Attachment

Attachment

1. Animal Studies

   • Lorenz - divided a greylag goose egg clutch in half at random, half hatched with him and half hatched with their mother
     • concluded that: imprinting is...
       • fast
       • innate
       • has a critical period
         • a critical period is a time in which bonding forms best, and after the critical period passes, certain animals may fail to imprint and never will
     • imprinting: when an animal develops an extremely close bond with the first animal it meets
   • Harlow: Rhesus monkeys, study between a wire mother which provided food and a cloth mother which provided comfort
     • conclusions...
       • that 'contact comfort' is more important than food for attachment
       • the monkeys were socially maladjusted and made poor parents

2. Explanations

   • Learning theory
     • based off the Behaviourist approach
     • Classical conditioning
       • learning through association
   • Bowlby's Monotropic Theory

3. Maternal Deprivation

4. Influence of Early Attachment

5. Types of attachment

   • Mary Ainsworth's Strange Situation Procedure
     • aimed to classify children with 3 types of attachment
     • Mother and baby (12-18 months old) engaged in 8 episodes, each lasting around 3 minutes
       • episodes:
         • 1: mother and baby play
           • 2: mother sits and baby plays
             • 3: stranger enters the room and talks to the mother
               • 4: mother leaves, baby plays, stranger offers comfort if needed
                 • 5: mother comes back and offers comfort, stranger leaves
                   • 6: mother leaves, baby is alone
                     • 7: stranger enters and offers comfort
                       • 8: mother comes back and offers comfort
     • behaviours used to judge attachment:
       • seeking proximity to caregiver
       • willingness of infant to explore and return to caregiver
       • stranger anxiety
       • separation anxiety
       • response to reunion with caregiver
     • Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonberg
       • type B was the most common type in all cultures, but the answers vary in different cultures
       • type C was the least common
       • bigger differences found within cultures than across cultures
       • Child rearing variations:
         • Germany - independence orientated - higher levels of type A children
         • Japan and Israel - interdependence orientated - higher levels of type C
   • Type A
     • Insecure avoidant
       • baby does not seek proximity or show secure base behaviour, little or no anxieties, no reaction upon reunion
     • 12%
   • Type B
     • Secure attachment
       • the baby is happy to explore but frequently returns to caregiver, moderate anxieties and accepts comfort upon reunion
     • 66%
   • Type C
     • Insecure resistant
       • seeks more proximity with caregiver, high levels of anxieties yet resist comfort upon reunion
     • 22%