Attachment

Intro to Attachment

• Reciprocity - a description of how two people interact. Mother-infant interactions are reciprocal in that both infant and mothers respond to each others signals and each elicits a response from the other. Both the mother and baby are seen to take an active role, and reciprocity increases in frequency after three months.
• Interactional synchrony - Mother and infants actions are reciprocated in a coordinated manner. This is supposedly more important in forming attachments (Isabelle et al found a correlation between the two).
• Evaluation Points:
• Hard to observe and infer infant behaviour
• Observations are detailed and captured at many angles
• Do not tell us purpose, only description
• Grosmmans longitudinal study assessed the value of the father in a childs development. They found that quality of mother attachment was related to childrens attachments in adolescence, but the quality of fathers play with the

Schaffer's Stages of Attachment

• Procedure:
• 60 working class babies and mothers visited every month for a year and then again on 18th month - questions about separation and stranger anxiety
• Findings:
• 25-32 weeks of age - 50% babies show separation anxiety
• Attachment was with most interactive caregiver
• 40 weeks - 80% specific attachment - 40% - MA
• Stages of Attachment:
• Asocial stage - behaviour is same towards humans and objects, prefer company
• Indiscriminate attachment - preference for humans, accept comfort from everyone
• Specific attachment - stranger/separation anxiety, SA formed
• Multiple attachments - secondary attachments formed
• Evaluation points:
• observing natural behaviour = higher external validity
• longitdunal design - higher internal validity - less confounding variables
• hard to generalise
• Evaluation points:
• not much observable behaviour in asocial stage - unreliable evidence
• anxiety doesnt equal separation anxiety, Bowbly calls some people playmates
• behaviour observed is too simple and may not define attachment

Animal Studies

• Lorenz's Geese:
• Procedure:
• Half of geese eggs hatched with mother in natural setting, other half hatched in an incubator where the first moving object they saw was Lorenz
• Findiings:
• Groups followed their respective mother (first moving object they saw)
• This was lavelled imprinting, where some species attach themselves to the first moving object they saw (needed to take place in a critical period or no attachment formed)
• Sexual imprinting is the same, but instead of attachment, the first moving object later becomes the target of courtship behaviour
• Evaluation Points:
• Mammalian attachment different from birds - hard to generalise
• Imprinting may not be permanent- chickens moved away from yellow washing up gloves
• Harlows Monkey's:
• Procedure:
• 16 rhesus monkies reared with one wired mother and one cloth mother, both of whom dispensed milk in different conditions
• Findings:
• Monkies sought comfort from cloth mother even when it didnt dispense milk - contact comfort
• Monkies later showed problems with socialisation and aggression, sometimes even killing their own young
• Harlow also claims that attachment must be formed in critical period, or damage done by not forming attachment would be irreversible.
• Evaluation Points:
• showed what truly mattered when forming attachment and gave evidence for later life issues
• helped improve social care standards for humans and monkeys
• ethical issues

Learning Theory as an Explanation of Attachment

• Classical Conditioning:
• Food associated with pleasure (unconditioned stimulus) + carer (neutral stimulus) = conditioned stimulus evoking pleasure alone
• Operant Conditioning:
• Crying = feeding (pleasant), so crying is repeated
• Stopping baby cry = positive, so behaviour is repeated
• Evaluation Points:
• Lorenz and Harlow study show attachment is not associated with feeding
• Schaffer and Emerson showed the same as the above
• Ignores more complex interactions such as recirprocity and interactional synchrony
• association of comfort and caregiver is a better explanation

Bowlby's Theory

• Monotropic - the idea that one central attachment is more important to the child's development than any other. It must to be formed within a critical period to develop the internal working model.
• Internal working model - the mental representation we all carry with us of our attachment to our primary caregiver. This representation impacts of our perception of relationships, so is important for later life
• Social releasers - things babies do to elicit a response, such as crying
• Adaptive and innate - attachment has evolved to aid survival, and is built into us
• Vital as vitamins - attachment is essential for mental health
• Evaluation points:
• Schaffer and Emerson say some babies can form multiple attachments as well as the specific attachment. Attachment may be stronger but not different in quality - mixed evidence - lower validity
• Brazleton supports the idea by showing how babies replied with extreme social releasers such as lying motionless
• Bailey found that mothers who were seen to have poor attachments to their own parents had poor attachments with their own children (internal working model)
• Monotropy is socially sensitive, as women feel more responsible for childrens mistakes later in life, and pushes them into certain lifestyles (no work etc)

The Strange Situation

• A controlled observation conducted by Mary Ainsworth which tested attachment between mother and infant.
• Procedure:
• Child told to explore - tests secure base behaviour and exploration
• Stranger enters and tries to interact with child - tests stranger anxiety
• Caregiver leaves stranger and child together - tests stranger and separation anxiety
• Caregiver returns and stranger leaves - tests reunion behaviour and secure base behaviour
• Caregiver leaves child alone - tests separation anxiety
• Stranger returns - tests stranger anxiety
• Caregiver returns - tests reunion behaviour
• Findings:
• Secure Attachment - will explore but returns to caregiver regularly, moderate separation and stranger anxiety, require and accept comfort during reunion stage
• Insecure - avoidant - explore freely, little to no separation or stranger anxiety, require no comfort during reunion stage
• Insecure - resistant - less exploration, huge separationa and stranger anxiety, refuse to accept comfort during reunion stage
• Evaluation Points:
• Able to predict later life successes (SA high, IR low) = higher validity
• Good inter - rater reliability due to good behavioural categories = reliable
• Cultural differences means caregivers and infants behave differently, japanese babies are rarely separated, culturally bound
• Possibly more than 3 - disorganised attachment

Cultural Variations in Attachment

• Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg conducted a meta analysis of strange situation studies completed across 32 countries (15 of which were from the USA). Their findings were as follows:
• All countries had secure attachment as the highest
• All countries had insecure resistant as the lowest
• Insecure avoidant highest in Germany and lowest in Japan
• Although we can say highest and lowest, the proportions they are in were different, e.g. insecure resistant was 3% in Britain, but 30% in Israel, but they were the lowest in both countries.
• Simonella et al conducted the strange situation on 76 12-month olds. Although SA made up 50%, it was lower than other countries, as cultural changes meant mothers spent more time at work.
• Jin et al conducted the strange situation in Korea, finding similar proportions of secure and insecure to other countries (mostly reisistant, only one avoidant). This was similar to I+Ks study, and similar to Jaoan, due to similar child rearing styles.
• Evaluation Points:
• Very large sample = hgher internal validity as there are less anomalous results
• May not be cultural differences, but country differences. Areas compared may be rural or non rural, or middle class to lower class, which has more effect on attachment type.Samples may over represent
• SS is designed for western cultures, so behaviour may be interpreted as different in other countries
• SS may measure temparament

Bowlby - Maternal Deprivation

• Deprivation refers to the loss of elements of care, which is different to separation, which is simply a time where the baby is not in the presence of the primary caregiver. Extended separations can lead to deprivation, but the two are not the same, only linked to each other.
• Bowlby states that if a baby is deprived of emotional care from the mother for a prolonged period of time during the critical period (around first 30 months), then psychological damage is inevitable.
• Impacts of Deprivation:
• Intellectual – retardations in children, commonly in the form of an abnormally low IQ. For example, Goldfarb found that those in adoption centres had a lower IQ than those raised in foster homes, due to the environment relating to attachment
• Emotional – Affectionless psychopathy is the inability to experience guilt or strong emotions for others. It is not only associated with a failure to function adequately, but also elements of criminality.
• Bowlby’s 44 Thieves Study:
• Procedure – The sample used 44 teenage thieves, all of whom were interviewed for signs of affectionless psychopathy, characterised by lack of empathy, remorse etc. Their families were also interviewed to uncover any prolonged separations from mothers etc. A control group of non-criminal but emotionally disturbed children was also set up.
• Findings:
• 14/44 = Affectionless Psychopaths
• 12/14 = Experienced prolonged separation from mothers within 24 months
• 5/30 (remaining thieves) = Experienced separations
• 2/44 of control group = Affectionless Psychopaths
• It was concluded that prolonged early separation led to affectionless psychopathy.
• Evaluation Points:
• flawed studies due to other traumas suffered - bias in 44 thieves
• CP may be a sensitive period - Czech twins study
• Animal studies - Levy rats

Romanian Orphans

• Rutters English and Romanian Adoptee Study followed a group of 165 Romanian adoptees in Britain, and assessed physical, cognitive and emotional development at age 4, 6, 11 and 15. 52 british adoptees were used as a control group.
• On arrival, half of adoptees showed signs of mental retardation and were severely undernourished. At age 11, the adopted children showed varying signs of recovery depending on the time they were adopted, Those adopted earlier had higher mean IQs than those who were adopted later, and this stayed the same all the way up to age 16.
• It was concluded that children adopted after 6 months showed disinhibted attachment, which meant they were clingy, attention seeking, and favoured all adults.
• Zeenah et al assessed 95 children aged 12-31 months who had spent most of their lives in institutional care. They were assessed using the strange situation and their carers were interviewed for signs of disinhibited attachment. A control group of 50 children was also used.
• Whereas the control group had a majority of securely attached children, only 19% of the insitutuonalised children were SA, with the majority showing disogranised attachment 9bit of IA and IR).
• 40 % showed disinhibited attachment

Romanian Orphans

• Institutionalisation refers to the effects of living in an insitutional setting. The term institution refers to a place such as a care home or hospital, where children spent long periods of time in a setting which has little emotional care.
• Those who are institutionalised:
• Show little stranger anxiety
• Clingy
• Attention seeking
• Mental retardation depending on how long children spend time in insitution
• Evaluation:
• Real life application in care homes - key workers - smaller numbers for each child - very valuable
• No confounding variables in terms of trauma - they were placed in care immediately. rather than witnessing wars, abuse etc - higher internal validity
• Romanian orphanages may have been so bad, that it is hard to generalise acorss other places
• Longitudinal means study is ongoing and results are not definite

Influence of early attachment

• Kerns - SAs had better quality childhood friendships than IAs, who had friendship difficulties
• Myron-Wilson and Smith - SAs not involved in bullying, IAs are victims and IR are bullies, findings from a questionnaire given to 196 7-11 year olds
• McCarthy - SAs had better quality friendships and romantic relationships, IAs had problems with intimacy and IRs had struggle maintaining, findings from a study of 40 adult women
• Hazan and Shaver - assessed 620 replies to a love quiz which assessed current relationships, general love experiences and attachment type. They found that SAs had better quality friendships and romantic relationships, IAs had problems with intimacy. Majority were SA
• Bailey - majority of women have the same attachment with their child as they did with their own mothers, findings from a study using the SS with 99 cases
• Evaluation Points:
• Support for IWM comes from research on the left, but a study by Zimmerman found little relationship between quality of infant + adolescent attachment - lowers validity
• Association does not equal causation - temparament and parenting style
• Validity is low as assessment uses interviews which rely on honesty - IWM is unconscious but self report methods are conscious
• Probabilistic not inevitavle