DEVELOPMENTAL

DEVELOPMENTAL

1. Learning theory

   • Classical conditioning
     • Pavlov's Dogs 1927
     • Learning through association
   • Operant conditioning
     • Skinners Rats
     • Learning by consequence/reinforcement
   • (Behaviourist approach)
   • Evidence that humans do learn through association and reinforcement
   • Easy to test - therefore scientifically reliable
   • Largely based on animals - cannot generalise to humans therefore low external validity
   • Research conducted by Schaffer & Emerson (1964) suggests that babies attach to the person that gives them most attention not the main feeder which goes against the cupboard love theory - decreases the validity

2. EVOLUTIONARY

   • Bowlby's five key parts (1940s)
     • Adaptive and Innate
       • Attachments are an adaptive process which ensure that the infant survives. We are biologically programmed to form attachments from birth
     • Sensitive/Critical Period
       • Attachments must be formed within the first 6months - 3 years of an infants life (Sensitive period)
       • Critical period applies to animal
     • Monotropy (secure base)
       • Infants must have one secure parent/career to form an attachment with
     • Internal Working Model
       • A mental model that enables individuals to understand the world around them - forming attachments in early childhood creates the mental model which tells us a. how to react to people around us b. what to expect in all future relationships
     • Continuity Hypothesis
       • The view/theory that emotionally secure infants go on to emotionally secure and trusting adults - a good early experience should continue to be seen to good later experiences
     • John Bowlby (1907-1990) a British psychologist, studied at Cambridge went on to research maladapted and delinquent children which has helped to explain behaviour from deviance to poor adult relationships

3. the Strange Situation, Mary Ainsworth 1970

   • American psychologist who conducted a CONTROLLED observation in a lab with the aim of identifying different forms of attachment which existed between main caregiver and child
     • American toddlers aged 12-18 months and their mothers. Sample of approx. 100 middle class families. There were 8 'episodes' each lasting 3 minutes each. Interested in- separation anxiety, stranger anxiety, reaction when reunited with parent
       • 1. Mother and infant 2. Mother watches quietly 3. Stranger enters 4. Mother leaves 5. Mother returns, stranger leaves 6. Mother leaves infant 7. Stranger returns 8. Mother returns
         • Individual differences, experiment not relatable to families elsewhere
         • Main and Weston (1991) found that children behaved differently depending on which parent they were with. This reduced the quality of the findings as it actually shows the quality of the relationships and no the individual attachment type
         • Ethics - distress 20% of infants cried desperately
         • High construct validity - other studies have support the idea of the different attachment types
         • High predictive validity - correlations found between early attachment types and later adult relationships (Hazen&Shaver 1987)
         • Real world app (Cooper 2005) findings can be used as intervention strategy to decrease levels of disorganised attachment in the real world
         • TYPE A- Insecure Aviodant
           • 22%
             • Largely ignored the mother when she left and returned. Treated the stranger in a similar way. Avoiding mum upon return
         • TYPEB- Secure
           • 66%
             • Used their mother as a safe base to explore the playroom
         • TYPEC- Insecure Resistant
           • 12%
             • Upset when the mother left, but did not settle down when she came back. Alternated between being angry and clingy. Very worried about the stranger.

4. Cultural variations in attachment

   • van IJzendoorn and Kroonenberg 1988
     • Carried out a meta analysis of 32 studies, used a total of 2000 babies
       • Wanted to see if there was inter-cultural differences (between cultures) or intra-cultural differences (within cultures) using TSS
         • 8 different nations - UK, USA, Germany, Japan, China, Israel, Netherlands, Sweden
   • Grossmann and Grossmann (1991) high proportion of TYPEA in Germany as in their culture they think its important for a child to be dependant from a young age
   • Takahashi (1990) Replication of TSS in Japan 90% of infants had to be withdrawn 32% of infants TYPEC, there were no TYPEA. The infants found it really stressful as in their culture they are rarely separated from their mothers
   • Identifies universal characteristics in attachment
   • The quality of research used in a meta-analysis is questionable
   • Supports the theory that secure attachments are best for healthy social and emotional development
   • Some studies only used a few infants making results difficult to generalize

5. Disruption of attachment

   • Short- term seperation
     • Robertson and Robertson
     • Protest Despair Deattachment
     • John
     • Lucy
     • Kate

6. Privation

   • Genie
   • Failure to form any form of attachment

7. Institutional care

   • Hodges and Tizard conducted a longitudinal study in 1984/1989 into the effects of institutional care on attachment

8. Day care

   • Effects
     • Agression
       • EPPE Study (1991) UK
       • NICHD Study (1991) USA
     • Peer relations
       • Andersson (1989, 1992

9. Attachment is a deep and enduring emotional bond that connects one person to another across time and space

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