Attachment

Attachment

1. Caregiver-infant interactions

   • Reciprocity. Research showed infants coordinate actions with caregivers. Move since birth as if in conversation
     • Regularity of infants signals anticipate infants behaviour and allows adults to respond- sensitivity to behaviour lays down foundations for attachment
   • Interactional synchrony (mirrored). Study found as young as 2-3 weeks imitated specific facial expressions.
     • Study used adult model- did one of three facial expressions or hand gestures in sequence (baby had dummy to prevent reaction). Dummy removed and response filmed- found association between infants behaviour and adult model.
       • Support- second study with 3 month olds - displayed behaviour, suggests innate and not learnt
       • Individual diff- Isabella - more strongly attached infant-caregiver pairs showed greater interactional synchrony. Closeness of synchrony = strength of attachment. Found infants with more imitation at birth had stronger relationship at 3 months.
   • Real of Pseudo-imitation? Piaget- true imitation only develop towards end of 1st year & anything before is response training (being rewarded by smiles). Infant not consciously translated.
   • Motherse aids communication

2. The development of attachment

   • Stage 1: indiscriminate attachments- 0-2 months. Produce similar responses to all objects & towards end show preference towards social stimuli. Reciprocity and IS play role in establishing relationship with others.
   • Stage 2: beginnings of attachment- 4 months become more social, distinguish between familiar and unfamiliar. Still relatively comforted by anyone - no stranger anxiety, general sociability.
   • Stage 3: discriminate attachments- 7 months, separation anxiety (particular protest when put down). Shows joy at reunion with primary attachment figure. Begins to display separation anxiety.
     • Unreliable data- S&S based on mothers reposts - some may be less sensitive to protests so less likely to report. However, carried out in own homes so babies behaviour wouldnt be altered.
   • Stage 4: multiple attachments- S&E found that within 1 months of becoming attached 29% had multiple. after 1 year 1/3 had 5+
   • Role of the father: far less likely to be primary. Lamb-little relationship between father accessibility and infant-father relationship. Maybe most men not physically equipped e.g. oestrogen. However, no different physiological responses to baby crying.
     • Inconsistent research on this
   • Secondary attachment- fathers are more playful and better at providing challenges for children. Lack of sensitivity makes greater cognitive demands on children.
   • Schaffer & Emerson - primary attachment not always with person who spend most time with. Intensely attached infants had mothers who responded quickly to 'signals'. Quality of relationship matters most when forming attachments. 65% 1st specific attachment was mother. 60 glasgow babies from working-class skills families.
     • Biased sample. Working-class. Sample is era-dependent of 1960s.
   • Economic implications- mothers pressured to stay home due to research but may not be able to happen due to own money. However, this research shows that attachment made young so can go work.
   • Cultural- individualist and collectivists differ.

3. Animal studies of attachment

   • Lorenzo
     • Aim: test whether innate readiness to form attachment happens in first few hours of hatching
     • Divided 12 goose eggs. Cond.1 incubator where L was first object. Cond.2 hatched in natural environment
     • Incubator followed L. Identified critical period when imprinting needs to take place, however not all animals imprint on humans e.g. Curlew.
     • Imprinting is irreversible and long-term. Look to mate with figure close to one they have imprinted upon.
     • S: Guiton- chicks imprinted on yellow gloves & try to mate with them as adults. Suggests born with innate mechanism to imprint on object present in critical period.
     • Methodology: generalised. e.g. human mothers show more emotional attachment & higher cognitive functions.
   • Harlows
     • Aim: investigate importance of contact comfort.
     • 16 monkeys- cond 1 milk dispensed by plain wire mother, cond 2 dispensed by cloth covered mother.
     • Baby monkeys preferred cloth covered over wire regardless of milk- suggests contact comfort more important in attachments. As adults the monkeys suffered from aggressive behv and less skilled in mating- neglecting and killing own offspring.
     • RLA_ social workers understand risk factors in child abuse. Important for breeding programmes in zoos.
     • Ethical issues- bad relationship with peers, taken away from mothers. Cost benefit analysis- was very useful but at a high cost. Still valid research.

4. Explanations of attachment: LT

   • Explanations of attachment: Bowlby
     • attachment is inborn and part of nature- babies are born to attach. Baby and mother will naturally show attachment behaviour, it helps babies to survive therefore innate.
     • Acronym All Students Can Make It
       • Adaptive- give us adaptive advantage, more likely to survive
         • Social Releases- smiling ad crying of babies naturally cause social behaviours by adults, forming attachments
           • Critical Period- up to 2.5yrs. Could not develop if attachment not developed in the period
             • Monotropy- innate tendency to attach to one individual with strong bond with more important primary attachment figure.
               • Internal Working Model- early emotional attachments act as template for future attachments.
     • More time spent with mother figure is beneficial due to law of continuity (constant care = better attachment) and law of accumulated separation (effects of separation add up)
     • Support- Harlows monkeys
     • RLA- many changes to institutions, hospitals and care
     • Support- S&E & Lorenzo
     • Against: LT
   • beh is learnt. Emphasises importance of food in attachment formation
   • Operant- behs rewarded are repeated.
   • Classical- behs of baby become associated with positive emotions. Food of caregiver leaves feelings of pleasure which becomes associated with the caregiver so when the caregiver is present the baby feels good
     • At the same time as the baby being reinforced to cry, the caregiver experiences negative rein when baby stops crying. This strengthens the bond.
   • Conflicting evidence- Harlows monkeys attached to cloth mother
   • Conflicting- Bowlbys theory
   • Too simplistic- others qualities may be involved such as quality of attachment associated with reciprocity and good IS. Best quality attachments are with sensitive caregivers.
   • Evolution suggests that all cultures would be the same, supported by Van IJzendoorn. But, a lot of cultural variations, supporting LT.

5. Types of attachment- individual differences

   • Ainsworth 1978
     • Aim: test babies in different strange situations etc..
     • Proc: US baby brought into lab & went through 8 stages eg stranger coming in and mother leaving. Baby observed through 1 way mirror. Each stage lasted 3 mins & ended is baby showed too much distress.
     • 5 categories measured- proximity seeking, exploration and secure base, stranger anxiety, separation anxiety and reunion behaviour.
     • Secure attachement (type B- 70%.) upset but easily comforted. Insecure avoidant (Type A- 20%) no real signs of emotions. Insecure resistant (Type C- 3%) very emotional seeks comfort but then resists the mother and shows anger.
     • Conclusion- babies attach differently & differences in mothers responses cause different attachments. To get secure attachment, caregiver must respond sensitively and emotionally to babies needs and be consistent. Suggests may need to be trained in parenting skills.
     • RLA- teaches caregivers how to better understand social releasers and signs of distress. Has shown to drastically decrease disordered caregivers & inc secure attachment types, showing that it has helped improved infant quality of life.
     • Other explanations- childs temperament. Personality is genetically influenced so may be due to this – confounding variable affecting validity.
     • Methodolgy- high inter-rater reliability. 0.94 agreement rate (94%)
     • Low internal validity- normal behaviour may not have occurred as not in natural setting, study done at home may have showed different results. & researchers may have been biased. Babies may have been attached different to other adults not used in the study.

6. Cultural variations in attachment

   • Van IJzendoorn 1988
     • Aims: investigate attachment differences in different cultures.
     • Proc: Meta-analysis. 32 large scale studies with 2000 babies from 8 different cultures doing the strange situation test.
     • Find: secure attachments most common in all cultures. 50% in China and 75% in Sweden. In most countries insecure avoidant was the second most common. There was a greater variation within a country than between countries eg class differences.
     • Conc: secure avoidant seems to be world norm. /could be because of universal media so trends go world-wide or because of nature. Class difference could relate to money, housing etc.
     • Independence and exploration are seen as positive things in the test which may only be positive in individualist cultures. Different behaviours would be seen as positive in collectivist cultures.
     • Lab
     • Against- Bowlby says attachment is innate so will be the same in every culture. Van IJzendoorn propsed small cross-cultural differences that may reflect effects of mass media
     • Culturally specific- may not be valid to test children in different cultures using the same test. SS was developed in US so may only be appropriate for US babies. Eg babies in Japan are rarely left by mother in first 18 months so SS would be much more strange.
   • Grossmann & Grossmann 1991 found that using strange situation, German infants are more insecure than secure. They involve keeping a distance between parents and children so they don’t engage in proximity seeking behaviours.

7. Bowlbys theory of maternal deprivation

   • Value of maternal care- attachment vital for mental health, separation from mother may lead to deprivation, leading to mental illness and poor adult intimate relationships. ‘safe base hypothesis’- secure attachment gives confidence to explore and develop cognitively.
   • Critical period- 2.5yrs & if emotional bonds were disrupted then would cause permanent emotional damage
   • Long-term effects- lower IQ, mental retardation. Results in affectionless psychopathy & prevents normal relationships.
   • 44 thieves
     • 44 stealers group 1, group 2 44 not thieves. 39% thieves had frequently experienced separation from mothers before the age of 2 compared to only 4% of non-thieves. 86% of affectionless thieves had freq separtions whereas on 17% of others.
     • Conc: support maternal deprivation hypothesis & LT negative effects.
   • RLA- impact on hospitals in institutions to prevent bonds being broken between infant and parent. Working mothers feel guilt & gov changed law so women could leave work to have baby.
   • Method- used number of sources such as orphans from WWII and children in poor quality institutions, all factors that could’ve affected lack of development that was simply from separation as Bowbly suggested.
   • Deprivation or Privation? – deprivation is loss of primary attachment figure whereas privation is the failure to form on in the first place which could cause the long term damage.
   • Support- Harlow supports maternal deprivation as lack of social development.

8. Romanian Orphans: effects of institutionalism

   • Effects of institutionalism- Disinhibited attachment- child is equally friendly and affectionate, they do not discriminate between attachment figures & may be attention-seeking.
     • Damaged IQ- not as pronounced if child is adapted before 6. Poor parenting – harlow showed monkeys with surrogate mother went on to be poor parents & same in human studies.
   • Rutter 2011
     • Proc: 165 Romanian orphans experienced poor conditions before being adopted in UK & control group of british children. Longitudinal study- testing extent where good care can compensate for poor early exp. Assessed at ages 4,6,11&15
     • Find: IQ ½ showed mental retardation, by 11 recovery rated depended on time of adoption. Adopted before 2yrs had mean IQ 102 & after 2yrs IQ 77. Adopted after 6 months more likely to be attention-seeking and clingy. Support view of sensitive period.
   • Bucharest Early Intervention Project
     • Proc: assessed attachment in children 1-1.5yrs who spent most of life in institutional care & compared to control group. Assessed attachment using SS & parents reports.
     • Find: 19% of institutional groups securely attached compared to 75% of control group. 65% classified as disorganised attachment type.
   • RLA- improvements in institutions. Avoid having many caregivers. New mothers adopting child forced to nurse the child straight after being born. By doing this there is no difference between secure attachment in adopted and non-adopted families.
   • Individual difference- children who failed to form a primary attachment (privation) does know always affect children who have experience institutionalism. Some may have different coping strategies.
   • Method- generalisability. Conditions of orphanages were so bad that this could be a confounding variable & that children in good conditions may not face the same troubles- lacking validity.
   • Longitudinal study- no participant variables as same person used. However, takes many years and costly to do so.

9. The influence of early attachment

   • Hazan & Shaver love quiz. proc: analysed 620 love quizzes in US assessing 3 different aspects of relationship e.g. experiences and attachment types.
     • Find: 56% were securely attached 25% insecure & 19% insecure resistant. Conc: attachment reflected in romance. positive correlation between attachment type and love experiences.
   • Behaviours influenced by IWM
     • Poor parenting- Harlow
     • Mental health- lack of attachment in critical period
     • Bullying- can be predicted by attachment type. Wilson & Smith found secure children were unlikely to bully whereas insecure resistant was most likely.
   • Deterministic
   • Correlation can't establish cause and effect
   • RLA- guide parenting classes & to prevent bullying in future & mental health.
   • Supported by Harlow

Imágenes y archivos del mapa