Attachment Studies

Schaffer and Emerson

• Aims
• To assess whether there was a pattern of attachment formation that was common to all infants.
• To identify and describe the distinct stages by which attachments form.
• Procedure
• A longitudinal study was conducted upon 60 newborn babies and their mothers from a working-class area of Glasgow. Mothers and babies were studied each month for the first year of their lives in their own homes and again at 18 months. Observations were conducted, as well as interviews with the mothers, with questions being asked about whom infants smiled at, whom they responded to, who cased them distress, etcetera.
• Attachment was measured in two ways: Separation protest - this was assessed through several everyday situations: the infant being left alone in a room, left alone with others, left n their pram outside the house, left the pram outside the shops, left in the cot at night, being put down after being held, and being passed by while sitting in a chair/cot or pram. Stranger anxiety - this was assessed by the researcher starting each home visit by approaching the infant to see if this distressed the child.

Findings and Conclusions

• Findings
• Most infants started to show separation protest when parted from their attachment figure at between 6-8 months, with stranger anxiety being shown around one month later.
• Strongly attached infants had mothers who responded to their needs and gave more opportunities for interaction. Weakly attached infants had mothers who responded less quickly and gave fewer opportunities for interaction.
• Most infants went on to develop multiple attachments. At 18 months 87% had at least two attachments, with 31% having five or moe attachments.
• Attachments to different people were of similar nature, with infants behaving in the same way to different attachment figures.
• 39% of infants' prime attachment was not the main carer.
• Conclusions
• There is a pattern of attachment formation common to all infants, which suggests that the process is biologically controlled.
• Attachments are more easily made with those who display sensitive responsiveness, recognising and responding appropriately to an infants needs, rather than those speeding the most time with the child.
• Multiple attachments are the norm and of similar quality, which opposes Bowlby's idea that attachments are a hierarchy of one prime attachment and other minor ones. Schaffer commented that there is nothing to suggest that mothering can't be shared by several people.

Evaluation

• Data was collected by direct observation or from the mothers, with both sources prone to bias and inaccuracy.
• The study has mundane realism, as it was conducted under everyday conditions, meaning that the conclusgonsdrawn about the formation of attachments can be seen as having high validity.
• There were large individual differences in when attachments formed, casting doubt on the process of attachment formation being exclusively biological in nature.

Bowlby's Monotropic Theory

• Bowlby believed that we attach to one prime caregiver, which is usually the person that attends most sensitively to our needs.
• Bowlby was heavily influenced by animal studies such as Harlow's and Lorenz's.
• He applied ideas from these studies to humans, indicating that they have an innate tendency for survival.
• Infants showed Social Releasers, which are things such as crying, smiling, vocalising and clinging in order it get what they want from their caregiver.
• He believed that there was a critical period of up to 2 and a half years.
• I came up with the Internal Working Model, this was the idea that the attachment to our primary caregiver is one that will be the template for our future relationships.

Lorenz Imprinting Study

• Aim
• To investigate the mechanisms of imprinting where the youngsters follow and form an attachment to the first large moving object that they meet.
• Procedure
• Lorenz split a large clutch of greylag goose eggs into two batches, one of which was hatched naturally by the mother and the other hatched in an incubator, with Lorenz making sure he was the first moving object the newly hatched goslings encountered. Following behaviour was then recorded.
• Lorenz then marked all of the goslings, so he could determine whether they were from the naturally hatched batch of eggs or the incubated ones, and placed them under an upturned box. The box was the removed and following behaviour then recorded.
• Findings
• Immediately after birth, the naturally hatched baby goslings followed their mother about, while the incubator hatched goslings followed Lorenz around.
• When released from the upturned box the naturally hatched goslings went straight to their mother, while the incubated goslings went to Lorenz, showing no bond wont their natural mother. These bonds proved to be irreversible; naturally hatched goslings would only follow this mother and the incubated ones would only follow Lorenz.
• Lorenz also noted how imprinting would only occur within a brief, set time period of between 4 and 25 hours after hatching.
• Lorenz subsequently reported on how goslings imprinted onto humans would, as hatred adult birds, attempt to mate with humans - sexual imprinting.

Conclusions and Evaluation

• Conclusions
• Imprinting is a form of attachment, exhibited mainly by nidifugous birds (ones that leave the nest early), whereby close contact is kept with the first large moving object encountered.
• Evaluation
• The fact that imprinting is irreversible, suggests the ability is under biological control, as learned behaviours can be modified by experience.
• The fact that imprinting only occurs within a brief, set time period influenced Bowlby's idea of a critical period in human babies.
• The fact that goslings imprinted onto humans exhibit sexual advances to humans when adult birds show the importance of behaviour upon future relationships, something that Bowlby incorporated into his continuity hypothesis.
• There are extrapolation issues with animal studies; the attachment behaviour of geese is not necessarily that of humans.

Harlow Baby Monkeys

• Aim
• To test learning theory by comparing attachment behaviour in baby monkeys given a wire surrogate mother producing milk with those given a soft towelling mother producing no milk.
• Procedure
• Two types of surrogate mother were constructed - a harsh 'wire mother' and a soft 'towelling mother'. Sixteen baby monkeys were used, four in each condition: A cage containing wire mother producing milk and towelling mother producing no milk, a cage containing a wire mother producing no milk and a towelling mother producing milk, a cage containing a wire mother producing milk, and a cage containing a towelling mother producing milk.
• The amount of time spent with each mother, as well as feeding time was recorded.
• The monkeys were frightened with a loud noise to test for mother preference during stress.
• A larger cage was also used to test the monkeys' degree of exploration.
• Findings
• Monkeys preferred contact with the towelling mother when given a choice of surrogate mothers, regardless of whether she produced milk; they even stretched across to the wire mother to feed while still clinging to the towelling mother.
• Monkeys with only a wire surrogate has diarrhoea, a sign of stress.
• When frightened by a loud noise, monkeys clung to the towelling mother in conditions where she was available.
• In the larger cage conditions, monkeys with towelling mothers explored more and visited their surrogate mother more often.

Conclusions and Evaluation

• Conclusions
• Rhesus monkeys have an innate, unlearned need for contact comfort, suggesting that attachment concerns emotional security more than food.
• Contact comfort is associated with lower levels of stress and a willingness to explore, indicating emotional security.
• Evaluation
• This study involved animals and therefore we cannot necessarily generalise the results to humans.
• There are ethical issues involving the separation of baby monkeys and the stress caused to them.
• Interestingly, over time, Harlow publicly distanced himself from the work of Bowlby and Ainsworth, as well as Lorenz's views on imprinting. He especially did not believe that his work supported Bowly's belief of a childs innate need for mother love.

Ainsworth's Strange Situation

• Aims
• To asses how infants between 9 and 18 months of age behave under conditions of mild stress and novelty, in order to test stranger anxiety, separation anxiety and the secure base concept.
• To asses individual differences between mother-infant pairs in terms of the quality of their attachments.
• Procedure
• The strange situation comprised eight episodes. Each of which lasted for about 3 minutes, except episode one which lasted for 30 seconds.
• Every aspect of participants' behaviour was observed and video taped, with most attention given to the reunion behaviours, the infants' response to their mother's return. Data were combined from several studies. In total 106 infants were observed.
• The testing room was an unfamiliar environment comprising an 81 square foot area divided into 16 squares to help record movements.
• Five categories were recorded: proximity- and contact seeking behaviours, contact- maintaining behaviours, proximity- and interaction avoiding behaviours, contact- search behaviours.
• Every 15 seconds, the category of behaviour displayed was recorded and scored on an intensity scale of 1 to 7.

Findings and Conclusions

• Findings
• Generally infants explored the play room and toys more enthusiastically when just the mother was present than either a) after the stranger entered or b) when the mother was absent.
• Reunion behaviours reflected three types of attachment: type a, insecure-avoidant, 15% of infants ignored their mother and were indifferent to her presence. Level of play wasn't affected whether by the mother's presence or absence. Infants displayed little stress when she left and ignored or avoided her when she returned. Infants reacted to the mother and stranger in similar ways, showing most distress when left on their own. Type b, Securely attached, 70% of infants played contently the their mother was present, but were distressed when she left. On her return they sought comfort from her, calmed down and re-started to play. Mother and stranger were traded very differently. Type c, insecure-resistant, 15% of infants were fussy and wary, even with their mother present. They were distressed on her leaving and sought
• contact on her return, but simultaneously showed anger and resistant contact.
• Conclusions
• Sensitive responsiveness is the major fact determining the quality of attachments, as sensitive mothers correctly interpret infants' signals and respond appropriately to their needs. Sensitive mothers tend to have securely attached babies, whereas insensitive mothers tend to have insecurely attached babies.

Evaluation

• The identification by Ainsworth of the importance of parental sensitivity in creating secure attachments is backed up by similar findings from studies using larger samples.
• The strange situation testing procedure has become a paradigm, the accepted method of assessing attachments.
• The strange situation assumes that attachment types are fixed characteristics of children, but classification can change if family circumstances, like mothers' stress levels, altar. Therefore attachment type is not a permanent characteristic.
• The strange situation is an artificial way of assessing attachment, as it is lab based with mother and stranger acting to a 'script'. This is far removed from everyday situations and thus lacks ecological validity.
• The strange situation focuses too much upon the behaviour of infants, and not enough on that if mothers, which could distort results.
• The strange situation has been labelled unethical, as it deliberately stresses infants to see their reactions. However, it can be seen as justifiable, as the stress caused is no greater than that of everyday experiences like being left with an unfamiliar babysitter or childminder.
• Main & Weston (1981) found that children acted differently in the strange situation depending on which parent they were with. Children might be insecurely attached to their mothers, but securely attached to their fathers, illustrating that attachment types are linked to individual relationships with carers and are not set characteristics of children.

Rutter et al.

• Aim
• To assess whether loving and nurturing care could overturn the effects of privation the children had suffered in Romanian orphanages.
• Procedure
• This was a longitudinal study, incorporating a quasi experiment. The IV was the age of adoption, with three age groups being studied: condition 1 children adopted before the age of 6 months, condition 2 children adopted between 6 months and 2 years, condition 3 children adopted after 2 years.
• The DV was the children's level of cognitive functioning.
• 111 Romanian orphans were initially assessed for height, head circumference, and cognitive functioning on arrival in Britain. All children were again assessed at age 4. A control group of 52 British adopted children were also assessed.
• Findings
• Around 50% of the Romanian orphans were retarded in cognitive functioning at initial assessment and most were underweight. The control group did not show these deficits.
• At age 4 years, the Romanian orphans showed great improvements in physical and cognitive development, with the orphans adopted before 6 months of age doing as well as the British adopted children.
• Conclusions
• The negative effects of institutionalisation can be overcome by sensitive, nurturing care.
• As the British adopted children (who had been separated form their mothers) did not suffer developmental outcomes, it can be seen that separation from carers will not on its own cause negative developmental effects.

Evaluation

• Children have only been assessed up to the age of four years, so subsequent follow-ups will be required to assess the long-term effects of institutionalisation and the effects of subsequent enriching environments.
• Only some of the children received detailed clinical investigations, so it is difficult to fully generalise the findings.
• Because the children were not studied while in the Romanian orphanages, it is not possible to state which aspects of privation were most influential.