Types of Attachment

Types of Attachment

1. A02

   • The Maternal Sensitivity Scale is a socially sensitive issue because it suggests how it is the mother's fault if their baby fails at life when they're older due to their attachment from when they were younger.
   • There have been recent studies which confirm this link. Cantero and Cerezo (2001) observed 112 spanish mothers interacting with their babies aged from 5 to 15 months. They found that type B attachment was associated with high levels of maternal sensitivity, type A was associated with controlling or rejecting parenting, whilst type C was associated more with a lack of responsiveness to the babies needs. This study can suggest that the strange situation and Ainsworth's other work have a high reliability and construct validity due to using interrater reliability.
     • Research by Main and Weston (1981) can suggest that the strange situation is actually measuring the quality of the relationship rather than the attachment with that person.
   • Ainsworth et al (1978) found almost perfect agreement when rating exploratory behaviour, they found 0.94 agreement between raters (1.00 would have been perfect)
   • The intention of the strange situation is to cause mild distress. Ainsworth et al (1978) claimed that the situation as a whole was intended not to be any more disturbing than ordinary life experiences. However in episode 6 20% of the infants reportedly cried desperately
   • A number of longitudinal studies have demonstrated a link between early attachment experience and later social functioning. Priorand Glaser (2006) provide a summery of how secure attachment is associated with positive outcomes. Avoidant attachment is related to later agressiveness. Resistant attachment associated with greter anxiety. Disorganised attachment is linked to hostile and aggressive behaviour
   • Hazen and Shaver (1987) found that there were characteristic patterns of later romntic behaviour associated with each early attachment type.
     • Although this supports Bowlby's theory we cannot be sure that early attachment experiences caused later attachment types.
   • Rothbaun et al (2007) inverstigated attachments in the USA and Japan. The problem with this cross-cultural study is the use the rsults can be put to. The fact that most western psychologists have argued that 'secure' attachment is 'best' has led them to judge Japanese society as somehow lacking in respect to parenting. This is socially unacceptable. To take a western technique or standard and impose it on another culture is called Imposed Etic

2. A01

   • Mary Ainsworth conducted The Strange Situation experiment to find out what are the types of attachment and how they come about. Ainsworth conducted a content analysis of the observations and proposed that there were 3 basic groups ofbehaviours that indicated 3 types of attachment.
   • Main and Solomon (1986) proposed that there should be a fourth type (type D) attachment pattern called Disorganised attachment. These infants are not consistent in their behaviours and thus cannot be neatly placed into any of the excisting categories. Van Ijzendoorn et al (1999) conducted a meta-analysis suggested that with the inclusion of this fourth type of attachment the percentages of children displaying these patterns of attachmentare: B -> 62% A ->15% C -> 8% D -> 15%
   • Ainsworth thought that the primary care giver and how sensitive she is towards the baby in it's first 3 months. Ainsworth therefore developed the Maternal Sensitivity Scale to measure parental behaviour on 4 dimensions: Sensitivity (to infants signals) --> Insensitivity ; Acceptance --> Rejection ; Co-operation --> Interference ; Accessibility --> Ignoring
     • Using these measures Ainsworth found that mothers of securely attached infants were more sensitive, accepting, co-operative and acessible. Mothers of avoident infants were more rejecting and ignoring. Mother's of resisting infants were ignoring and interfering. Mothers of both types of insecure infants were more insensitive to their child's needs, being unresponsive to their crying and less affectionate.

Bilder und Dateien der Mindmap