Attachment

Attachment - an enduring bond with a significant other

Stranger anxiety - distress when around unfamiliar people

Separation protest - distress when separated from significant other

Secure attachment - relationship based on trust and security

Insecure ambivalent - clingy & demanding

Insecure avoidant - child independentof caregiver

• Monotropy - attachment formed with one person
• Critical period - 0-3 years
• Privation - when an attachment is not formed in the critical period
• Deprivation - when an attachment is formed but broken later
• Effects of deprivation - aggression, dwarfism, delinquency, depression & dependency anxiety

Criticisms

• Doesn't explain multiple attachments - attachments to both parents
• The critical period is too extreme - strong attachemnts can be formed after the age of 3
• Effects of deprivation are reversible - ignore the role of nature

• Nurture over nature
• Attachment relies on learning and experience
• Infants attach through reinforcement
• Positive consequence - action, reward, repeat
• Interacts with carer - attention - reinforces bond
• Action - punished - won't repeat

• Aim: to see if there is a relationship between infant attachment type and later love life
• Method: Love quiz in newspaper
• Sample: 620 replies used from ages 14-82
• Results: secure attachment = confident  adult relationship, least likely to divorce. Avoidant = jealous , bipolar adult relationships. Ambivalent = obsession, extreme jealousy & lust
• Conclusion: clear relationship between infant attachment & intimate adult relationships

Evaluation

• Self-selecting sample - only a certian type may have responded
• Lacks reliability - people may lie/exaggerate
• Closed questions - not enough depth, hard to see extraneuous variables

In Hospitals

• Quicker contact of mother and child - stronger bond

In Nurseries

• Could children form bonds with nannies, not parents?

In Families

• Organisations to help form early bonds - social services