GoConqr has a new look! Let us know what you think.

Sign up free

Flashcards

Attachment

sophie cons Psychology A level English 30 cards

describe the procedure of Harlow's study of animal attachment

Cards in this deck (30)

  1. 1Define RECIPROCITYRefers to the process in which a behaviour is matched during an interaction.
  2. 2Give an example of a reciprocal interactiona mother-infant interaction because both mother and infant respond to each other's signals and each obtain a response from the other.
  3. 3Define INTERACTIONAL SYNCHRONYMother and Infant reflect both the actions and emotions of the other, and do this in a co-ordinated (synchronised) way.
  4. 4Names of the psychologists who conducted the first systematic study of Interaction SynchronyMeltzoff and Moore (1977)
  5. 5describe the study that Meltzoff and Moore carried out- an adult displayed one of three facial expressions or one of three distinctive gestures.
    - the child's response was filmed and analysed by independent observers.
    - an association was found between the expression or gesture the adult had displayed and the action of the babies.
  6. 6describe what Schaffer and Emerson foundthey found that the majority of babies firstly became attached to their mother (within 7 months)
    - and then within a few weeks or months they form secondary attachments to other close family members, inc. the father
  7. 7what type of study did Grossman (2002) carry outa longitudinal study
  8. 8describe what Grossman (2002) was studying- he conducted a longitudinal study to look at the relationship between parents behaviour and children's attachments into their teens
  9. 9describe what Grossman (2002) found with his study-he saw a relationship between the quality of infant-mother attachment and the quality of the child's attachment in their teens
    - he also saw a relationship between the quality of infant-father playtime and the quality of the child's adolescent attachments
  10. 10what can we 'take' from Grossman's findingshis results suggest that fathers have a different role in attachment- one that is more to do with play and stimulation, and less to do with nurturing.
  11. 11describe Field's study into- Field (1978) filmed 4 month old babies in face to face interaction with primary caregiver mothers, secondary caregiver fathers and primary caregiver fathers
  12. 12describe what Field found in her study- she found that primary caregiver fathers, like mothers, spent more time smiling, imitating and holding infants than the secondary caregiver fathers
    - this behaviour seems to be important in building an attachment with the infant, so it seems that fathers can be the more nurturing parent
    - showing that the key to infant attachment is the level of responsiveness, not the gender of the parent.
  13. 13describe why it's hard to exactly know what is happening when observing infants- because we are merely studying hand movements or changes of expression, it is extremely difficult to be certain what is taking place from the infants perspective
    - e.g. is the infants imitation of the adults signal conscious and deliberate
    - this means we cannot be certain that behaviours seen in mother-infant interactions have a special meaning.
  14. 14describe one reason why infant research has good validity- because infant interactions are often carried out with both mother and infant being filmed, often from different angles, which ensures that very fine details of behaviour can be recorded and later analysed.
    - the infant does not realise or care they are being filmed so their behaviour does not change (which is often a problem with observational research)
  15. 15what is an issue with reciprocity and synchrony studiesthey simply describe the behaviours that are occurring at the same time, but this doesn't help us understand the purpose of these interactions (e.g. how it helps develop attachment)
  16. 16describe the problem with their being various different studies into the fathers role in the infants life- there is very inconsistent findings about fathers role in infant attachment.
    - this is mainly because different researchers are interested in different research questions e.g. some psychologists are interested in understanding the role fathers have as secondary attachment figures, whereas others are more concerned about the father as a primary attachment figure. (the former have tended to see fathered behaving differently from mothers and having a distinct role, the latter have tended to find that fathers can take on a 'maternal' role.)
    - this is a problem because psychologists can often not answer a simple question e.g. what is the role of the father?
  17. 17describe how Grossman's study of fathers is contradicted by other studies- Grossman found that fathers, as secondary attachment figures, had an important role in the child's development.
    - however, other studies (MacCallum and Golombok 2004) have found that children growing up in single or same-sex parent families do not develop any different from those in a two- parent heterosexual family.
    - this would seem to suggest that the father's role as a secondary attachment figure is not important.
  18. 18why do fathers generally become secondary attachment figures, rather than primary attachment figures?- could be due to traditional gender roles, as mothers are typically seen as more nurturing figures.
    - OR... could be due to female hormones (e.g. oestrogen) that create higher levels of nurturing and therefore women are biologically pre-disposed to be the primary attachment figure.
  19. 19describe how mother-infant research can appear as socially- sensitive research- because it suggests children may be disadvantaged in particular child- rearing practices. in particular, mothers who return to work soon after the child's birth restrict the opportunities for achieving interactional synchrony (which Isabella showed to be important in development of infant-caregiver attachment)
    - this suggests that mothers should not return to work so soon and has socially sensitive implications.
  20. 20describe the method of Schaffer and Emerson's study of attachment- the study involved 60 babies (31 male, 29 females) Who were all from Glasgow, skilled working- class families.
    - T
  21. 21describe the procedure Lorenz's study of animal attachmentLorenz research into imprinting/ sexual imprinting:
    - he set up a classic experiment in which he divided a cloth of goose eggs.
    - Half the eggs were hatch with the mother goose in their natural environment
    - the other half were hatched in an incubator where the first moving object they saw was Lorenz.
  22. 22Describe lorenz's findings in his study of animal attachment- the incubator (experimental) group followed lorenz everywhere, whereas the natural environment (control) group followed the mother.
    - this phenomenon is called imprinting; whereby bird species that are mobile from birth (like geese and ducks) attach to and follow the first moving object they see
  23. 23describe what a 'critical period' isthis is the time in which imprinting needs to take place, if it is going to take place at all. If imprinting does not occur in this time Lorenz found that chicks did not attach themselves to a mother figure at all.
  24. 24describe Lorenz's study to research sexual imprintingLorenz described a peacock that had been reared into a reptile house of a zoo where the first moving object it saw was giant tortoises. As an adult the peacock would only direct courtship behaviour towards giant tortoises, so lorenz concluded that he had undergone sexual imprinting
  25. 25evaluate Lorenz's study of animal attachment- Generalisability to humans: Lorenz studied imprinting in birds, but some of his findings have influenced our understanding of human development. But generalising findings on birds with humans is not appropriate because mammalian attachment system is quite different to that of birds, so this would be anthropomorphic bias.
    - Some of Lorenz's observations have been questioned: Lorenz concluded that imprinting had a permanent effect on mating behaviour but Guiton (1966) found that as chickens imprinted on yellow washing up gloves, they would try to mate with them as adults (as lorenz predicted) but they eventually learned to prefer mating with other chickens- which suggest the impact of imprinting Is not as permanant as Lorenz believed.
  26. 26describe the procedure of Harlow's study of animal attachmentHarlow worked with rhesus monkeys.
    - He reared 16 monkeys with two wire model 'mothers.'
    - in one condition milk was dispensed by the plain wire mother, whereas in the second condition the milk was dispensed by the cloth- covered mother.    describe the procedure of Harlow's study of animal attachment
  27. 27describe Harlow's findings within his study of animal attachment- it was found that the monkeys showed preference towards the cloth-covered monkey and sought comfort from it when frightened, regardless of which dispensed milk.
    - this showed that 'contact comfort' was more important to the monkeys than food when it came to attachment behaviour.
  28. 28describe what Harlow found about the maternally deprived monkeys, once they were adultsHarlow and colleagues followed the monkeys who were deprived of a 'real' mother into adulthood to see if early maternal deprivation had a permanent effect.
    - they found that this had severe consequences on their social behaviour; they were more aggressive, less sociable and less skilled at mating than other monkeys.
    - also, as the monkeys became mothers to their own young, some neglected their young and others attacked, and in the worst case killing their own children.
  29. 29evaluate Harlow's study of animal attachment- Theoretical value: Harlow's findings have had prolonged effect on psychologists understanding of mother-infant attachment, mainly the fact that Harlow showed that attachment does not develop had a result of being fed by the mother figure, but as a result of contact comfort.
    - Ethical issues: Harlow faced severe criticism for the ethics of his research. The species are considered similar enough to humans to generalise the findings, suggesting their suffering was human-like. Harlow was well aware of the suffering he caused- referring to the wire mothers as 'iron maidens' after a medieval torture device. Although, the counter-argument to this is that Harlow's research has benefited pyschologists understanding of mother-infant understanding massively.
  30. 30—

Information

Description
A level Psychology Flashcards on Attachment, created by sophie cons on 05/09/2017.
Created by
sophie cons
Views
1
Rating

Feedback

What is it about?

What do you think of the new look?

How do you like it?