UNIT 2: Attachment Case Studies

Schaffer & Emerson
1. Aim: To measure attachment between a child and their caregiver
2. Procedure:
  1. Sample of 60, working class babies from Glasgow
  2. Data was collected through Observations & Diary Records
  3. Attachment measured via: separation distress and Stranger Anxiety
  4. Natural Experiment, Longitudinal Study
3. Findings:
  1. 0-2 Months = Pre-Attachment (prefer humans)
  2. 6 Weeks = Indiscriminative Attachment (like certain people)
  3. 7 Months = Specific Attachments (Mum and Dad)
  4. 10-11 Months Onwards = Multiple attachments
  5. 65% attached to Mum 30%attached to Mum and Dad 3% attached to Dad
  6. You are more likely to attach to someone basesd on sensitivity and responsiveness instead of who clothes and feeds you
The Learning Theory
1. Classical conditioning: UCS (Food) leads to a UCR (Pleasure). When NS (Mum) accompanies UCS, The child makes an association of plesure over time with the NS (mum) making her a CS due to the continued pressence of the UCS. So when the mum is pressent the baby is happy because it has associated pleasure with the mum creating a CR.
  1. Skinners box
2. Operant Conditioning: An attachment is formed when the infant seeks the person who supplies the reward.
  1. When hungry, an infant feels unconfortable and enters drive state to seek food. The infant cries so the care giver feeds the infant producing a feeling of plesure. Food is the primary reinforcer (unconditioned reinforcement) The person supplying the food becomes the secondary reinforcer and a source of reward in their own right (conditioned responce)
Fox (1977)
1. Findings: 122 children in a Israli Kibbutz. Children are raised as a community and the children are cared for by a nurse (metapelet). Very little time was spent with the parents. Results showed that by observing seperation distress and reunion behaviour,children were strongly attached to their parents and notto the nurse.
The Strange Situation: Mary Ainsworth
1. Procedure:
  1. 106 Middle Class Infants
  2. 8 Episodes took place on a 9X9 Ft square.
  3. Lab Experiment, Novel environment
  4. Observed for: proximity seeking, seperation distress, stranger anxiety,reunion behaviour, willingness to explore
2. Attachment types:
  1. Type B Secure Attachment: (66%) Use mum as a safe base,willing to explore, show some seperation anxiety but easy to soothe. On reunion they are enthusiastic. Wary of the stranger. Caregivers are sensitive to the infant.
  2. Type A Insecure Avoident: (22%) Willing to explore, little response on seperation from parent (indifferent) showed low starnger anxiety. low reaction on reunion. Care givers tend to avoid social interaction with infant.
  3. Type C Insecure Resistant: (12%) Unwilling to explore, distressed at seperation,on reunon they seek and reject.High stranger anxiety, caregiver alternates between seeking closeness and wanting distance.
Cultural Variation
1. Ainsworth: studied attachment in Uganda. Found that Ugandan infants use their mothers as a safebase for exploring. and infanst were securely attached with caregivers showing greater sesitvity towards infant.
2. Grossmann and Grossmann: Investigated Germany = insecure most common because german culture encourages independance.
3. Van Ilzedoorn and Kroonenberg: conducted a meta-analysis on 32 Studies across 8 countries based on the Strange situation.
  1. Findings: Secure attachment was most common across all countries with insecure avoident being second most common appart form in Israle and Japan. 1.5X greater difference in a country than between them.

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UNIT 2: Attachment Case Studies

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