Attachments

Attachments

1. Care-giver and infant

   • Reciprocity
     • How two people interact
     • Still Face experiment - Dr Edward Tronick
     • 3 months is important for verbal and facial sign
   • Interactional synchrony
     • coordinating with each other - mother and infant reflect emotions and actions from eachother
     • Meltzoff and Moore-
       • Observed 2 week old babies
         • got adult to display one of 3 gestures
           • filmed by independant observer - association was found between infant and adult
   • Father
     • Grossman - longitudinal study suggests fathers play diff role
     • Tiffany field- filmed 4 months old babies - fathers CAN be more nurturing
   • Schaffer and Emerson
     • 60 babies - 31 male 29 female from glasgow working class families - home visits every month for first year and again in 18 months  - asked questions  -assessed stranger anxiety 
     • 25-32 weeks 50% showed separation anxiety - attachment was to most interative and sensitive not neccesarily the one spent most time with - by 40 weeks 80% had specific attachment -30% displayed multiple attachments
     • Stages
       • 1) Asocial stage
         • -recognising and forming bond with carers  - behaviour towards humans and objects are similar  - happier in presence of humans - resiprocity and interactional sychrony is important here 
         • 2) Indiscriminate attachment
           • - display more oberservable social behaviour  - preference to people rather than objects -indisciminate behaviour  -
           • 3) Specific attachment
             • -display stranger anxiety  - separation anxiety  -specific attachment with primary attachment figure who offers most interaction 
             • 4) Multiple attachments
               • -secondary attachments form  - 30% formed secondary attachments after 40 weeks 
       • Evaluation
         • 1) ignores individual differences 2)ignores other factors  3) single attachment must be formed before multiple  4) individualistic and collectivist cultures  5) development is inflexible  

2. Explanations for attachment

   • Learning Theory
     • Classical Conditioning
       • Learning by association
       • Unconditioned stimulus is food - response is pleasure, The mother is the conditioned stimulus
         • We become attached to the person who feeds us
     • Operant Conditioning
       • Learning by reinforcement
       • Two ways :
         • positive reinforcement : baby is reinforced with social suppressing behaviour
         • Negative reinforcement : pcg is reinforced as baby stops crying
     • Harlow's Rhesus Monkeys-
       • 16 baby monkeys with two wire models - one with cloth and food - one with just food- monkeys prefered confort from clothe regardless of which had food ---------------------------------------------------- in another 22 hours the monkey clung to cloth mothers and 2 hours with wire mother with just food 
       • Contradicts The learning theory
         • rehsus monkeys are simlar to humans 
   • Bowlby's Monotropic theory
     • Reductionist 
     • Attachment is an innate system which can be adapted---- the adaptive behavior contributes directly or indirectly to reproductive and survival success
     • Monotropy
       • Emphasis on a childs attachment to one care giver is greater and more important than any other attachments 
       • Law of continuity
         • The more constant and predictable a childs care the better quality attachment 
       • Law of accumulated separation
         • Effects of separation from primary care giver add up and the safest dose is zero 
     • Social releasers and critical period
       • Babies have innate cute behaviours
         • like smiling and cooying- these are social releasers that attract attention from adults  purpose is to activate the adult attachment system 
         • Baby and Mothers pocess innate predisposition to become attached and socail releasers trigger that response
       • Critical period is around 2 years
         • If an attachments isnt formed around this time the hild will find it difficult to form on later in life 
     • Internal Working model
       • helps predict and understand future relationships  affects childs later ability to be a parent , base parenting behavior on own experiences 
       • is a mental representation of the childs relationship with their primary care giver
       • Lorenz (birds)
         • support critical period and biological imprinting 
     • Harlow
       • Maternally deprived monkeys became dysfunctional , and just cloth monkeys did not develop normal social behaviour 

3. Strange situation

   • Mary Ainsworth
     • -Controlled observation designed to test attachment security  -Infants are assessed by their responses in an unfamilar room , left with a stanger and reunited with their care giver . 
     • Proximatey seeking, Exploration and secure base behaviour , stranger anxiety , separation anxiety and response to reunion
       • 1)child encouraged to explore  2) stranger enters tries to interact  3)caregiver leaves stranger and child together  4)care giver returns stranger leaves  5)caregiver leaves child  6) stranger returns  7)care giver reunites with child 
   • Type B secure attachment
     • Happy to explore but go back to caregiver  show moderate separation stress and stranger anxiety  require and accept confort from caregiver 
     • 60-75% of british toddlers
   • Type A Insecure avoidant
     • - happy to explore but do not seek promixatey of pcg  - little spearation anxiety  - show stranger anxiety  -do not require comfort at renunion stage 
     • 20-25% of british todders
   • Type C insecure resistant
     • -explore less -seek greater proximaty  - extreme separation and stranger anxiety  -resist to comfort when renunited with carer
     • 3% of todders
   • evaluation
     • - Good inter rater reliability because of agreeing observers , easy behaviour catagories , Bick looked at the rater reliability 94% agreement  - culture - Takakashi japanese children  -Main and Soloman found one more attachment  , disorganised attachment, so reductionist . - Deterministic 

4. Cultural variations

   • collectivists and Individualistic cultures
   • van Ijzendoorn
     • Meta analysis
       • 32 studies 8 diff countries , 15 from the USA ** Insecure resistant was least common  ** secure was most common  ** Sub culture has big impact variations were bigger 
       • Conclusion
         • secure attachments most common supporting Bowlbys idea of attachment at innate and universal  --- cultural practices have an influence on attachment types  -- subculture variations were 150% greater 

5. Maternal Deprivation

   • emotional and intellectual consquences of separation between a child and his mother / substitute . 
   • Bowlbys theory
     • Separation Vs Deprivation
       • separation is when the child is not in the presence of the primary care giver  -- only an issue when child is deprived  --extended separations can lead to deprivation which causes harm 
     • Critical period (30 months )
       • if a child is separated from morther without substitute deprived from emotional care for extended time during the critical period then there will be psychological damage. 
     • Development
       • Intellectual
         • Goldfarb
           • found children in institutions had lower IQ as opposed to those who were fostered 
       • Emotional
         • Affecitonless psychopath
           • Inability to feel guilt or strong emotion for others
         • Bowlby 44 thieves study
           • -- 44 teenage delinquents ( accused of stealing ) were interviewed for signs of affectionless psychopath  -- families were also interviewed to established prolonged separation from mothers  --- controll group 44 non criminal teens with emotional problems 
           • Results
             • --14/44 were affectionless pychopaths- 12 of them had experienced prolonged separation in first two years -- --17/44 had maternal separation --  ** controll group 2/44 had maternal separation - zerp were classified at afectionless psychopaths **
   • Institutionilisation
     • Romanian orphan studies ( Rutter )
       • --165 Romananian orphan, aged 4,6,11 and 15  --52 adopted bristish kids at the same time were the controll group 
       • Findings
         • mean IQ-adopted before age of 6 monthes was 102  86 btween 8 months and 2 years  77 if adopted after 2 years  those adopted after 6months old had disinhibited attachment 
         • Disinhibited attachment
           • equally affectionate to people who they know and dont know  an adaptation from living with multiple caregivers during sensitive period 
         • Mental retardation
           • damage to intellectual development as a result of institutionislation can be recovered is adopted by 6 month as they caught up woth controll group by age 4 

6. Influence of later life

   • Childhood
     • Rowan myron-wilson and Peter smith used a questionaire on 196 children to assess bullying .  secure were unlikely to be involved  avoidant were most likely to be victims and resistant were most like to be bullies 
   • Adults
     • Hazen and Shaver  ananlysed 620 replies to a love quiz in a newspaper ad  assessed most important relationship , number of partners and a statement that best described their feelings.  --------------------------------------------- 52% were secure - most liekly to have long lasting realtion ships , 25%avoidant felt jeaousy fear of intimacy and  and 19 % resistant 
   • Internal working model
     • Bailey
       • 99 mothers to their babies and their own mothers , using strange situation and and adult attachment interview . majority of women had the same attachment to their babies and mothers . 

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