Attachment A03

Attachment A03

1. Meltzoff & Moore

   • Weaknesses
     • Hard to know what's happening when observing infants
     • Observations don't tell us the purpose of synchrony and reciprocity
     • Often research in this area can be socially sensitive
   • Strengths
     • Controlled Observations capture detail
     • No demand Characteristics

2. Schaffer & Emerson

   • Weaknesses
     • Unreliable data as it was self-reported
     • Sample was only for one type of social class
     • There are difficulties in how multiple attachments is assessed

3. Lorenz's gosling study

   • Weaknesses
     • Later reseachers have questioned Lorenz's conclusions
     • There's a problem generalising findings on birds to humans
   • Strengths
     • Helped better our understanding of attachment in humans

4. Harlow's monkey study

   • Weaknesses
     • It was conducted in a controlled artificial laboratory setting
     • It was unethical
   • Strengths
     • It was conducted in a controlled laboratory setting
     • Had significant effect on the understanding of the process of attachment

5. Learning Theory

   • Strengths
     • Can provide adequate explanation of how attachments form
   • Weaknesses
     • Strong evidence from other attachment studies like Schaffer & Emersons
     • Evidence against this from the animal studies
     • A better theory (Bowlby's theory) appeared

6. Bowlby's monotropic attachment theory

   • Strengths
     • The Minnesota parent-child study tested an effect of attachment according to the theory
     • Prior & Glaser's research support this theory (hierarchical model)
     • Contributes to social development
   • Weaknesses
     • 3 months to attach wouldn't have kept the babies alive
     • The idea of multiple attachments contradicts this theory
     • The temperament hypothesis (Kagan) & research explains attachment in a different way