Attachment

Attachment

1. Theories

   • Learning theory
     • Classical conditioning
       • Pavlov's dogs
         • Associate door with food
     • Operant conditioning
       • Positive and negative reinforcement
         • Behaviour is learned
           • Dollard and Miller
             • Food is reinforcer
     • Strengths
       • Provides an adequate explanation
       • Weaknesses
         • Comfort more important than food
           • Harlow's monkeys
             • Went to cloth rather than milk
           • Schaffer and Emerson
             • Attached to one who interacted with them the most
   • Bowlby's theory of attachment
     • Period of 2.5 years
     • Infants are born with social releasers
     • Monotropy - single attachment
     • Internal working model
       • Continuity hypothesis
         • Early attachment and later emotional relationships linked
     • Strengths
       • Sensitive period
         • Hodges and Tizard
       • Universal
       • Monotropy
         • Schaffer and Emerson
     • Weaknesses
       • Multiple attachements

2. Types

   • Strange situation
     • Secure
       • Comfortable
         • Low separation anxiety
     • Avoidant
       • Happy to explore
         • Avoids social interaction
     • Ambivalent
       • Rejects mother and social interaction

3. Cross cultural variations

   • Van Ijzendoorn + Kroonenberg
     • Meta analysis
       • 32 studies
         • Secure - most common
           • Avoidant next
     • Support Bowlby's theory
       • Secure attachment is the norm
   • Takahashi
     • More secure, no avoidant, high ambivalent
     • Was stopped 90% of time as severe distress to children
   • Grossmann + Grossmann
     • German children insecurely attached as keep distance from children

4. Disruption of attachment

   • Robertsons
     • John, placed in nursery while mother was having baby
       • John gradually stops responding to the nurses and starts refusing food and drink, when his mother collects him, he rejects her
   • Bowlby
     • Maternal deprivation hypothesis
       • Bowlby's thieves
         • Maternal deprivation leads to affectionless psychopathy (86% of thieves)
           • Supports's Bowlby's maternal deprivation hypothesis

5. Privation (failure to form attachment)

   • Hodges and Tizard
     • Followed 65 British children from early life to adolesence
       • All have been placed institution before 4
         • By 4, 24 had been adopted, 15 returned home, rest remained in institution
           • Restored children less likely to form attachments + worse in peer relationships than adopted
             • Does and doesn't support maternal deprivation hypothesis
               • Cannot be certain, attrition is problem
   • Rutter
     • Studied 100 Romanian orphans
       • Those adopted before 6 months showed normal development
         • Those after 6 months showed poor peer relations + disinhibited attachments

6. Impact of Day Care

   • NICHD Study
     • Studied over 1000 children in US
       • Children that spent more time in day care, more aggressive
   • EPPE
     • Europe, longitudinal
       • Between age of 3 and 7
         • Children who spent longer in day care showed more antisocial behaviour
           • However if day care high quality, effects reduced
   • Peer relations
     • Clarke-Stewart
       • Studied 150 children
         • Those in day care more advanced than those at home