Attachment

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Who was John Bowlby, what was his main experiment and finding?

John Bowlby was an English child psychologist. He is credited with being the father of attachment theory. He worked with juveniles and delinquents and due to that work he saw that separation from the primary caregiver lead to worse outcomes for the child. He called that maternal deprivation. He believed that infants come into the world already wanting to attach to one person. That attachment with that person is a base that infants utilize to explore the world. Maternal deprivation occurs when a child attachment with its parent does not occur or it is broken. This leads to negative consequences for the child later in life.

What was Mary Ainsworth, what was her main experiment and finding?

Mary Ainsworth was a student of John Bowlby. She expanded his work on attachment theory. She looked at individual differences in attachment style. Her main experiment was the Strange Situation which led to three classifications of attachment.

What is the Strange Situation, and its general components (don’t need to know the exact timing and details)?

The experiment:

Mother, baby and experimenter (lasts less than one minute).

Mother and baby alone.

Stranger joins mother and infant.

Mother leaves baby and stranger alone.

Mother returns and stranger leaves.

Mother leaves; infant left completely alone.

Stranger returns.

Mother returns and stranger leaves.

What are the three classifications of attachment?

Secure attachment- they depend on the parent as a way to explore the world. They are upset when the parent leaves and happy when the parent comes back. When the stranger is in the room with the parent the child is warm and plays with the stranger.

Insecure avoidant- they do not depend on the parent as a way to explore the world. They are independent of the primary caregiver both physically and emotionally. They show little to no reaction when the parent leaves or comes back. The child does not interact with neither the parent nor the stranger.

Anxious ambivalent- the child is clingy and dependent on the caregiver. They are less likely to explore the world outside of their primary caregiver. They showed high levels of distress once the parent comes back and is not able to stop being distress.

Why does the strange situation test exploration? Why does it test separation?

It tests the nature of attachment styles and the individual differences of attachment styles. It tests separation to see the way that the child responds to stress and distress. The way that the child reacts when it’s reunited with its parent shows the attachment style the child has. The interaction between the child and its parent when reunited showed the three different attachment styles.

What are the three possibly behaviors at reunion?

The secure child becomes happy and calms down when they are reunited with their parent. The insecure avoidant child avoids the primary caregiver and does not seek comfort from them while distressed. The ambivalent child shows high levels of distress and cannot be calmed easily.

How old are the children tested in the strange situation?

One to two years old

What is an internal working model of attachment?

Bowlby believed that the child’s attachment with its parent led to an internal model of attachment. It is a cognitive framework that is made up of mental representations for understanding the world, self and others. A person’s interaction with others is guided by memories and expectations from their internal model which influence and help evaluate their contact with others. There are three main features of the internal working model: (1) a model of others as being trustworthy, (2) a model of the self as valuable, and (3) a model of the self as effective when interacting with others.

In Johnson, Dweck and Chen, what do secure infants expect? What do insecure infants expect?

This was an experiment that tested children attachment style. The infants would watch a video of another infant watching its mother climb up a steep hill. Once the mother stop the infant in the video would cry. The subjects would be showed this video until they become habituated. Then another video would show the mother either staying at the top of the hill or coming back to its child. The secure infant would expect the mother would come back to the child and would spend more time looking at the video where the mother does not come back. With insecure infants it is the opposite and they do not expect the mother to come back and spend more time looking at the video where the mother does.