) Bowlby extended this to humans, where after the 'sensitive period,' attachments are much harder to form.
    Supporting research-Brazelton et al- observed mothers and babies, social releasers were ignored- babies showed distress, advancing to curling up and lying motionless- shows importance of SR
  • IWM: relationship of primary attachment acts as a template for future ones. Loving attachments will expect/bring these qualities to future relationships and vice versa. Also affects a child's future parenting ability as people tend to base their parenting behaviour on their experience of parenting. This explains why children from functional families have similar families themselves.
    Supporting research-Bailey et al-mothers with bad attachment to their parents was reflected in the quality of their babies attachment-proves attachment is passed on through generations in families.
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Caregiver-infant Interactions

  • Reciprocity-Feldman and Eidelman-from birth mothers respond to infant alertness, from 3m  more frequent interactions, with verbal signs and facial expressions, including reciprocity. Mother and child take an active role. Brazelton et al- it's much like a dance, partners respond to each other's moves.
  • Interactional synchrony: Mother and infant reflect actions and emotions of the other.
    Meltzoff and Moore-beginnings of interactional synchrony in as young as 2w-actions of adults copied
    - level of synchrony relates to the quality of attachment(e.g emotional intensity of relationship)
    Methodological limitations- studies have found same patterns of interaction(Gratier), but a difficulty in telling if simple gestures and expressions are deliberate-questions if interactions have meaning.
    Lacks explanation into the purpose of synchrony&reciprocity-Feldman-simply describes behaviours occurring at the same time-lacks understanding&utility. But, helpful in the development of interactions.
     High control-captures fine detail-both mother and infant filmed from multiple angles, can be later analysed. Also, babies don't change behaviour in response to overt observations-valid results.
  • The role of father: Grossman et al- attachment with the father is less important, and has a different role of play and stimulation rather than nurturing.
    Fathers as primary carer-evidence that
    Inconsistent findings (different research questions, overall picture unclear). Children w/out fathers not different (suggests father role is not important).
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Schaffer’s stages of attachment

  • A: Investigated age of attachment formation and who attachments are formed with
  • P: Mothers of 60 Glaswegian babies reported monthly on separation anxiety
  • F: Most babies showed attachment to a primary caregiver by 32 weeks and developed multiple attachments soon after this
    -Limited sample (families were from the same area, study over 50 years ago)
    -Good external validity (observations were in participants natural environments). Longitudinal design (same participants were observed at each age, eliminating participants differences as a confounding variable).
  • Asocial stage: little observable social behaviour
    -Social behaviour is hard to observe in first few weeks but this doesn’t mean the baby is asocial
  • Indiscriminate attachment: accept comfort from any adult
    -Conflicting evidence: van Ijzendoorn et al found multiple attachments may appear first
  • Specific attachments: Stranger anxiety and separation anxiety in regard to one particular adult
    -Just because a child protests when an adult leaves does not necessarily = attachment
  • Multiple attachments: more than one adult
    -S + E used limited measures of attachment
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Romanian orphan studies

  • Rutter’s ERA study: 165 orphans adopted in Britain. Some of those adopted later show low IQ and disinhibited attachment.
  • Bucharest early intervention project: Random allocation to institutional care or fostering. Secure attachment in 19% of institutional group vs 74% of controls.
  • Effects of institutionalisation: Disinhibited attachment and intellectual retardation if institutionalisation is prolonged.
    -Real-life application (both institutional care + adoption practice have been improved using lessons from RO.
    -Fewer EV (RO had fewer negative influences before institutionalisation than e.g. war orphans).
    -Romanian orphanages especially bad, can't generalise
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Animal studies

  • Lorenz's procedure: Goslings saw him when hatched
  • Findings: Newly hatched chicks attach to first moving object they see (imprinting) and, when adults, try to mate with that species
    -Generalisability (birds + mammals have different attachment systems so Lorenz’s results may not be relevant to humans).
    -Some observations questioned (Guiton et al found birds imprinting on rubber gloves did later prefer their own species).
  • Harlow's procedure: Baby monkeys were given cloth/wire mother with feeding bottle attached findings: Monkeys clung to cloth surrogate rather than wire one, regardless of which dispensed milk. The maternally deprived monkeys grew up socially dysfunctional. After 90 days, attachments wouldn't form (critical period).
    -Theoretical value (demonstrated that attachment depends more on contact comfort than feeding).
    -Practical value (Howe: informs understanding of risk factors for child abuse).
    -Ethical issues (suffering of monkeys would be human-like).
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Ainsworth’s strange situation

  • Procedure: 7 stage controlled observation. Assessed proximity seeking, exploration and secure base, stranger and separation anxiety, response to a reunion.
  • Findings: Infants showed consistent patterns of attachment behaviour.
  • Secure: Enthusiastic greeting, generally content. Kerns: securely attached children have better friendships and less likely to be involved in bullying
  • Avoidant: Avoids reunion, generally reduced responses. Fear of intimacy in adult relationships.
  • Resistant: Resists reunion, generally more distressed
    -Validity (attachment type predicts later social + personal behaviour e.g. bullying) Good reliability (different observers agree >90% of the time on attachment types)
    -Culture-bound (attachment behaviour may have different meanings in different cultures so the ** may be measuring different things) 
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Learning theory

  • Classical conditioning: caregiver (neutral stimulus) associated with food (unconditioned stimulus). Caregiver becomes a conditioned stimulus. Attachment becomes a secondary drive through association with hunger.
  • Operant conditioning: Crying behaviour reinforced positively for infant and negatively for caregiver
    -Animal studies (Lorenz + Harlow showed that feeding is not the key to attachments)
    -Human studies (S + E found most primary attachment figures were a mother even when others did most feeding).
    -Cannot count for the importance of sensitivity and interactional synchrony (Isabella et al: interactional synchrony causes a better quality mother-infant attachment)
    -Some elements of conditioning may still be involved, association(classical conditioning) between primary caregiver and the provision of comfort and social interactions, is part of what builds the attachment
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Cultural variations in attachment

  • Van Ijzendoorn: Compared rates of attachment type in 8 countries. Found more variation within than between cultures.
  • Simonella et al: Italian attachment rates have changed perhaps due to changing practices
  • Jin et al: Korean attachment rates similar to Japan, could be due to similar child-rearing styles
  • Conclusions: Attachment is innate and universal and secure attachment is the norm.
    -Large samples reduce impact of anomalous results so improve internal validity
    -Countries do not = cultures nor culturally specific methods of child rearing
    -Method of assessment is biased (research using ** imposes a USA test on other cultures) 
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Bowlby’s theory of maternal deprivation

  • Separation vs deprivation: Physical separation only leads to deprivation when the child loses emotional care
  • Critical period: The first 30 months are critical and deprivation in that time causes damage
  • Effects on development: Goldfarb: deprivation causes low IQ. Bowlby: emotional development e.g. affectionless psychopathy
    -Evidence may be poor (orphans have experienced other traumas. Bowlby may be a biased observer).
    -Counter-evidence (Lewis: sample of 500, found no link between early separation and later criminality).
    -Sensitive period (Bowlby exaggerated the importance of critical period).
    -Supporting animal studies(Levy et al: separating baby rats from their mother as little as a day had permanent effects on social development only).
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Early attachment on later relationships

  • Internal working model(Bowlby)- first primary attachment figure forms a mental representation of relationships and acts as a template for future relationships.
  • Relationships in childhood- Secure have best friendships whereas insecure have difficulties(Kernes). Secure is the least likely to be involved in bullying whereas resistant are typically bullies and avoidant, the victims(Smith).
  • Relationships in Adulthood-Hazan and Shaver: 620 replies to a love quiz, 3 parts-current/most important relation, general love experiences eg how many partners, and which statements best describe their feelings. Secure had the longest lasting and good relationships, whereas avoidant showed signs of jealousy and difficulty maintaining relations.
    Bailey et al- mothers usually share attachment type with their children(this shows mothers take their mother's parenting style due to their IWM)
    Supporting evidence - McCarthy found that secure infants had best adult friendships and romantic relationships compared to type A and C, reliable explanation.
    Conflicting research- Zimmerman found little relationship between infant and adolescent attachment, isn't a credible explanation.
    Clarke- the influence of early attachment is too probabilistic, Bowlby may have exaggerated the effects, we aren't 'doomed' to have bad relationships &research may cause pessimistic, damaging effects on people's relationships.
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