Psychology: Attachment

Psychology: Attachment

1. Influence of Early Attachment

   • Hazan and Shaver Love Quiz
     • 620 responses: 415 from women, 205 from men.
     • Found that attachment styles matched those in infancy with secure being the most common.
   • Internal Working Model
   • Evaluation
     • Overly Determinist
     • Correlational Research
     • Low Correlations

2. Effects of Institutionalisation

   • Romanian Orphans
   • Physically underdeveloped Cognitive underfunctioning Disinhibited attachment Poor parenting
   • Evaluation
     • Individual Differences
     • Deprivation vs Privation
     • Longitudinal study

3. Maternal Deprivation

   • 44 Juvenile Thieves
   • Value of Maternal Care
   • Critical Period
   • Long term consequences
   • Evaluation
     • Individual differences
     • Emotional separation can be more harmful than physical separation

4. Cultural Variations

   • Van IJzendoorn and Kroonenburg- Meta-analysis
     • Secure attachment is the norm
   • Grossmann and Grossmann
     • German infants tend to be more insecure-avoidant
       • different childrearing practices
     • Evaluation
       • Similarities due to global media rather than innate
       • Measuring culture rather than country

5. Monotropic Theory

   • Bowlby
   • ASCMI
   • Social Learning Theory
   • Evaluation
     • Attachment is adaptive
     • Bond can depend on temperment- Kagan
     • Sensitive rather than critical period

6. Learning Theory

   • Classical conditioning
     • Pavlov
   • Operant Conditioning
     • Skinner
   • Drive reduction theory
   • Evaluation
     • Drive reduction is largely ignored today
     • Based on animal studies
     • Attachment is based on contact comfort not food

7. Ainsworth SS

   • 3 attachment types
     • Secure
     • Insecure-Avoidant
     • Insecure-Resistant
   • Evaluation
     • 4th attachment type: insecure-disorganised
     • Low validity
     • High reliability .94

8. Animal Studies

   • Harlow
   • Lorenz
   • Evaluation
     • Ethics
     • Imprinting can be reversed
     • Cannot generalise- animal study

9. Development of Attachment

   • 1. Indiscriminate 2. Beginnings 3. Discriminate 4. Multiple
   • Role of the father
   • Schaffer and Emerson
   • Evaluation
     • Unreliable
     • Biased sample
     • Inflexible

10. Caregiver-Infant Interactions

    • Meltzoff and Moore
      • Piaget
    • Interactional synchrony
    • Reciprocity
    • Evaluation
      • Testing infant behaviour can be difficult as their mouths are in fairly constant motion
      • Failure to replicate
      • Individual Differences