Attachment

Attachment

1. Attachment; This is a strong and enduring emotional bond - Which is between infant and caregiver

2. Critical Period - Certain time period which an attachment must form to form easily and properly later on in life.

3. Imprinting - Lorenz took a group of eggs from a mother goose. He then Seperated them into 2 groups - one group stayed with mother, the other went into an incubator.

4. When the ducklings were hatched by the mother, they started to follow her around and the ducklings that were hatched in the incubator started to follow Lorenz (This is because he was the first person they saw)

5. He then tested his theory that they were attached to either him or the mother goose by putting them all into a box. When released, they seperated back into their 2 groups and followed either Lorenz or the mother.

6. Imprinting - This is a rapid form of learning which has both long and short term consequences. Imprinting an also not be unreversed.

7. Harlows Monkey Experiment - Aim; To find out if food or comfort was a bigger factor in attachment. Method; First he put the monkey with the cloth and wire monkey and went to see who it spent more time with. It spent under an hour with the wire mother and over 17 hours with the cloth mother. He was exposed to both the mothers at this time. Next he then scared the monkey and tired to see which mother it would go to, he ran to the cloth mother for comfort. Thirdly, he put the monkey in an unfamiliar place which had toys and cloth objects. the monkey was put in on its own to see how emotional it was. He then put the wire mother in and the monkey went to a cloth object instead for some kind of comfort. However when the cloth mother was present, he ran straight to her for comfort.

   • Problems with this study; Its unethical as they are putting the monkey through alot of stress. It isnt natural as they arent in their natural environment. Also its animal cruetly as they didnt treat the monkeys right and put their bodies through alot of stress. Also the study isnt generalisable as its an animal study and cannot help understand human attachment.

8. Social Releaser - Any behaviour that encourages a caring or loving reaction from another person.

9. Examples of social releaser could be if an infant, cries, laughs or smiles. this can encourage a reaction from someone else and most of the time it is normally the parents. The purpose of them is that the infant or child can get support that they need or want to be able to make them feel better and therefore settle their emotions. Another reason is because many infants believe they need to form attachments to survive. JOHN BOWLBY proposed this idea of social releasers.

10. Learning Theory (Behaviourism)