Attachment - PSYA1

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ATTACHMENT

1. Outline Bowlby’s theory of attachment

Bowlby suggests that attachment is innate and caregiving

traits are passed down through evolution. Children give out ‘social releasers’

such as smiling, crying and laughing which elicit caregiving characteristics. A

child should have formed an attachment with their monotropy (usually the

mother) in the critical period, which is the second half of their first year.

Children also learn their behaviours by taking note through a schema of their

parents relationships, therefore how their parents act affects their

relationships when an adult.

Evaluate Bowlby’s

theory of attachment

+ hodges and tizard’s study proves the internal working

model as the children who had no attachments as a child had difficulties in

later life

+ Genie who never formed any attachments grew up to dislike

all people as the only people she knew attacked and abused her as a child

+ Lorenz supports that caregiving is innate due to the fact

he managed to become a monotropy with geese, as they attached to the first

thing they saw (which was Lorenz)

2. Outline learning theory

Infants become attached to whomever satisfies their

biological need for food, all behaviour is learned and we are born a blank

slate. He provided two ways in which we learn behaviour, either through

association or through reward and punishment. Classical conditioning suggests

that the child associates the caregiver to the pleasure they get from the food,

and thus forming an attachment. The food is originally the unconditioned

stimulus before the conditioning which leads to an unconditioned response,

which would be the pleasure from eating the food. During the conditioning, the

unconditioned stimulus becomes associated with the neutral stimulus (mother

providing the food). Therefore, after the conditioning the neutral stimulus leads

to a conditioned response, the child will gain pleasure from seeing the mother

as they know they gain pleasure from her. Operant conditioning is learning

behaviour through reward and punishment. The child will be punished from doing

something they shouldn’t do, for example they would be asked to sit on the

naughty seat if they shout at the parents, this behaviour would then be less

likely to be copied because they know the consequence. Alternatively, the child

can be rewarded for doing a behaviour, for example, get praised for eating

their vegetables.

Evaluate learning

theory

+ Pavlov’s dogs support classical conditioning as the dogs

salivated at the sound of the bell after conditioning that they get food when

the bell is rung

- Harlow’s monkeys criticise as the monkeys formed an

attachment with the cushioned surrogate mother who didn’t provide them with

food when they were frightened and only went to the wire monkey when hungry.

+ can be applied to abnormality as a cause for the

development of phobias so this has led to further research into finding out how

to unlearn a behaviour and therefore treat the abnormality

3. Outline the three attachment types

Safe base

Separation anxiety

Stranger anxiety

Reunion behaviour

Secure

Used mother as safe base for exploration happy to play while she was

there

Distressed on separation

Wary of stranger but happy to play if mother present

Greeted mother warmly on return

Insecure-avoidant

Play not affected whether mother there or not

Little distress when separated from mother

Avoids comfort from stranger

Avoids contact upon mothers return

Insecure-resistant

Very fussy and clingy towards mother

Very distressed when mother leaves

Wary of stranger when mother present

Seeks comfort from mother but then resisted to the comfort

4. Outline the strange situation

Mary Ainsworth conducted a study to examine safe-base

behaviour, separation anxiety, stranger anxiety and reunion behaviour in

children. This was a controlled observation where she recorded the child’s

behaviour every 15 seconds. She recorded proximity and contact seeking, contact

maintaining, proximity and interaction avoiding and contact and interaction

resisting on a scale from 1 to 7 to put the child into one of three categories;

secure, insecure-avoidant or insecure-resistantly attached. She observed

through a camera the child and mothers behaviour, the child would be between 12

and 18 months old.

Evaluate the strange

situation

- Ainsworth’s study assumes that all children would fit into

the 3 categories so she may change her answers so that the children fit into

the categories

- observations rely on subjective judgements of the

observer, Ainsworth may think a child is being more resistant than someone else

which reduces the validity of the study

- this study is ethnocentric as she only did it in America,

this reduces the external validity of the study as the results can’t be

generalised to wider countries. Van I and K proved that there are

cross-cultural differences as American babies are mostly Secure whereas

collectivist cultures had a lot more ambivalent children than America.

- due to the fact it wasn’t a longitudinal study and only

done on one day means that it depends of the child’s mood on that day. A child

may seem more resistant on that day as they may be teething, therefore the

results would be less accurate.

5. Outline research

into cultural variations in attachment

Van I and K – meta-analysis of 18 studies doing the strange

situation in 8 different countries, covering a total of over 2,000 children. Results

showed that secure attachment was most common in all countries and cultures,

whether individualist or collectivist. However, insecure-resistant was the

highest out of all countries in Japan, China and Israel, all collectivist

cultures. Overall, it was found that intra-cultural differences are 1.5x

greater than inter-cultural differences.

Ainsworth’s Uganda study – observed infants and mothers,

used mother as safe-base for exploration and the mothers of the children who

were securely attached responded most sensitively to the needs of the child.

Evaluate research

into cultural variations in attachment

- the strange situation is an example of indigenous research

which means that it was made specifically to be tested in one specific country,

or culture, therefore cannot be applied to a very different culture, Van I and

K found that collectivist cultures were most likely to be insecure-resistant.

- this study is a meta-analysis which means it could be

prone to publications bias, as the researcher may have chosen the studies which

support his hypothesis, therefore we don’t get a true and accurate reading of

culture variations in attachment

+ the large population size means that the results can be

generalised to other children who weren’t in the study, and means the study has

higher external validity

6. Outline research into disruption of

attachment

Robertson and Robertson – took 4 children into their own

home for a few weeks, all were under 3 years old; Jane, Lucy, Thomas and Kate.

Their fathers visited regularly, and routines were maintained similar to that

at home. All of the children adjusted well and didn’t reject parents on return.

However, some showed signs of distress and were reluctant to leave, shows how

an emotional bond was formed.

Robertson – looked at two children admitted to hospital;

john and Laura. Laura was in hospital for 8 days, she alternated between

distress and calm, as time went on she coped more with the disappointment of no

parents. John was in hospital for 9 days, he behaved normally for the first 2

days but then begun efforts for getting attention, he ended up forming an

attachment to a teddy bear. For months afterwards he was angry towards his

mother.

Evaluate research

into disruption of attachment

+ the Robertson study made use of a real life situation that

would be unethical to manipulate

- highly influential has it has taught institutions that

emotional care should be maintained in order for no attachment to be disrupted.

- the children may have been insecure-avoidant which meant

they wouldn’t be that distressed by having no parents there, which reduces the

external validity of the study as securely attached infants would be much more

distressed and this may have had a much worse impact on them

7. Outline research into privation (failure to

form attachment)

The Czech Twins – were locked up and abused by step-mother

(real mother died shortly after child birth), they were found at the age of 7

and at the time couldn’t speak at all. They were then looked after by two

sisters and by the age of 14 had near normal intellect and social functioning.

By the age of 20 they had above average intelligence and had good relationships

with foster family

Genie – locked up by father as a child as he thought she was

mentally ill. She was found at the age of 13 and couldn’t speak. She never

fully recovered after being looked after by several different people. Never

managed to form an attachment and grew up not liking anyone due to extreme

early emotional privation

Evaluate research

into privation (failure to form attachment)

+ case studies so have high ecological validity due to high

mundane realism, no demand characteristics

- Genie could’ve actually had a mental illness as her dad

thought, therefore this would have heavily affected the validity of the

results, this is therefore an issue with having no control over the

manipulation of variables in a case study. Therefore, if someone didn’t have a

mental illness, would the effect be as bad?

+ takes advantage of a situation that would be unethical to

manipulate in a laboratory setting, shows people the importance of emotional

care

8. Outline research into institutionalisation

Hodges and tizard – 65 British children placed in an

institution all under the age of 4 months (before an attachment would have

formed) until they were 16 years old, their behaviour was regularly assessed

and it was made sure no emotional bonds were formed. 70% of children could

never care about anyone when they were older. Restored children (given back to

original family) were less likely to then form a bond. All children were likely

to be bullies.

Rutter – 1,000 Romanian orphans were given to British

families and assessed at the ages of 4, 6 and 11. Children who were adopted

before the age of 6 months had ‘normal’ emotional development whereas; if they

were adopted after 6 months they had disinhibited attachments and problems with

peers.

Evaluate research

into institutionalisation

+ supported by Genie as she never formed an attachment and

later in life had difficulties with relationships. Shows that emotional bond is

needed

+ both longitudinal studies which means that it is affected

on the behaviour of the child on one particular day, it therefore gets a more

accurate account of the effects rather than relying on memory

- however, in longitudinal studies, it is likely that the

children may drop out, as they are unable to give their consent at such a young

age, therefore when they are able to they may disagree, this lowers the amount

of participants and therefore lowers the external validity of the study and

makes it less generalisable

9. Outline research into the effects of day

care on aggression

NICHD – over 1,000 children from 10 different locations,

showed that the more time children spent in day care, the more aggressive and disobedient

they were. Children in full time day care were 3x more likely to have behaviour

problems than those being cared for by mothers at home.

EPPE – 3,000 children, took into account background

characteristics of the children (home environment and experience of day care).

A sample of ‘home’ children were recruited by means of comparison, looked at

local authority nurseries, private day nurseries and nursery schools. Children

who spent longer in day care were rated as more aggressive and showed more ‘anti-social’

behaviour. Most of the children had started day care before the age of two, if

the day care was of high quality this reduced the effect of the amount of time

spent in day care.

Evaluate Outline

research into the effects of day care on aggression

+ takes into account background characteristics, results are

more accurate as their home experience isn’t included in the results, e.g.

someone may have been brought up to be insecurely attached which meant they

would be more likely to be aggressive, so the nursery may not have had an

impact on this.

- only takes three types of day care into account, doesn’t

take au pairs, etc. into account, more types to use as comparison

10. Outline research into the effects of day

care on peer relations

Shea – videotaped 3 and 4 year olds during play time in

their first 10 weeks at nursery school (naturalistic observation). Two groups

consisting of full time attendees and part-time attendees (2/3 days a week)

children in the full-time group were more sociable as they went looking for

people to talk to and made more contact with others, aggressive behaviour

decreased over the 10 week period in all groups. Day care decreased aggression

and increases social skills.

Field – amount of time spent in in full time day care

positively correlated with the amount of friends they had when they went to

school.

Evaluate Outline

research into the effects of day care on peer relations

- Shea only looked at one nursery therefore low external

validity as EPPE found that the quality of day care makes a difference and that

one day care practice may have been higher or lower quality than average.

+ naturalistic observation means that the children were in

their normal environment and therefore no demand characteristics would have

occurred which means the results can be generalised to similar day care

practices

- Shea states that the full time attendees were more

sociable, this could just be because they knew the other children more than the

part-time attendees, who just didn’t know them well enough to be very sociable

with them, therefore the study doesn’t give a truly accurate approach

11. How has research into attachment influenced

day care practices?

Research by the Robertson showed that an emotional bond must

be maintained in order to counteract the negative effects of day care.

Therefore, parents are allowed to visit their children in hospital much more

regularly than they were used to, to avoid disruption of attachment.

Children used to not be allowed to be put up for adoption

until after 6 months old until the ‘sensitive period’ for attachment had

passed. Since Bowlby’s theory, babies are now encouraged to be put up for

adoption within the first week of their birth, to avoid the disruption of

attachment.

12. How has research into day care influenced

day care practices?

Low child to staff ratios are now heavily encouraged in day

care practices. This is due to the NICHD which found that the children should

have an emotional bond whilst at day care, so the ratio should be 3:1.

Minimal staff turnover – Schaffer argued that minimal staff

turnover is just as important as a bond being broken, which can be detrimental.

Therefore, day care practices now limit staff turnover as much as possible to

aid emotional bonds between children and staff.

EPPE found that the quality of day care is positively

correlated to the social development of children. Therefore, day care practices

are aiming to put their staff through these qualifications to aid child

development.