Attachment

Attachment

1. Stages of Attachment (Schaffer & Emerson)

   • 1. Indiscriminate attachments (0-2 months)
     • 2. Beginnings of attachment (4-7 months)
       • 3. Discriminant attachment (7 months+)
         • 4. Multiple attachment
   • Unreliable data
     • Mothers' self reports
       • Social desirability bias
         • Systematic bias
     • Only from the working class in the 1960s
   • Stage theories suggests that development is inflexible

2. Explanations of Attachment

   • Learning theory
     • all behaviour is learned through either :
       • classical conditioning
         • association
       • operant conditioning
         • reinforcement
       • social learning theory
         • children observe and learn their parents behaviour
   • Bowlby's theory
     • Critical period
     • Internal working model
     • Monotropy
     • Social releasers

3. Caregiver-infant interactions

   • Reciprocity
     • mutual responsiveness between infant and caregiver
     • responding to each other's signals, eliciting a response from each other
     • e.g. smiling
     • Brazelton (1979) suggested that reciprocity is an important precursor to later communication
       • the regularity of the infant's signals allows a caregivers to anticipate the infant's behaviour and respond appropirately (sensitivity)
       • lays a foundation for later attachment between caregiver and infant
     • Jaffe (1973) argued that babies are responding in the form of conversation
       • taking turns like in adult conversation
   • Interactional synchrony
     • when infant and caregiver mirror each other in terms of their facial and body movements
       • more likely to happen if the caregiver pays full attention to the baby's state,
         • provides playful stimulation when the baby is alert
         • avoids being pushy when the infant is overexcited or fussy
     • rhythmic : involves mutual responsiveness, reciprocity and mirroring
     • Brazelton

4. Multiple attachments and the role of the father

   • Primary attachment figures
     • men are less likely to be primary
       • not psychologically equipped to form an intense attachment
         • due to the lack of emotional sensitivity
           • biological factor - oestrogen
           • social factor - stereotype that men are not sensitive
   • Secondary attachment figures
     • fathers are more playful
       • exciting playmate, less sensitive - more fun

5. Types of attachment

   • Ainsworth's Strange Situation
     • Insecure avoidant
       • avoids and resists intimacy
       • high levels of anxiousness
     • Insecure resistant
       • seeks and resists intimacy
     • Secure
       • harmonious and cooperative
         • function independently
     • Insecure disorganized
       • inconsistent patterns of behaviour

6. Maternal deprivation (Bowlby)

   • prolonged emotional deprivation would have long term consequences on emotional development
     • believed that infants needed a 'warm, intimate and continuous relationship'
       • Critical Period
         • a young child who is denied of care because of frequent/prolonged separations may become emotionally disturbed
           • will only happen before the age of 2.5
           • if there is no substitute mother figure
           • additional risk up to 5 years
       • Long term consequences
         • 44 Thieves
           • all children were emotionally maladjusted
             • half (44) were thieves, the other were a control group
               • some of the thieves lacked affection, shame and sense of responsibility
           • results showed that 86% the 'affectionless thieves' had experienced frequent early separations from their mothers
             • almost none of the control group had separations
   • separation ≠ deprivation

7. Animal studies (Lorenz & Harlow)

   • Harlow (1959)
     • contact comfort vs. feeding
       • wire mother with milk vs. cloth mother
     • 8/8 rhesus monkeys preferred the cloth mother
   • Lorenz (1935)
     • Imprinting in goslings
       • 2 groups, 1 with their natural mother, 1 with Lorenz
       • discovered the critical period
         • there is a period of time where an animal will imprint onto the first moving object it is exposed to
       • imprinting is irreversible, and has effect on future sexual preferences

8. Effects of instutionalisation

   • Romanian Orphans
     • tested at ages 4,6,11,15
       • at adoption - smaller, weighed less, mentally retarded compared to their English counterparts
         • at 4 - they had caught up
           • long-term consequences are less severe
             • however if no attachments are made = severe

9. The influence of early attachment on childhood and adult relationships

   • internal working model and schema
     • infant learns what a relationship is like from parents (romantic and platonic)
       • operable - used to predict behaviours of other in the future
         • behaviours influenced by the internal working model
           • childhood friendships
           • poor parenting
           • romantic relationships
           • mental health
   • Shaver (1987)
     • Love Quiz
     • same as infancy
       • 56% secure
       • 25% insecure avoidant
       • 19% insecure resistant

10. Cultural variations in attachment

    • Cultural similarities
      • Secure attachment = most common
        • innate + biological
        • The Efe tribe from Zaire, Africa
    • Cultural differences
      • Takahashi (Japan)
        • no insecure avoidant, only insecure resistant
          • Japanese infants rarely experience separation
      • comparing countries, not cultures
    • meta-analysis of 32 studies, 8 countries