Developmental Psychology

Developmental Psychology

1. Attachment

   • Attachment can be defined as an emotional relationship between two people in which each seeks closeness and feels more secure when in the presence of the attachment figure

2. Learning Theory

   • Operant conditioning
     • Positive reinforcement
       • Behaviour results in pleasure
         • Infant is rewarded for attaching to the caregiver, receives food
         • Parents is rewarded as the infant smiles. Feeding continues, strengthening bond
     • Negative reinforcement
       • Behaviour results in the subtraction of something unpleasant
         • Crying results in hunger being taken away, developing bond with PCG
         • Child stops crying so they like them more. Feeding continues developing bond
   • Classical conditioning
     • Food (unconditioned stimulus) = Happy baby (unconditioned response)
       • Mother (PCG) + Food (unconditioned response) = Happy baby (unconditioned response)
         • Mother (conditioned stimulus) = Happy baby (conditioned response)
     • Infant associates food with pleasure, associates food to the PCG. After repeated feeding the infant will associate pleasure to the PCG
     • The PCG learns to associate feelings of pleasure with caring for the infant, because the infants smiles and displays attachment behaviours
   • Schaffer and Emerson
     • Attachment is formed to those who respond correctly to its social releasers and those who communicate with the infant
   • Food is the key
   • Harlow's monkeys
     • Monkeys formed an attachment to the cloth monkey as it was comforting, rather tha the wire monkey who fed it

3. Bowlby's evolutionary theory

   • Infants have an innate desire to be protected
   • Imprint to a single PCG (monotropy)
   • Social releasers help bond to a PCG
   • PCG will be their secure base
   • Attachemtns should be formed in the sensitive period (before 2 1/2)
     • If no attachment is formed here then they'll have issues with society (maternal deprivation hypothesis)
   • Attachment forms a template (internal working model) which influences future relationships (continuity hypothesis)
   • Lorenz
     • Ducking imprinted to the first thing they saw during the critical period
       • Study on duckling, cant be related to humans.
       • Externally invalid
   • Bowlby
     • 44 juvenile thieves were bad as they were deprived of a mother figure for at least a week during the sensitive period
       • Supporting MDH
       • Retrospective study
   • Lamb
     • Babies also attached to fathers as they liked the rough and tumble play
       • Contradicting monotropy
   • Scroufe
     • Internal working model
       • Ignores social factors in adult relationships
       • Cultural expectations about relationships affects an individual's expectations
       • Gender roles also effect relationships

4. The Strange Situation

   • Procedure
     • Mother and infant play
       • Parent sits while infant plays
         • Stranger enters
           • Parent leaves
             • Stranger plays with infant
               • Parent returns and stranger leaves
                 • Parent leaves, infant alone
                   • Stranger enters
                     • Parent enters, stranger leaves
   • Types of attachment
     • Secure
       • 66%
       • Want to explore
       • Not likely to cry
       • Easily soothed
     • Insecure avoidant
       • 22%
       • Little response when PCG leaves
       • Little reaction when PCG comes back
     • Insecure resistant
       • 12%
       • Stay close to PCG
       • Intense distress
       • Seeks and rejects comfort
   • Evaluation
     • Children may show characteristics of insecure resistant attachment as they're not used to being separated from their mother (daycare)
     • Bases attachment on observation of the relationship between the infant and one caregiver, ignoring other possible attachment figures
     • Procedure based on the Western culture, in other cultures children may be treated differently which is a limitation when using it

5. Cultural variations in attachment

   • Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenburg
     • Aim
       • Investigate the cultural differences in attachment types
     • Methodology and Procedure
       • Meta analyse of 32 studies across 8 countries
         • Using the Strange Situation
         • 2000 babies
     • Results
       • UK has the most secure attachments, 75%
         • China has the fewest, 50%
       • Germany has the most insecure avoidant, 35.3%
         • Israel have the fewest, 6.8%
     • Conclusions
       • Secure attachments are the most common
       • Different patterns of attachment between cultures
       • Significant variation of attachments within cultures
       • Variation within cultures was 1.5 times greater than the variation between cultures
     • Evauation
       • Strange Situation is an ethnocentric procedure, imposed etic when used in non western cultures
       • Ethically sound as no more children had to be put through the trauma of the Strange Situation
       • Limited number of studies in China, may not truly represent the country
   • Takahashi
     • Aim
       • Look at the validity of the Strange Situation in Japanese culture
     • Procedure
       • 60 infants in the Strange Situation
     • Findings
       • 32% insecure resistant
       • 0% insecure avoidant
       • 68% securely attached
     • Conclusions
       • Cross cultural variations in attachment
       • 0% insecure avoidant, due to collectivist culture, behaviour would be seen as impolite
       • 90% of cases had to be stopped due to extreme distress
         • Attachment behaviour wasn't measured, stress was

6. Robertson and Bowlby

   • Aim
     • Identify the short term effects of separation from the caregiver on young children
   • Procedure
     • Naturalistic observation on children in residential homes
     • Behaviour and reactions to the separation were observed
   • Findings
     • Protest
       • Children showed distress
     • Despair
       • Children became apathetic and lost interest
     • Detachment
       • Chjildren became emotionally unresponsive
   • Conclusions
     • Distress is short term
     • Separation anxiety was a long term effect
   • Evaluation
     • Good substitute care minimises the effects of separation
     • Limited study, separation can't be changed as an IV, cause and effect can't be inferred
     • Other factors may be to blame for the emotional damage (ill health)
   • John
     • Securely attached to his mother
     • Was in a residential home for 9 days
     • Went through the PDD model
     • Didn't receive good substitute care so he missed his mother
   • Jane
     • Securely attached to her mother
     • Fostered in the Robertson household
     • Consistent caring environment
       • Didn't miss mother's care

7. Long term effects of separation

   • Separation anxiety
     • Fear that separation may occur again, increased clinging and aggressive behaviour towards PCG
   • Affectionless psychopathy
   • Deprivation dwarfism
     • Lack of physical development needs met leads to stunted physical growth

8. Bowlby's 44 juvenile thieves

   • Procedures
     • Compared the thieves to 44 children who weren't thieves but had psychological problems
     • Interviewed children and parents to gather early life experiences
   • Aim
     • Test the maternal deprivation hypothesis
   • Findings
     • 32% of the thieves were affectionless psychopaths, none of the control group were
       • 86% of these thieves had been separated from a PCG for at least a week before the age of 5
     • 17% of the thieves who weren't affectionless psychopaths had been separated
   • Conclusion
     • MDH can lead to abnormal emotional development (affectionless psychopathy)
   • Evaluation
     • Can only say that deprivation and affectionless psychopathy are linked but not that one caused the other
     • Parents may have not recalled separations accurately

9. Privation

   • When no attachment has ever been formed
     • Genie
       • Found at age 13, had been locked up in a room with little contact
       • Language never fully developed
       • Struggled to socialise with peers her own age
       • Can't generalise due to individual differences
       • May have been born mentally retarded
     • Czech Twins
       • Locked and abused in a cellar, developed Ricketts and linguistic problems
       • Adopted into a caring home
         • At 14 their social and intellectual development was normal, at 20 it was above average
       • Twins may have been able to communicate with each other
   • Institutionalisation
     • Children spend part of their childhood in a hospital, a orphanage or a residential children's home
     • Rutter et al
       • Aim
         • See if good care could make up for privation
       • Method
         • 111 Romanian orphans
           • Adopted before 6 months
           • Adopted between 6 months and 2 years
           • Adopted after 2
           • Findings
             • Disinhibited attachment was common among the late adoptees
             • Attention seeking
           • Conclusion
             • Children who suffer from privation at a younger age are more likely to make a fuller recovery if adopted into a caring environment at a younger age
           • Evaluation
             • Proves Bowlby's theory of a critical period

10. Daycare

    • Temporary care by someone other than a family member
    • Aggressive behaviour
      • EPPE Project
        • Summons et al, risk of ant social behaviour when infants spend more than 20 hours in daycare
          • Risk increases noticeably after 40 hours a week
        • Melhuish, aggressive behaviour increased when carers kept changing
        • Longer in day care increases anti social behaviour
        • NICHD study found similar results
      • Shea et al
        • Longer in day care the more sociable they became
        • Aggression decreased
        • Findings more prominent with those attending 5 days a week than those attending 2 days a week
          • Suggests daycare caused this rather than the children maturing
        • Daycare increases sociability and reduces aggression
    • Peer relationships
      • EPPE project
        • Attending daycare improved independence and peer relationships
        • Early start links with sociablity
        • Daycare helps social development and improves peer relationships
        • Large sample means it's generalisable
      • Shea
        • Children became ore sociable
        • Being in daycare helps social development and improves peer relationships
        • Supported by Anderson and the EPPE Project