Attachment

Attachment

Emotional bond between two people, enduring over time
Learning theory
1. Classical conditioning
  1. New response is learned when a neutral stimulus is associated with an unconditioned stimulus
  2. After learning, neutral stimulus becomes conditioned stimulus producing a conditioned response
  3. Pavlov
    1. Noticed dogs salivated when seeing food
    2. Associated a bell with food, so bell caused dogs to salivate
2. Behaviour is learnt
3. Operant
  1. Behaviour learnt through trial and error and in response to consequences
  2. Reinforcement
    1. + adding something plesant
    2. - taking away something unplesant
  3. Dollard and Miller 1950
    1. When an infant is hungry = uncomfortable, when they are fed = reduces displeasure
      1. Food is primary reinforcer
      2. Person reducing displeasure = secondary reinforcer
    2. Attachment occurs as infant seeks person supplying reinforcement
4. Support
  1. Explains how we learn behaviour
    1. Little Albert 1920
  2. Reinforcement and punishment applies in real life
5. Limitations
  1. Harlow
    1. Rhesus monkeys given 2 mothers, one wire who fed food, the other wrapped in soft cloth with no food
    2. Monkeys showed attachment to cloth mother and seeked proximity to it
    3. Showing food is not primary reinforcer
  2. Schaffer and Emerson 1964
    1. 60 babies from Glasgow
    2. Found infants most attached to person who was most responsive to them - not feeder
    3. Shows food is not primary reinforcer
Bowlby's theory
1. Infant becomes attached to person providing them with basic needs to survive
2. Features
  1. Attachment develops during sensitive period
    1. After this it becomes difficult to form attachments
  2. Infants have innate drive to attach and have social releasers to elicit caregiving
  3. Infants have primary attachment (monotropy) and secondary attachments (hierarchy)
  4. Early attachment creates expectations about later relationships - internal working model
  5. Continuity - securely attached infants go on to be securely attached
  6. Infant uses mother as secure base
3. Support
  1. Lorenz
    1. Infant geese imprinted on Lorenz as he was the first thing they saw and he kept them alive
  2. Cultural studies suggest attachment must be innate
  3. Schaffer and Emerson's study found infants had one primary attachment and secondary attachments
  4. Sroufe
    1. Found continuity between early attachment and later emotional/social behaviour
  5. Carlson
    1. Found insensitive caregiving led to disorganised attachments
4. Limitations
  1. Rutter
    1. Several primary attachments may be desirable for healthy emotional development
  2. Kagan
    1. Suggested attachment is explained in innate temperamental types
    2. Infants with an easy temperament = more likely to become securely attached
    3. Those with a difficult temperament = more likely to become insecurely attached
    4. Supported by belsky and rovine
Types of Attachment
1. Ainsworth 1978
  1. Strange situation
    1. Infant and parent in a 'strange' environment with a stranger
    2. 106 middle class infants
    3. Infants behaviour observed as mother leaves and returns and when a stranger is present
    4. Measures attachment in terms on stranger anxiety and separation anxiety
  2. R: 66% displayed secure attachments
    1. Willing to explore with mother as secure base
    2. High stranger anxiety
    3. Easily comforted by mother
  3. R: 22% were insecure avoidant
    1. Willing to explore without caregiver
    2. Low stranger anxiety
    3. Did not seek proximity on return
    4. Parent's absence unnoticed
  4. R: 12% were insecure resistant
    1. Unwilling to explore
    2. High stranger anxiety
    3. Distressed on mother's absence
    4. Seeks and rejects caregiver on return
2. Support
  1. Ainsworth 1967
    1. Observation of 26 infants in Uganda
    2. Mothers who were more sensitive to infants' needs had more securely attached infants
    3. Bowlby's theory
  2. Main and Soloman
    1. Analysed tapes of children in strange situation
    2. Found disorganised attachment
      1. Lack of consistency in behaviour
  3. Disinhibited attachment results from privation
    1. Infants try to form attachments to anyone, but they are superficial
3. Limitations
  1. Validity
    1. Strange situation measures the way two people interact, not personality quality of individual
  2. Hazan and Shaver
    1. Found that people who were securely attached in early life, were more likely to form enduring relationships later on
  3. Strange situation has ethical concerns
    1. Situation may have caused infants to behave differently
Cultural Variations
1. Culture
  1. Rules, customs, morals and ways of interacting that bind members of society together
2. Similarities
  1. Ainsworth 1967 Uganda
    1. Infants used mother as secure base
    2. Securely attached infants had more sensitive mothers
  2. Tronick 1992 Zaire
    1. Lived in extended family groups, infants slept with mother but breastfed and cared for by other women
    2. 6 months - infants showed one primary attachment to mother
  3. Fox 1977 Israeli
    1. Infants cared for in communal children homes by nurses
    2. Infants showed greater attachment to mother despite spending more time with nurses
    3. Mothers' showed greater sensitivity
  4. Van and Kroonenberg
    1. Meta analysis of 32 studies on variations
    2. Variations within cultures 1.5 times greater than between cultures
    3. C: Cultural practices have little influence on attachment behaviour
3. Differences
  1. Grossman and Grossman 1991 Germany
    1. Found larger proportion of infants classified as insecurely attached than US
  2. Takahashi 1990 Japan
    1. Infants showed higher rates of insecure resistant than other cultures
    2. No evidence of insecure avoidant
    3. Infants rarely separated from mother
4. Evaluation
  1. Rothbaum Culture bias
    1. Attachment theory has strong western bias with individualist ideas
  2. Posada and Jacobs
    1. Evidence to support universality of core attachment concepts
  3. Cross cultural similarities can be explained by share of mass media than innate processes
  4. Cross cultural research used techniques developed in one culture and used to study another culture
  5. Validity - within cultural groups many different childrearng practices are used not just one
Disruption of Attachment
1. Robertson and Robertson 1963-73
  1. Filmed 6 children during periods of brief separation from primary attachment
  2. Laura in hospital, John in nursery, Jane, Lucy, Thomas and Kate looked after in Robinsons' home
    1. Laura and John showed depression and became withdrawn
      1. John couldn't compete for attention and attached to a teddy
    2. Other children coped well as received high level of emotional care
  3. Case studies can lack generalisability
2. Evaluation
  1. Skeels and Dye
    1. Group of institutionalised children with low IQs improved after being in a home for mentally ill adults
      1. Adults gave emotional care
  2. Skeels and Dye
    1. One group of infants in care transferred to home for mentally ill adults
    2. Control group remained in orphanage
    3. After 1.5 years, IQs of control group had fallen and IQs of other group rose by 28 points
  3. Bohman and Sigvardsson
    1. 600 adopted children in Sweden
    2. Age 11, 26% classified as problem children
      1. 10 years on, after being adopted they were normal in terms of social and emotional development
  4. Bifulco
    1. 249 women who lost mothers through separation/death before age 17
    2. Group twice as likely to suffer from depression/anxiety as adults
    3. C: Early disruptions in attachment make an individual more psychologically vulnerable
  5. Bowlby
    1. Children in institutional care at young age
    2. Some were well adjusted later on, some were maladjusted
    3. Those who coped better more likely to be securely attached
    4. Attachment and disruption are linked
Privation
1. Failing to form an attachment with a caregiver
2. Hodges and Tizard 1989
  1. Group of 65 children in institutional care from less than 4 months old
  2. Age 16 - children who were adopted closely attached to families
    1. Untrue for children returning to original families
  3. Both groups had problems with peers and sought more attention from adults
3. Rutter
  1. 100 Romanian orphans adopted by UK families
  2. Children adopted before 6 months showed normal emotional development
  3. Those adopted after 6 months showed disinhibited attachments and problems with peers
4. Attachment disorder caused by experience of sever neglect/frequent change of caregivers in early life
5. Evaluation
  1. Quinton
    1. R: Ex-institutional women had difficulties as parents
      1. Creating a cycle of privation
    2. Rated as lacking warmth in interaction with children
  2. Some romanian orphans did recover
    1. Some did not - due to other factors such as late adoption, hardship in institutions etc
  3. Hodges and tizard study - effects may be due to rejection and they could have recovered long term

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	Created by Gemma Bradford about 11 years ago