Attachment

Attachment

1. Introduction to attachment

   • Caregiver-infant interactions
     • Reciprocity: reciprocal in the sense that both mother and infant elicit a response from one another through signals
       • Brazleton: 'a dance'
     • Interactional synchrony: Mother and infant reflect each others actions and emotions
       • Isabella: observed 30 mothers and infants assessing the degree of synchrony. - high levels of synchrony associated with better quality infant attachment.
   • Attachment figures
     • Role of the father: less to do with nurturing and more to do with play and stimulation
       • Schaffer and Emerson: found majority of babies attach to their mother first then formed secondary attachments to other family members including the father. 75% of the infants had formed an attachment to their father by the age of 18 months.
       • Grossman: longitudinal study looking at both parents behaviour and its relationship to the quality of attachment in teens. Quality of attachment to mothers was related to attachment in adolescence but the same did not apply for fathers- fathers less important?
       • Tiffany Field: filmed 4 month old babies in face-face interaction with primary caregiver mothers, secondary caregiver fathers and primary caregiver fathers. Found that primary caregiver fathers showed more interactional synchrony and reciprocity with infant. -shows fathers can be the nurturing attachment figure. Not about gender its about level of response.

2. Schaffer's stages of attachment

   • Key study: 60 babies from working class families,Glasgow. Visited at homes everyday for first year then again at 18 months. Mothers asked questions about separation anxiety and stranger anxiety.
     • Findings: Between 25-32 weeks of age about 50% of the babies showed separation anxiety towards a particular adult;usually mother or the person being most interactive and responsive. Age of 40 weeks 80% had specific attachment and 30% displayed multiple attachments.
   • 1. ASOCIAL STAGE: behaviour towards humans and objects is similar. Show some preference for a particular adult.
   • 2. INDISCRIMINATE ATTACHMENT: 2-7 months more observable social behaviour recognising and preferring familiar adults. Do not usually show separation or stranger anxiety. Indiscriminate because behaviour isn't discriminated to one person
   • 3. SPECIFIC ATTACHMENT: around 7 months babies begin to show stranger anxiety and separation anxiety from one particular caregiver. (primary attachment figure) Not necessarily dependent on who spends the most time with the infant- about interaction.
   • 4. MULTIPLE ATTACHMENTS: start to extend attachments to people they spend the most time with-secondary attachments.

3. Animal studies of attachment

   • LORENZ'S GEESE
     • IMPRINTING: randomly divided clutch of goose eggs. Half the eggs were hatched naturally with mother while the other half were hatched in an incubator where the first moving thing they saw was Lorenz. Incubator group followed Lorenz everywhere but the control group followed the mother. When the group mixed they still followed the same things. Lorenz identified a critical period in which imprinting needs to take place- if imprinting does not take place in that time attachments are not made to mother.
     • sexual imprinting: peacock that only saw tortoises at birth (imprinted on it) only showed courtship behaviour to tortoises.
   • HARLOW'S MONKEYS
     • 16 baby monkeys with two wire mothers. One plain wire mother dispensed milk while the other also dispensed milk but was covered by a cloth. Found: babies preferred the cloth mother and sought comfort to it regardless of which one dispensed milk. Shows comfort was more important than food for babies.
     • Maternal deprivation: Harlow followed monkeys who had been deprived into adulthood and found severe consequences. Monkeys reared with wire mothers were most dysfunctional but so were the cloth monkeys. More aggressive and less sociable then other monkeys; some abandoned or even killed their children during mother hood.
     • Critical period: A mother figure had to be introduced within 90 days for an attachment to form. After this time attachment impossible.

4. Explanations for attachment

   • Learning theory
     • Classical conditioning: learning to associate two stimuli together. Food=unconditioned stimulus , pleasure from food=unconditioned response and caregiver=neutral stimulus. Caregiver becomes conditioned due to association with pleasure from food.
     • Operant conditioning: learning to repeat behaviour. If behaviour has positive response it is likely to be reinforced whereas if it produces unpleasant consequence it is less likely to be repeated. Crying leads to comfort (eg feeding) and so will be repeated. Caregiver also escapes the crying and so reinforces the behaviour of comfort. Interplay of mutual reinforcement strengthens the attachment.
   • Bowlby's monotropic theory
     • rejected learning theory as an explanation; instead proposed evolutionary process and attachment is an innate system that gives a survival advantage- ensure young stay close to caregivers protecting them from hazards.
       • Monotropic- 'mono' attachment to one particular caregiver. Law of continuity, more constant and predictable a childs care the better the quality of attachment and law of accumulated separation, effects of every separation from mother add up.
       • social releasers and critical period-babies born with innate set of behaviours to encourage attention from adults (interactional synchrony and reciprocity)-the social releasers trigger attachment. This interplay begins in early years of life. Critical period of around two years/more of a sensitive period-if attachment not formed in this time will be much harder to do in later life.
       • Internal working model- child forms mental model of what relationship should be like with caregiver. How their relationship with caregiver is will be the expectation of all relationships. Affects later ability to be a parent themselves.

5. Ainsworth's strange situation

   • Secure attachment
     • Happy exploration but still proximity seeking and secure base behaviour. Moderate stranger and separation anxiety. Require comfort at reunion stage.
   • Insecure avoidant
     • Exploration with no proximity seeking or secure base behaviour. little or no separation or stranger anxiety and do not require comfort at reunion stage
   • Insecure resistant
     • Seek greater proximity with little exploration. Huge separation and stranger anxiety. Resist comfort at reunion stage
   • CONTROLLED OBSERVATION: Lab with two way mirror. Certain behaviours used to judge attachment. Procedure had 7 three minute episodes. Child encouraged to explore, stranger tries to interact with child, child and stranger left alone, stranger leaves and caregiver returns, child left completely alone,stranger returns and caregiver returns and is reunited with the child.

6. Cultural variations in attachment

   • STUDIES
     • Van Ijzendoorn+ Kroonenburg
       • PROCEDURE: 32 studies of attachment (strange situation) to investigate proportions of infants with different attachment types. 8 different countries, 15 USA. Data meta-analysed, results being combined and weighted for sample size. FINDINGS: In all countries secure attachment was the most common. Though strength varied from 74% UK and 50% China. Insecure resistant least common. Insecure avoidant most common in Germany
     • Simonella
       • ITALY: assessed 76 12-month old babies using SS. 50% were secure and 36% avoidant. Lower rate of secure than found in other studies- is it because increasing number of mothers working for long hours leaving kids in care. Cultural changes can make dramatic difference.
     • Jin
       • SS used to measure proportion of different attachment types in Korea using SS. Findings similar to most countries, most infants secure. Most classified as insecurely attached were resistant, only one avoidant. Similar child rearing styles to Japan?

7. Bowlbys theory of maternal deprivation

   • DERIVATION: prolonged separation can lead to intellectual and emotional development damage
   • CRITICAL PERIOD of 30 months: if deprivation occurs during this time period psychological damage is inevitable
   • EFFECTS ON DEVELOPMENT: Intellectual (low IQ) and emotional(affectionless psychopathy) unable to feel guilt or a strong emotion towards others.
   • BOWLBY STUDY: 44 criminal teenagers interviewed for AP. Families also interviewed to see if thieves had prolonged separation from mothers. Control group of emotionally disturbed criminals (not thieves). FINDINGS: 14/44 thieves AP,12/14 had experienced prolonged separtation for first 2 years. Control group only 2/44 had long separation.

8. Romanian orphan studies

   • RUTTER'S ENGLISH AND ROMANIAN ADOPTEE STUDY
     • PROCEDURE: Followed group of 165 Romanian orphans adopted in britain to see the extent to which good care could make up for poor early childhood experiences in institutions . Measured physical,cognitive and emotional development. 52 british adoptees acted as control group.
     • FINDINGS: on first arrival showed poor intellectual development and most undernourished. Aged 11 showed different rates of recovery related to age they were adopted. Those adopted earlier had higher IQ's. Depending on whether adoption took place before or after 6 months in terms of attachment. After-disinhibited attachment
   • THE BUCHAREST EARLY INTERVENTION PROJECT
     • PROCEDURE: attachment in 95 children 12-31 months- spent most time in institutional care. control group of 50 children-never spent time in institutional care. Measured using SS and disinhibited attachment.
     • FINDINGS: 74% control group securely attached, 19% institutional group, 65% dis-organised attachment. Disinhibited attachment fit 44% of IC only 20% control.
   • EFFECTS OF INSTITUTIONALISATION
     • Disinhibited attachment- equally friendly and affectionate towards ppl they know well and strangers. Adaption to living with multiple caregivers.
     • Mental retardation

9. Attachment in later relationships

   • Internal working model- mental rep of relationships. First relationship will affect this template. Bad experiences lead to bad internal model- poor future relationshps
   • Later childhood- securely attached tend to go on to form good relationships whereas insecure have poor friendships.Bullying behaviour can be predicted by attachment type; resistant the bullies, avoidant the victims
   • Relationships in adulthood with romantic partners-Mcarthy studied 40 adult women who had been assessed for attachment type in childhood. Securely attached in childhood had best adult relationships. Resistant had trouble maintaining friendships and avoidant struggled with intimacy.
     • Hazan and shaver 'love quiz' in American newspaper. 3 sections 1) current most important relationship 2)general love experiences 3)attachment type. Found:56% securely attached-longer lasting experiences. 25% avoidant revealed jealousy and fear of intimacy