Attachments

Attachments

1. Lorenz

   • Duck Experiment
     • 2 groups of goslings
       • Hatched with Lorenz
         • When put back in the wild, they continued to follow Lorenz rather than the mother
           • No recognition of natural mother
       • Hatched with mother
         • Followed mother around
   • Imprinting
     • Any type of learning that occurs in a stage of life or at a particular age
     • In goslings= 12-17 hours
     • Aid of Survival
     • Process similar to attachment which binds animal to a caregiver in a special relationship
     • Imprinting has an effect on later mate preferences
     • Critical Period
       • The short time after you are born when you can imprint
   • Guiton 1996
     • Leghorn chicks attached to yellow rubber gloves proving they imprint to any moving object
       • Found male chicks tried to mate with the gloves
     • Found imprinting can be reversible/change

2. Harlow

   • Monkey Experiment
     • Used Wire Monkeys
     • Wire Mother with food
       • Less than an hour a day
     • Wire Mother with cloth
       • 18 hours a day with this monkey
     • Showed love, compassion and warmth was more important than food
     • The monkey with no mother was socially abnormal and cried/shook a lot
     • When the monkey was scared, it went to the cloth mother not the wire mother with food
   • Validity of the Experiment
     • Might not get the same results on humans
     • Population/ Ecological Validity
     • Monkeys may have preferred the head of the cloth mother rather than the material but we have no way of knowing

3. Stages of Attachment

   • 1) Indiscriminate
     • Birth to 2 months
       • Produce similar responses to all objects
       • Towards end of period, infants show greater preference to social stimuli
     • Reciprocity + Interactional Synchrony
   • 2) Beginning of Attachment
     • Around 4 months
       • Prefer human company to objects
       • Can distinguish between familiar and unfamiliar people
         • Still relatively easily comforted by anyone
         • No stranger anxiety
   • 3) Discriminate
     • 7 months
       • Have formed one primary caregiver
         • Show separation anxiety
         • Show joy at reunion with caregiver
   • 4) Multiple Attachments
     • End of year 1
       • Infants begin to form a wider circle of multiple attachments

4. Bowlby

   • Evolutionary Theory
     • Attachment is crucial for survival
       • Without, infant will die
       • Survival of the Fittest- best characteristics have survived and been passed on
     • Behavioural system that has evolved as it aids survival and more importantly reproduction
       • Lots of different genes contribute to this behaviour
         • All psychological and biological characteristics selected for
     • Born with innate tendency to form attachments
       • Reciprocal so adults are innately programmed to form attachment with infant
         • Similar to imprinting- mother forms image of infant and looks after it
       • Social Releasers
         • Any behaviour that encourages/elicits a caregiver response from another person
     • Attachment is an adaptive behaviour
   • 1969
   • Monotropy and Heirarchy
     • One Main Attachment
       • Bias towards one person= monotropy
       • Person who shows most sensitivity towards infant
         • Primary Caregiver
     • Can have other attachments
   • Internal Working Model
     • Cluster of concepts about emotional relationships
     • Uses experiences to develop a model of what relationships are like
   • Secure Base
     • Children know there is someone there and are happy to explore
   • Continuity Hypothesis
     • Relationship experiences follow you through life
     • Explains how early patterns of attachment are related to later child characteristics
       • There is a link between early attachment and later emotional behaviour
         • Securely attached in infancy= socially and emotionally competent in adulthood
     • Types of Children
       • Secure
       • Avoidant
       • Ambivalent