Attachment

Attachment

1. Caregiver-infant interactions

   • Reciprocity
     • caregiver and infant take turns in responding to eachother
   • Interactional synchrony
     • mother and infant reflect each-others actions in a coordinated way
   • STUDY: Meltzoff and Moore found that babies from 12-27 days old replicated facial expressions of their caregivers

2. Role of the father

   • Grossman (2002) found that the role of the father was to play and stimulate
     • The role of the father may not be as crucial as the role of the mother
   • Field (1978) found that fathers can be primary caregivers and adopt the behaviours of mothers
     • Positive outcomes such as paternity leave, as men can be treated as the primary caregiver
   • Males do not have the biological disposition of being nurturing and caring like females do

3. Different attachment types

   • Ainsworth's Strange Situation
     • Judged behaviours of: proximity seeking, stranger anxiety, separation anxiety, response to union and exploration / secure base behaviour
     • 1. Child and mother enter an unfamiliar playroom
       • 2. Child is encouraged to explore
         • 3. Stranger comes in and tries to interact with the child
           • 4. Mother leaves the child and stranger together
             • 5. Mother returns and stranger leaves
               • 6. Mother leaves
                 • 7. Mother returns and is reunited with child
     • Reliable study as it is standardised and controlled
       • However, suffers from cultural bias as conducted only with American children and mothers
   • Type B - secure attachment
   • Type A - insecure avoidant
   • Type C - insecure resistant

4. Animal studies

   • Harlow's rhesus monkey's study
     • Monkeys have an innate need for comfort and contact, suggesting that attachment concerns emotional security more than food
       • Contact comfort is linked to lower levels of stress and a willingness to explore
   • Lorenz's goslings study
     • Imprinting is a form of attachment whereby close contact is kept with the first large moving object encountered
       • A young animal recognises a person or another animal as their parent

5. Bowlby's monotropic theory

   • Monotropy - Infants have an innate capacity and drive to attach to one primary caregiver or attachment figure
   • Law of continuity - the more consistant and predictable the relationship with the mother, the stronger the attachment
   • Law of accumulated separation - there should be no separation between the mother and the infant for a healthy attachment

6. Cultural variation studies

   • Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg; meta-analysis of 32 studies in 8 countries which looked into proportions of attachment types
     • Used 'The Strange Situation' study
     • Lowest % of secure attachment types in China, highest in Britain
   • Individualistic societies had the highest anxious avoidant types

7. Maternal deprivation - the emotional and intellectual consequences of separation from the mother

   • STUDY: Bowlby's 44 thieves study found that criminals suffer from maternal deprivation, which is a causing factor for their delinquent behaviour
     • However, the interviews as part of the study were all conducted by Bowlby himself, leading to investigator bias which can skew the reliability
     • Bowlby also failed to distinguish privation from deprivation. Most of the criminals were actually experiencing privation rather than deprivation
       • Privation - failure to form attachment
         • Deprivation - loss of attachment after it has been formed

8. Effects of institutionalisation

   • Poor peer interactions
     • STUDY: Rutter's Romanian orphans study
       • Control group of 52 adopted British children adopted before the age of 6 months
       • 165 Romanian orphans, 111 adopted before the age of 2, 54 adopted before the age of 4
       • Romanian orphans displayed these behaviours compared to the control group
   • Disinhibited attachment
   • Mental retardation

9. Learning theory explanation

   • Attachment can be formed through mother bringing food for the child by classical conditioning
     • Strengthened by operant conditioning
       • Positive reinforcement- when a baby cries, a mother feeds it so the crying behaviour is reinforced in a child
       • Negative reinforcement from the mother's side, she keeps feeding the baby to prevent it from crying

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