Attachment: processes, models and research

AIM: Study the attachment of infants in the first 18 months

PROCEDURE: Observed 60 glasweigen babies, mostly from working-class families. They were visited once a moth for a year and then again at 18 month mark. Researchers asked parents to observe their child in different circumstances, keeping a diary of their observations and report back to the researchers. e.g record stranger and seperation anxiety.

ASOCIAL STAGE- Occurs at 0-8 weeks. When babies begin to recognise and form bonds. Their behaviour towards non-human objects and hums is simialr. Show some preference to familiar adults.

INDISCRIMINATE STAGE-  Occurs at 2-7 months. Babie sshow prefernece to people over objects, tehy recognise and perfer familiar adults. Behaviour is not different to any one adult

SPECIFIC STAGE- Occurs at 7-12 months. Stranger and seperation anxiety is present. Primary caregiver is identified - one who responds to babies signals the most.

MULTIPLE STAGE- Occurs at 12+ months. Form multiple/secondary attachments to people they spend time with (consistency present).

AIM: Used rhesus monkeys to see if attachments are primarily formed through food 

PROCEDURE: new born mokeys were seperated from tehir mother adn raised in isolation cages. Each cage had a baby blanket - monkeys had seperation anxiety with the blanket. Two types of surrogate mothers were formed (harsh wire mother, and soft towelling mother). 16 baby monkeys were put in 4 conditons. 1) cage condiotnng wire model producing milk and teh towelling mother producing no milk.  2) cage containing wire model producing no milk, towelling model producing milk. 3) cage containing towelling mother producing milk. 4) cage containing wire mother producing milk. Recorded amount of time spent with each mother & time feeding. Monkeys fightened with loud noise to test mother preference during stress. Larger cage used to test exploration.

FINDINGS: Preffered contact with towelling mother. Only monkey that preffered wire surrogate, had diarrhoea showing signs of stress. When frightened by teh loud noise, monkeys clung to towelling mother. When in a larger cage, monkeys that had the towel mother would explore more.

CONCLUSION: Rhesus monkeys have innate, unleanred need for contact comfort, suyggesting attachment conserns emotional security more than food. Comfort is assocaiated with lower levels stress and willingness to explore, indicating emotional security.

AIM: Investigate the mechainsms to imprinting

PROCEDURE: split a large clutch of goose eggs into two batches. One was hatched with mother (control gorup) and othr as hatched in an incubator. Marked all gooslings and placed them into before relasing to record their behaviour

FINDINGS: incubator grou followed Lorenz everywhere, CG followed mother. Imprinting happens a few hours after hatching (critical period) - if they didnt, tehy wouldnt attach themselevs to a mother figure. Sexual imprinting birds who inprinted on humans, would later be sexually attracted to humans

CONCLUSION: Imprinting is a form of attachment, exhibited by birds that leave the nest early, mainly nidifugous birds. Close contact is kept with the first large moving object encountered

AIM: Mesure the types of attachment

Strange situation: Controlled observation of infants playing in an unfamiliar setting, being left alone, left with a stranger, and reunion of the caregiver. Looked at seperation protest, stranger anxiety, and reunion behaviour. Tested- proximity seeking. Exploration and secure-base behaviour. Response to reunion. Stranger anxiety. Seperation anxiety

PROCEDURE: Each child was oput through 7 episodes to test specific behaviours. 1) Infant was encouraged to play, to test E&SBB. 2) Stranger came in and tried to interact with the infant, to test stranger anxiety. 3) Carer left the stranger and infant otgether, to test seperaation and stranger anxiety. 4) Carer returned and stranger left, to test E&&SBB and response to reunion. 5) Carer leaves infant alone, to test seperation anxiety. 6) Stranger returns, to test stranger anxiety. 7) Carer returns and is reunited with infant, to test repsonse to reunion.

FINDINGS AND CONCLUSION: Insecure-resistant attachment. Insecure-avoidant attachment. Secure attachment

AIM: to investigate the types of attachment across cultures to see how the 3 attachment types applied. See if attachment types are universal or culturally specific

PROCEDURE: Used meta-analysis. Data from 32 studies in 8 differnet countries was analysed. All 32 studies used Strange Situation to study attachment. Thre 32 studies yielded results for 1990 children.

FINDINGS: Most coomon type of attachment across 8 countries is secure. 

SECURE: hightest - Great Britain (75%). lowest - China (50%)

AVOIDANT: highest - Germany (37%). lowest - Japan (5%)

RESISTANT: highest - Israel (30%). lowest - Great Britain (4%)

PROCEDURE: analysed 620 replies to a 'love quiz' printed in a ocal newspaper. The quiz had 3 sections, these being:

1. Assessing respondents current or most significant relationship

2. General love experiences

3. Assessing attahcment type by repsonding to one of three statements

FINDINGS: 56% were securely attached, 25% had an insecure-avoidant attachment, 19% had an insecure-resistant attachment. Secure: had good, long lasting relationships. Avoidant: Had jealous relationships and feared intimacy. Patterns of attachment refleced in rmantic behvaiour

EVALUATION: Not necessarily a causal relationship

PROCEDURE: Followed 165 romanian orphans in Britain to test what extent good care could make up for poor early experiences in institutions. Studeidd their phsycial, emotional and cognitive development at ages 4, 6, 11 and 15. He also studied 52 British children that had been adopted around the same time to compare.

FINDINGS: All romanians lagged behind the UK children in terms of physical, emotional and cognitive development. The earlier that the romanians were adopted, the quicker they caught up with UK. Found that infants that were adopted after 6 months were more likely to show attachment disorders adn have peer relationships problems. Children adopted after 6 months were the 6 months were also more likely to form a disinihibited attachment. However, those children adopted before 6 months rearely displayed disinhibited attachment.

CONLUSION: Negative effects of institutionalisation can be overcomre by sensetive and nurturing care. The British Adoptee children did not suffer developmental outcomes, so it can be seen that seperation/deprivation from carers will not on its own cause negative development effects.

AIM: To investigate the long-term effects of maternal deprivation. 

PROCEDURE: Used 88 children, split into 44 juvenile thieves and 44 control group. IQ tests carried out by Psychologists, interviews with parents and interviews with children.

FINDINGS: 14 of the juveile thieves showed affectionless psychopathy (AP). 86% of the AP juvenile thieves experienced a long period of maternal seperation, half of which experienced the seperation for longer than 6 months. 

CONLUSION: Maternal deprivation has permenant emotional damage