Attachment studies

Method

60 babies were visited at home every month for the first year and again at 18 months. The researcher asked the mother questions on what kind of protest the baby showed in 7 everyday seperations. eg: Adult leaving the room (measure of seperation anxiety). 

This was designed to measure the infants attachment - The researchers also assessed stranger anxiety (the infants response to an unfamiliar adult). 

Findings

Between 25 and 32 weeks old about 50% of the babies showed sign of seperation anxiety towards a particular adult, usually the childs mother (this is called specific attachment). The attachment tended to be with the adult that interacted with the child the most.

By the age of 40 weeks 80% of the babies had a specific attachment and almost 30% had multiple attachments. 

Procedure 

He randomly divided a clutch of geese eggs, half would hatch with their mother and half would hatch in an incubator with the first moving object for them to see being Lorenz.

Findings 

The incubator group followed Lorenz everywhere where as the controlled group followed the mother. When the two groups were mixed in a box and released, the incubator group went to Lorenz. This is called imprinting where the animal will establish a bond with the first moving thing they see. Lorenz established a critical period which was a few hours after hatching where if the duckling did not attach within the critical period, they would not attach at all. 

Sexual imprinting

Those geese that attached to Lorenz would in fact try to mate with humans in later life, this means that the species that the Geese attached to became the focus of thier sexual desires. 

The importance of contact and comfort.

Procedure 

Harlow tested the idea that a soft object serves some of the functions of a mother. In one experiment he reared 16 monkeys with two wire mothers. 

In one condition milk was dispensed by the plain wire mother whereas in the second condition milk was dispensed by the cloth covered mother. 

Findings

The baby monkeys cuddled the soft mother in preference to wire one and sort comfort when frightened from the cloth mother regardless of whether that mother produced milk or not. This showed that contact comfort was more important to the monkeys than food.

When they were adults those who had been deprived of a real mother, had severe consequences including: being more aggressive and less social, bred less and neglected their children, self harmed. 

Controlled observation designed to measure the security of an attachment a child displays towards their caregiver. 

This took place in a room with controlled conditions (lab experiment with a two way mirror). 

The behaviours used to measure the attachments include:

• Proximity seeking: An infant with a good attachment will stay fairly close to the caregiver.
• Exploration and secure base: Good attachment enables the child to feel confident to explore but will come back to the adult for comfort.
• Stranger anxiety: A good sign of attachment is anxiety shown when a stranger appears. 
• Separation anxiety: Another sign of a strong attachment is to protest when the caregiver leaves. 
• Response to reunion: A strong attachment would show the child being easily comforted by the caregiver. 

The procedure had 7 episodes 

1. The child and mother are brought into the room
2. A stranger comes in and tries to interact with the child
3. The caregiver leaves the child and the stranger together 
4. The stranger leaves and the caregiver returns
5. The caregiver leaves the child alone
6. The stranger returns 
7. The caregiver returns and is reunited with the child

Findings

3 different types of attachment

• Secure attachment: These children explore happily but regularly come back to the caregiver for a secure base. They show moderate stranger and separation anxiety and will accept comfort from the caregiver on return. (60-75%).
• Insecure avoidant: These children explore freely but do not seek a secure base. They show little reaction when the caregiver leaves and make no effort to comfort the caregiver when they come back. (20-25%)
• Insecure resistant: These children seek greater proximity so explore less. They show huge separation and stranger anxiety but refused to be comforted with their carer (3%). 

Procedure 

Rutter followed 165 orphans that were in the UK to test the effect of good care when you’ve been institutionalised in early life. They assessed the children at the age of 4,6,11 and 15 years old. 52 British children were used as the control group. 

Findings 

When they were first adopted half of the children seemed to have symptoms of mental retardation and the majority were severely malnourished. At age 11 they showed different rates of recovery. At age 16 they did not recover from the mental retardation. (Their IQs stayed the same). 

Those children who were adopted after 6 months showed disinhibited attachment - they would show signs of attention seeking. Those adopted before 6 months did not show this.