Attachments

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What is attachment?
It is an emotional bond between two people. It's a two way process that endures over time. It leads to certain behaviours such as clinging and proximity seeking and serves the function of protecting an infant.
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What is the learning theory of attachment?
The learning theory suggests that behaviour is learned rather than inborn. When children are born they are like blank states and everything they become can be explained in terms of the experiences they have.
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What is classical conditioning?
Classical conditioning involves learning through association (Pavlov's dogs). Food naturally produces a sense of pleasure. The person who feeds the infant becomes associated with food.
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What is operant conditioning?
Learning attachments is through rewards. Each time you do something and it results in a pleasant consequence the behaviour is stamped or reinforced. Food becomes a primary reinforcer and the person who gives food is associated with pleasure.
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What are the strengths of the learning theory?
It can provide an adequate explanation of how attachments form, do learn through association and reinforcement.
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What are the weaknesses of the learning theory?
Role of food in attachment - people do not think it plays a key role in the forming of a close relationship, Harlow's monkeys
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What did Harlow do?
Harlow took some monkeys and placed them into a cage with a wire mother and a cloth mother. The wire mother dispensed food whilst the cloth mother did not.
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What did Harlow find?
He found that the monkeys attached to the cloth mother and only came away from her when to get food from the wire mother. This meant that attachments are formed through security and comfort rather than food.
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What did Schaffer and Emerson do?
Observed 60 babies from mainly working class homes in Glasgow
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What did they find?
They found that in fact infants were not most attached to the person who fed them. They were most attached to the person who was most responsive and who interacted with them the most.
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What did Bowlby say about attachment?
Children have an innate drive to become attached to a caregiver because attachment has long term benefits similar to the benefits of imprinting. Attachments are made for survival
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What is a sensitive period?
Since attachment is innate there is likely to be a limited window for its development. Bowlby suggested that the second quarter of the first year is when infants are most sensitive to the development of attachments.
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Is caregiving also adaptive?
Bowlby suggested that it is not just attachments that are adaptive. Social receptors are things which elicit caregiving. E.G. smiling and crying.
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What is monotropy?
Monotropy is the belief that infants form one attachment or a heirarchy of attachment and have only one special attachment normally to the primary caregiver. The person who is most responsive to their needs is this primary caregiver
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What is the importance of this heirarchy?
Secondary attachment figures are also important in emotional development and they act as a kind of safety net and contribute to social development
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What is the internal working model?
The internal working model is the expectations created by one relationship of what all relationships will be like. Gradually the infant created a model about emotional relationships. What to expect from other relationships
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What are the strengths of the learning theory? - Sensitive period
Research on what happens if you do not form attachments backs up the idea that there is indeed a sensitive period
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What are the strengths of the learning theory? - Monotropy and heirarchy?
Schaffer and Emerson's study showed that although the infants formed multiple attachments although they had one special attachment.
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What are the strengths of the learning theory? - Caregiver sensitivity?
Schaffer and Emerson observed that strongly attached infants had mothers who responded the best to their needs. Infants they thought were weakly attached had mothers who were slower to their needs.
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What are the strengths of the learning theory? - Continuity hypothesis?
The Minnesota longitudinal study followed participants from infantancy to adolescense and found continuity between early attachment and later emotional/social behaviour
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Weaknesses of Bowlby's theory? - Multiple attachments?
Many psychologists hold the view that all attachments are of equal importance to the infant (Rutter et al)
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Weaknesses of the Bowlby theory? - Alternative explanations?
Tempermeant hypothesis (Kagan) means certain tempermental characteristics of the infant shape a mother's responsiveness. Belsky and Rovine found a link between certain psychological behaviours and later attachment types
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What did Ainsworth find in infants in Uganda?
Conducted a two year naturalistic observation of mother-infant interaction. She observed that some participants were responsive to their infants and these mothers had securely attached infants.
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What did Ainsworth find in the Baltimore study?
She observed infants and parents in an urban setting. The attachment relationship was assessed using the strange situation. Found that the mothers who had behaved more sensitively towards infants had securely attached infants.
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What did Ainsworth do in the strange situation?
Ainsworth took infants and their mothers and placed them within a room. A stranger entered the room and interacted with the child, then the mother left the room and the stranger comforts the baby, the baby is left alone and then mother returns
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What did she find?
She found that there were three types of attachment; secure, insecure avoidant and insecure resistant
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What are the characteristics of secure attachment?
They are very willing to explore although their stranger anxiety is incredibly high. Some of the infants were easy to soothe when the mother returned and they were enthusaistic with their caregivers (60%)
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What are the characteristics of insecure avoidiant attachment?
They are willing to explore but their stranger anxiety is low and the seperation anxiety is indifferent. Behaviour at the reunion with caregiver they avoid contact (22%)
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What are the characteristics of insecure resistance attachments?
Their willingness to explore was low but their stranger anxiety was high. They were highly distressed at the separation but in the reunion they seek and reject attachment (12%)
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What did Main and Solomon add to the types of Attachment?
They entered another attachment type called insecure disorganised. This is characterised by a lack of consistent patterns in their social behaviour
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What are the effects of attachment types?
Hazan and Shazer conducted a Love Quiz and found that the patterns of later romantic behaviour were associated with early attachment types.
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What factors effect attachment type?
Ainsworth developed the Maternal Sensivity Scale to rate mothers behaviour such as sensitivity to infants signals, mothers of secure attached infants more sensitive to the needs and were more co-opeartive.
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What have studies shown about maternal reflective functioning?
Some studies have found rather low correlations between measures of maternal sensitivity and the strength of attachment. They suggest that maternal reflective thinking rather than sensitivity may be the central mechanism to attachment type.
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What did Tronick et al find?
Studied an Efe tribe from Zaire who live in extended families groups. Infants breastfed by different women yet still had secure attachment to their mothers.
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What did Grossman and Grossman find?
Found that German children tended to be classified as insecurely rather than securely. This could be due to the parenting differences within the different cultures.
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What did Takhashi find?
Found that Japanese infants had a higher rate of insecure resistant as the Japanese children were clearly distressed at being left alone.
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What did Van Izendoorn and Kroonenberg find?
Conducted a meta analysis and found that the differences between cultures were small. Secure attachment was the most common classificiation in every country except Israel and Japan.
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What did Rothbaum et al suggest about culture bias?
Said that attachment theory and research is bias because it is so rooted in American culture. Looked at the differences between aspects of attachment in Japan and the USA.
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What is the difference between USA and Japan on sensitivity hypothesis - Rothbaum?
Bowlby promoted the idea that attachment was based on mothers sensitivity. He argues that this reflects ideas of autonomy whereas in Japan they promote dependence rather than independence.
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Whats the difference between USA and Japan on continuity hypothesis?
USA proposes that infants who are securely attached go on to develop social and emotional competence is defined by individualism whilst in Japan focused more on group dependece than individualism
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What are the effects of physical seperation of attachment?
Spitz and Wolf observed that 100 normal children who were placed in an institution became severely depressed within a few months. Skeels and Dye found that similar children scored poorly on intelligence tests.
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What did the Robertson's when looking at James?
James was a boy who was separated from his mum for a period of 9 days as she was in hospital. Watched as he went from a happy child to to a child who was so distressed he would reject his mother when she returned.He became attached to a teddy bear
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What is the PDD model?
Panic - Distress - Detachment ( the three steps a child goes through)
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What did Skeels and Dye find about physical versus emotional disruption?
They found that children who had IQ deficits who had also been placed into adult retardation homes IQ had increased.
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What does research suggest about emotional disruption?
Research suggests that disruption of attachment can have negative effects but these can be avoided or reversed with alternative emotional care is provided.
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Who was Genie?
Genie's father locked her in a room and she failed to form any attachments. She also could not speak or walk. She never recovered socially. The age at which she was found may have affected her ability to form attachments.
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Who are the Czech twins?
The Czech twins had been locked in a room by their stepmother and were found at the age of 7. They could not talk and were cared for by two sisters. At the age of 20 they were able to form attachments. They were discovered at a young enough age
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What is the evaluation of these case studies?
We do not know if Genie was retarded from birth or if she formed an attachment with her mother. The Czech twins would have been able to form an attachment to each other.
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What did Hodges and Tizard do on institutional care?
Followed a group of 65 children from early life to adolescence. An early study of the children found that 70% were described as not able to care about anyone. The restored children were less likely to have formed attachments with mother, adopted did.
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What were the Romanian orphans?
Rutter et al found that Romanain orphans adopted after six months showed disinhibited attachments and had problems with peers whilst adopted before six months showed normal emotional development.
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Other cards in this set

Card 2

Front

What is the learning theory of attachment?

Back

The learning theory suggests that behaviour is learned rather than inborn. When children are born they are like blank states and everything they become can be explained in terms of the experiences they have.

Card 3

Front

What is classical conditioning?

Back

Preview of the front of card 3

Card 4

Front

What is operant conditioning?

Back

Preview of the front of card 4

Card 5

Front

What are the strengths of the learning theory?

Back

Preview of the front of card 5
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