Attachment

Attachment

1. Emotional bond between two people, enduring over time

2. Learning theory

   • Classical conditioning
     • New response is learned when a neutral stimulus is associated with an unconditioned stimulus
     • After learning, neutral stimulus becomes conditioned stimulus producing a conditioned response
     • Pavlov
       • Noticed dogs salivated when seeing food
       • Associated a bell with food, so bell caused dogs to salivate
   • Behaviour is learnt
   • Operant
     • Behaviour learnt through trial and error and in response to consequences
     • Reinforcement
       • + adding something plesant
       • - taking away something unplesant
     • Dollard and Miller 1950
       • When an infant is hungry = uncomfortable, when they are fed = reduces displeasure
         • Food is primary reinforcer
         • Person reducing displeasure = secondary reinforcer
       • Attachment occurs as infant seeks person supplying reinforcement
   • Support
     • Explains how we learn behaviour
       • Little Albert 1920
     • Reinforcement and punishment applies in real life
   • Limitations
     • Harlow
       • Rhesus monkeys given 2 mothers, one wire who fed food, the other wrapped in soft cloth with no food
       • Monkeys showed attachment to cloth mother and seeked proximity to it
       • Showing food is not primary reinforcer
     • Schaffer and Emerson 1964
       • 60 babies from Glasgow
       • Found infants most attached to person who was most responsive to them - not feeder
       • Shows food is not primary reinforcer

3. Bowlby's theory

   • Infant becomes attached to person providing them with basic needs to survive
   • Features
     • Attachment develops during sensitive period
       • After this it becomes difficult to form attachments
     • Infants have innate drive to attach and have social releasers to elicit caregiving
     • Infants have primary attachment (monotropy) and secondary attachments (hierarchy)
     • Early attachment creates expectations about later relationships - internal working model
     • Continuity - securely attached infants go on to be securely attached
     • Infant uses mother as secure base
   • Support
     • Lorenz
       • Infant geese imprinted on Lorenz as he was the first thing they saw and he kept them alive
     • Cultural studies suggest attachment must be innate
     • Schaffer and Emerson's study found infants had one primary attachment and secondary attachments
     • Sroufe
       • Found continuity between early attachment and later emotional/social behaviour
     • Carlson
       • Found insensitive caregiving led to disorganised attachments
   • Limitations
     • Rutter
       • Several primary attachments may be desirable for healthy emotional development
     • Kagan
       • Suggested attachment is explained in innate temperamental types
       • Infants with an easy temperament = more likely to become securely attached
       • Those with a difficult temperament = more likely to become insecurely attached
       • Supported by belsky and rovine

4. Types of Attachment

   • Ainsworth 1978
     • Strange situation
       • Infant and parent in a 'strange' environment with a stranger
       • 106 middle class infants
       • Infants behaviour observed as mother leaves and returns and when a stranger is present
       • Measures attachment in terms on stranger anxiety and separation anxiety
     • R: 66% displayed secure attachments
       • Willing to explore with mother as secure base
       • High stranger anxiety
       • Easily comforted by mother
     • R: 22% were insecure avoidant
       • Willing to explore without caregiver
       • Low stranger anxiety
       • Did not seek proximity on return
       • Parent's absence unnoticed
     • R: 12% were insecure resistant
       • Unwilling to explore
       • High stranger anxiety
       • Distressed on mother's absence
       • Seeks and rejects caregiver on return
   • Support
     • Ainsworth 1967
       • Observation of 26 infants in Uganda
       • Mothers who were more sensitive to infants' needs had more securely attached infants
       • Bowlby's theory
     • Main and Soloman
       • Analysed tapes of children in strange situation
       • Found disorganised attachment
         • Lack of consistency in behaviour
     • Disinhibited attachment results from privation
       • Infants try to form attachments to anyone, but they are superficial
   • Limitations
     • Validity
       • Strange situation measures the way two people interact, not personality quality of individual
     • Hazan and Shaver
       • Found that people who were securely attached in early life, were more likely to form enduring relationships later on
     • Strange situation has ethical concerns
       • Situation may have caused infants to behave differently

5. Cultural Variations

   • Culture
     • Rules, customs, morals and ways of interacting that bind members of society together
   • Similarities
     • Ainsworth 1967 Uganda
       • Infants used mother as secure base
       • Securely attached infants had more sensitive mothers
     • Tronick 1992 Zaire
       • Lived in extended family groups, infants slept with mother but breastfed and cared for by other women
       • 6 months - infants showed one primary attachment to mother
     • Fox 1977 Israeli
       • Infants cared for in communal children homes by nurses
       • Infants showed greater attachment to mother despite spending more time with nurses
       • Mothers' showed greater sensitivity
     • Van and Kroonenberg
       • Meta analysis of 32 studies on variations
       • Variations within cultures 1.5 times greater than between cultures
       • C: Cultural practices have little influence on attachment behaviour
   • Differences
     • Grossman and Grossman 1991 Germany
       • Found larger proportion of infants classified as insecurely attached than US
     • Takahashi 1990 Japan
       • Infants showed higher rates of insecure resistant than other cultures
       • No evidence of insecure avoidant
       • Infants rarely separated from mother
   • Evaluation
     • Rothbaum Culture bias
       • Attachment theory has strong western bias with individualist ideas
     • Posada and Jacobs
       • Evidence to support universality of core attachment concepts
     • Cross cultural similarities can be explained by share of mass media than innate processes
     • Cross cultural research used techniques developed in one culture and used to study another culture
     • Validity - within cultural groups many different childrearng practices are used not just one

6. Disruption of Attachment

   • Robertson and Robertson 1963-73
     • Filmed 6 children during periods of brief separation from primary attachment
     • Laura in hospital, John in nursery, Jane, Lucy, Thomas and Kate looked after in Robinsons' home
       • Laura and John showed depression and became withdrawn
         • John couldn't compete for attention and attached to a teddy
       • Other children coped well as received high level of emotional care
     • Case studies can lack generalisability
   • Evaluation
     • Skeels and Dye
       • Group of institutionalised children with low IQs improved after being in a home for mentally ill adults
         • Adults gave emotional care
     • Skeels and Dye
       • One group of infants in care transferred to home for mentally ill adults
       • Control group remained in orphanage
       • After 1.5 years, IQs of control group had fallen and IQs of other group rose by 28 points
     • Bohman and Sigvardsson
       • 600 adopted children in Sweden
       • Age 11, 26% classified as problem children
         • 10 years on, after being adopted they were normal in terms of social and emotional development
     • Bifulco
       • 249 women who lost mothers through separation/death before age 17
       • Group twice as likely to suffer from depression/anxiety as adults
       • C: Early disruptions in attachment make an individual more psychologically vulnerable
     • Bowlby
       • Children in institutional care at young age
       • Some were well adjusted later on, some were maladjusted
       • Those who coped better more likely to be securely attached
       • Attachment and disruption are linked

7. Privation

   • Failing to form an attachment with a caregiver
   • Hodges and Tizard 1989
     • Group of 65 children in institutional care from less than 4 months old
     • Age 16 - children who were adopted closely attached to families
       • Untrue for children returning to original families
     • Both groups had problems with peers and sought more attention from adults
   • Rutter
     • 100 Romanian orphans adopted by UK families
     • Children adopted before 6 months showed normal emotional development
     • Those adopted after 6 months showed disinhibited attachments and problems with peers
   • Attachment disorder caused by experience of sever neglect/frequent change of caregivers in early life
   • Evaluation
     • Quinton
       • R: Ex-institutional women had difficulties as parents
         • Creating a cycle of privation
       • Rated as lacking warmth in interaction with children
     • Some romanian orphans did recover
       • Some did not - due to other factors such as late adoption, hardship in institutions etc
     • Hodges and tizard study - effects may be due to rejection and they could have recovered long term