Attachment
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| 🇬🇧 | 🇬🇧 |
| What is attachment? | An emotionla tie or relationship between two people shown in their behaviour which endures over time. Each person seeks closeness and feels more secure when in the presence of the attachment figure |
| What is reciprocity? | The idea that attachments are interactional, and that mothers and infant initate and repond to each other in a meaningful way. |
| What does reciprocate mean? | Respond to (a gesture or an action) by making a corresponding one |
| What is synchrony? | Simultaneous action, development or occurrence. |
| What did Lorenz notice in new-born orphaned animals? | They formed a rapid attachment to any animal that happens to be present and follow it as if it were their real mother. |
| What is a animal experiment? | Studying animals in a controlled setting with an IV. Conducted by ethologists. |
| A strength of animal studies? | Can be done on animals that would be impractical or unethical to do with humans |
| A weakness of animal studies? | Issue with animal extrapolation, humnas are still very different to animals - they may sahre a genotype but they do not share a phenotype |
| What was Lorenz's aim? | To examine the phenomenon of imprinting in non-human animals |
| What was the procedure with Lorenz | -Random devide of goose eggs into 2 batchs. -1 batch, control group, hatched naturally by the mother -2 batch, experimental gourp, placed in incubator and made sure that the first large moving object they saw was Lorenz. |
| What did Lorenz find with naturally-hatched goslings compared to incubator-hatched? | They followed their mother goose, unlike incubator-hatched goslings which followed Lorenz |
| What happened to naturally-hatched goslings when placed under an upside down box compared to experimental group? | They followed their mother immediately unlike the incubator-hatched which followed Lorenz |
| What was the critical period for attachment in Lorenz study? | 4-25 hours after hatching It was irreverisble |
| Conclusion of Lorenz? | Suggests that imprinting is a form of attachment that is exhibited by birds that leave the nest early, where they imprint onto the first large, moving object they encounter after hatching |
| What was the aim of Harlow's study? | To examine the extent to which contact comfort and food influences attachment behaviour in baby rhesus monkey's. |
| What were the 2 mothers in Harlow's experiment? | 2 surrogate mtohers: one harsh 'wire mother' and one soft 'towling mother' |
| What different conditions were the monkeys put in? | 16 baby monkesy put into 2 differnt caged conditions. 1: the milk was dispensed by the plain 'wire mother' 2: the milk was dispensed by the 'towelling mother' |
| What was recorded with Harlow? | The amount of time monkey's spent alongside each mother, how long spent feeding with each monkey. |
| How did Harlow test for Mother presense? | They played loud noises and their responses were recorded. |
| What was another condition for Harlow? | A large cage were used in some conditions to observe their degress of exploration by the baby monkeys. |
| What did Harlow find in preferrment of monkeys? | Given the choice, they preferred the 'towelling mother' irrespective if she dispensed milk. It would strech to the 'wire mother' for food while still holding onto the 'towelling mother' |
| What happened to monkeys with wire mothers? | Showed signs of distress like diarrhea |
| What happened if there was a loud noise with the monkeys? | They would cling to the 'towelling mother' when avaliable. |
| When was greater exploration seen with the monkeys? | When the baby had the 'towelling mother' |
| What is the conclusion for Harlow? | They appear to have an innate drive to seek contact comfort from their parents suggests that attachment is formed through emotional need for security rather than food. Allows for higher willingness to explore their surroundings and lower level of stress. |
| What were the long term effects of Harlow's experiment on the monkeys? | The maternal deprivation had a permanent effect. They were more aggressive and less sociable and they bred less When they were mothers, they neglected their young - some even attacking and killing their children. |
| A strength of Lorenz's study? | -Supporting research -Guiton supporting imprinting with Leghorn chicken on yellow rubber gloves that they were fed on for the first weeks of their lives. -The male chikcens later tried to mate with the gloves, showing that early imprinting linked to reproductive behaviour -Supports that a young animal will imprint on any moving obejct during the critical period, rather than having an innate drive. |
| A weakness of Lorenz's study? | -Criticism of the process -Guiton found that the chickens imprinting on the yellow gloves were reveresed. -After spending time with their own species, they could engage in normal sexual behaviour with other chickens. Suggests its more plastic and flexible mechanism than thought initially. -Suggests that imprinting is not differnt from other kinds of learning, rapid, done with litte conscious effort and reversible. Changes inital view about the permanence of imprinting. |
| A strength of Harlow's study? | -Real life application -Help with social workers and clinical psychologists to understand that lack of bonding experience can be a risk factor in child development -Allows professional bodies to intervene, to prevent poor developmental outcomes for babies (Howe) -Means that the reserach is both theoretical and practical for humans and animals, since the importnace of attachments figures for monkeys in zoos is also understood. |
| A weakness of Harlow's study? | -Potential confounding variables -2 surrogate mothers were varied on their heads -This could be a confounding variable due to them being varied systematically with the IV of the mother being cloth or wire. -Possible that the reson the monkey's preferred one mother other the other is bc the moth mother had a more attactive head, which means that the conclusions drawn may lack internal validity. |
| What is turn-taking? | When the action of one person, like a primary caregiver, elicits a response from the other, like the infant. Sustains the interaction of a mutual process. |
| What did Feldman say about the freqeuncy of reciprocity? | Increases in frequency around 3 months old as the infant and caregiver pay increasing attention to each other |
| What did Brezelton say about reciprocity and sensitivity? | Showing this sensitive reponsiveness, where the caregiver pays attantion sensitively to the infants behaviour, will lay a strong foundation for attachment to be later develop between them. |
| What is interactional synchrony? | Takes place when the infants mirror the actions or emotions of another person. In the caregiver and infant itneraction, the child will move their body or carry ou the same act as their caregiver simultaneously, in 'sync' |
| What was the aim of Meltzoff and Moore's aim? | To examine interactional synchrony in infants |
| What type of study was Meltzoff and Moore's | A controlled observation. An independent observer, a single blind study. |
| What would the adult model do? | Displayed 1 of 3 facial expressions or hand gesture to infants as young as 2 weeks. |
| Waht did the child have at the start? | They had a dummy placed in their mouth to prevent facial response. |
| What happened after the adult model had displayed an action? | The dummy was removed, and the child's expressions were filmed. Notes were taken of all intances of infant tounge protrusion by watcching the tape twice (intra-observer reliability) |
| What was the results of Meltztoff and Moore's study? | Clear and signficant association between the infants behaviour and the adult modle. They mirrored the expressions and gesutres. Inter-obersver reliability score were always higher than 0.92. |
| Conclusion of the study? | These findings suggest that interactional synchrony must be innate which reduced the strength of any claim that imitative behaviour is learned. |
| A strength of Meltzoff and Moore's study? | -Behaviours observed were video recorded in a lab -High levels of control is established, like rmeoving potential distractions from the baby's line of vision. -The videos were re-watched so that the researchers are unlikely to miss any key behaviours. Both inter and intra-obersver reliability can be established -Babies not aware they are being observed, so no demand characteristics, enhancing the validity of findings/conclusion. |
| A strenght of Meltzoff and Moore's study? | -Practical implications from the reserach, which can applied to benefit society -Crotwell studied interactional synchrony betwen 20 low-income mothers and their pre-school infants in comparison to a control group -Reserachers conducted a PICT session to improve the interactional synchrony between them -Suggests that the reserach can lead to valuable methods for developing and improving caregiver-infant relationships, espcecially in risk groups. |
| A weakness of Meltzoff and Moore's study? | -Hard to reliably interpret a baby's behaviour -Young babies had a lack of co-ordination of their limbs and most of their body is immoble. But their mouths tend to be in constant motion -Difficult to distinguish between general infant activity and specific imitated behaviour. Difficult to determine what is taking place from baby's POV. -Cannot be certain that the infants were actually engaging in interactional synchrony. Might have occured by chance, hard to determine a cause and effect relationship. |
| A weakness of Meltzoff and Moore's study? | -Not been replicated by other reserachers -Koepke failed to replicate the original findings. The researchers counterargued that this is becuase the follow-up reserach was lacking control -Possible that individual differences have a role to place in the inconsistent evidence, since Isabella et al found more strongly attached infant-caregiver pairs has greater interactional synchrony -Not fully understood what purpose these phenonmenon serve in childhood development, we can determine that, on balance, they are of importance. |
| What age is stage 1? | 0-2 months |
| What happens in stage 1? | Infant shows similiar responses to objects and people. Although towards the end of the stage, they do display a preference for faces/eyes |
| What age is stage 2? | 2-6 months |
| What is stage 2 called? | Indiscriminate attachment |
| What happens in stage 2? | Infant shows a preference for human company over non-human company. Can distinguish between different people, but are comformed indiscriminately (by anyone) Do not show stranger anxiety |
| What age is stage 3? | 7-12 months |
| What is stage 3 called? | Discriminate (specific) attachments |
| What happens in stage 3? | Infant shows a preference for 1 caregivier Show seperation and stranger anxiety. Infant looks to the person for security and protection Infant shows joy upon reunion and comforted by primary caregiver |
| What is age is stage 4? | 12+ months |
| What is stage 4 called? | Multiple attachments |
| What happens in stage 4? | Attachment behaviours now displayed towards several different people, like siblings and grandparents - sometimes referred as secondary attachment Typically form in the first month after primary attachmend, number of multiple attachments that developes depends on the social circle the infant is exposed to. |
| A strength? | -high external validity -conducted observations with children in their own home, more likley to act naturally -most of the observations were made by parents during ordinary activities and reported to observers - fewer distraction for the baby and less anxiety of the parents about being watched -therefore, good ecological validdity, results are likely to represent normal attachment behaviours in their everyday lives |
| A strength? | -practical application to the real world -Eg: understanding attchmnet behaviour can be useful in daycare whereby chilcren are cared for outside the home by a non-family adult -during ascoical and indiscriminate stages, daycare is likely to be easy, comfored by any adult. But research shows that starting daycare with an unfamiliar adult during the descriminate stage can be problematic -Therefore, the timing of putting children into daycare needs to be carefully plannaed to reduce distress, helpful info from Shaffer and Emerson |
| A weakness? | -Lacks population validity -Consisted of only 60 working class mothers and babies from Glasgow - could form different attachments compared to wealthier families or in other countries -Sample was from the 1960s, parental care has changed significantly since then, more women going to work and children being cared outside of the home or fathers staying at home to caregive -Unable to generalise the results to parents and babies from other countries, backgrouds and historical contexts, sample was so unique so it is no comparable |
| A weakness? | -possibility of social desirablity bias having an inmpace -Mothers were asksed to be observers and they are unlikely to be completely objective in their measures or might not have noticed the naunce of their infants behaviour -They interviewed mothers about thier children and some of them by not have reported accurate details to appear like 'better' mothers with secure attachment -Cause a bais in the data, reduce internal validity, even if the babies were behaving naturally at home, their behaviour might not have been accuratley remembered, interpreted or recorded by their mothers. |
| Shaffer's and Emerson's evidence for fathers being important? | Found that fathers do become more important. 75% of babies formed an attachment to father after 18 months Babies protested when the father walked away - sign of attachment |
| Grossman for fathers being important? | Found that quality of father's play with babies was related to adolescent attachments. Suggests that father have a different role to mothers, more with play and stimulation rather than an emotional development. |
| Field for fathers being important? | Filmed 4 month old babies in face-to-face interation with primary caregiver mothers, secondary caregiver fathers and primary caregiver fathers. Primary caregiver fathers, like mothers, spent more time holding and smiliing and imitating with babies more than secondary fathers. Important for reciprocity and interactional synchrony, part of the attachment formation, potential to be more the emotional focused primary attachment figure - prodive responsivness requried for a close emotional attachment but perhaps only as the primary caregiver. |
| Shaffer and Emerson's evidence for fathers are not important? | Found that the majority of babies were attached to their mothers for the first 7 months. Only 3% of the casses the father was the sole attachment object. In 27% of the cases, the father was the first joint object with the mother. |
| Grossman's evidence for fathers are not important? | Logitudinal study, babies attachments were studied until their teens. Looked at both parents behaviour and the quality of attachment later with other people. Quality of attachment in mothers but not fathers were related to attachments in adolescene. |
| McCallum and Golombok's evidence that fathers are less important? | Found that children growing up in single-parent or same-sex parent families do not develop any differently from those in two-parent heterosexual families, which suggests that father do not have a distincitve role in attachment. So the father isn't as important as a mother, or overly important. |
| A strength of the role of the father as the parent? | -Used as advice -Parents and parents-to-be can sometimes agnoise over decisiosn about who should take on the role of priamry caregiver, the mother may feel pressued to stay at home and do stereotypical roles -Equally fathers may feel pressure to work, rather than focsuing on parenting, even though it may not be best for the economic situation -Allows for heterosexual couples to be informed that fathers are capable for being the primary caregiver as well as inform single-mothers and lesbian couples that not having a father doesn't affect the child's development |
| A strength of the role of the father as a parent? | -Research support to provide evidence that fathers are a 'playmate' rather than a primary caregiver -Geiger found that a fathers' play interactions were more exciting in comparision to a mothers'. However, the mothers' play interaction were more affectionate and nurturing -This suggests that the role of the father is in fact as a playmate and not as a sensitive parent who responds to the needs of their children. These results confirm that the mother takes on a nuturing role -Means there is a distinctive and important role for fathers as a 'playmate', but families such as a single-parent or a lesbian-parent family can accommodate the role of the playmate |
| A weakness of the role of the father as a parent? | -Reseracher's investiagtion could have been biassed due to the preconceptions -Stereotypes such as 'father are stricter' or 'fathers are not primary caregivers' are often seen in advertising. It is possible that these stereotypical accounts and images of parenting roles and behaviours may cause unintentional observer bais -Causes teh reserach to lack internal valditiy seeing as the results may be subject to the reserachers bias -Researchers look for the results that they want to see rather than recording actual behaviour |
| A weakness of the role of the father as a parent? | -There is supporting research which suggests that father's aren't as biologically equipped as mothers to provide sensitive and nurturing attachments -Hrdy found that fathers were less able to detect low levels of infant distress, in comparison to mothers - These results appear to supprot the biological explanation that the lack of oestrogen in men means that fathers are not innately equipped to form close attachmnets with their children. -Means that the role of the father, to some extent, is determined by their biology and that their role is resticted due to their makeup |
| What is the milk in this situation? | The unconditioned stimulus |
| What is the mother in this situation? | The neutral stimulus |
| What is the happy baby in this situation? | Unconditioned response |
| Overtime what happens with the mother and the happy baby? | The mother becomes the conditioned stimulus The happy baby becomes a condtitoned response |
| How does learning theory explain attachment in the milk and baby and mother situation? | An attachment is created due to the baby relating the happiness of milk and feedings its satisfcation of milk with the mother's face. This causes an attachment to be formed as the mother allows for the baby to have milk. |
| What is food in the situation with operant conditioning? | Primary reinforcer |
| What is the mother in the situation with operant conditioning? | Secondary reinforcer |
| Why does the attachment occur with operant conditioning ? | The child seeks the person who can supply the reward (food etc) |
| What type of reinforcement does the mother and baby recieve? | The baby recieves positive reinforcemnet because it is being fed The mother recieves negative reinforcemenrt because the crying of the baby stops |
| Why does operant conditioning motivate both the mother and the baby? | They are both getting something unpleasant removed. The baby is the hunger and the mother is the crying. This is called neutral reinforcement |
| A strength of the learning theory of attachment? | -Have some explanatory power which allows it to be applied to real life -Might not provide a complete explanation for attachments in humans, has some value as how infants learn by association and reinforcement -Food might not be the main reinforcer and instead it might be attention and the reponsiveness from the caregiver that is the most rewarding interactions - which help with the formation of attachment between the 2. -The principles of the learning theory can be useful, and can be applied with caution |
| A weakness of the learning theory as an explanation for attachment? | -Contact comfort is more important than food -Harlow conducted an experiment with baby Rhesus monkeys where there were 2 mothers, a wire mother and a towelling mother. Both would dispense milk and he wanted to see which mother could the monkey's form an attachment to. -Found that the baby monkey spent more time with the surrogate mother that provided contact comfort over the food mother. They also went to the comfort mother during times of stress -Contradicts the learning theory as it shows that attachment is formed through the comfort of the parent not the need for food |
| A weakness of the learning theory as an explanation for attachment? | -The majority of the evidence is based on animals -Behaviourists believe that humans are no different to animals in how they learn, the learning theory as an explanation for attachment is largely based on studies with non-humans animals, eg: Pavlov's study with dogs -Though it may be legitimate to suggest that our behaviour patterns are constructed from the same basic building blocks of stimulus-response patterns, not all human behaviour can be explained by conditioning -Means that the behavioursit explanation of attachment may lack validity because classical and operant conditioning present an oversimplified version of human behaviour |
| A weakness of the learning theory as an explanation for attachment? | -Lack of reserach support form studies of human babies. -Schaffer and Emerson (1964) found that babies tended to form their main attachment to their mother, regardless of whether she was the one who usually fed them -In another study, Isabella et al found that high levels of interactional synchrony predicted the quality of attachmnet -Suggests that the role of food/feeidng doesn't play a big part in attachment as the theory suggests, and other theories must be considered to provide a more complete explanation. |
| What is the concept of monotropy? | Where the attachment is to a single specific caregiver, the relationship has a special significane and is the most important attachment in emotional development. There is a critical (sensitive, ideal) period of attachment. The child's relationship with their primary attachment figure provdies an internal working model which influences later relationships, expectation they have in their head. |
| What does innate mean? | Refers to characteristics that are born, a prodcut of genetic factors. Such traits may be present at birth or may appear as a results of maturation |
| What is imprinting? | Innate readiness to develop a strong bond with a mother figure, which takes place during a sensitive or critical period |
| What does adaptive mean? | An adjustment of an organism to increase the likelihood of survivial and ultimatley, reproduction |
| What is the critical/sensitive period? | A biologiclaly determind period of time during the child is particularly sensitive to the development of attachment. Said to happen during the 2nd wuarter of their first year (3-6) months, most sensitive to their development. But later said that it was a sensitive period, maybe up to 2 years - but later than that infants will have difficulty forming attachments. |
| What are social releasers? | Social behaviour or characteristic that elicits a care giving reaction and ensures caregiver reciprocity. Suggests that they are innate and adaptive and critical of attachments. eg: the baby face, crying, smiling, cooing noises |
| What is a secure base? | Attachment is important for protection and thus acts as a secure base from which a child can explore the world and be a haven to retreat to when threatened. Having a safe base helps to foster independence |
| What is monotropy? | One relationship that the infant has with their primary attachment figure which is of special signficance in emotional development. This is the name given to the bais towards the primary attachment figure. Inants also have a secondary attachment figures which form a hierarchy of attachments |
| What is the internal working model? | A mental model of the monotropic relationship that enables individuals to predict and control their world and future attachment. A clusture of concepts Long-term, acts as a template for all future relationships because it generates expections about how loving and reliable people behave. Influence the child's future pareting, explains why children from functional families tend to have similar family dynamics themselves in the future |
| What is the continuity hypothesis? | The idea that emotionally secure infants go on to be emotioanlly secure, trusting and socially confident adults. |
| A strength of Bowlby's theory? | -Research support for the role of social releasers as an innate trait, desgined to elicit a caregiving reaction -Brazelton observed babies trigger interactions with adults using social releasres. -The reserachers then instructed the babies' priamry attachment figures to ingnore them. Babies who were previously shwon to be normally reponsive, became increasingly distressed and some eventually curled up and layed emotionless -Illustrates the crucial role of social releasers in emotional development and suggests that they play an important role in the development of attachment |
| A strength of Bowlby's theory? | -Research support for the concept of the internal working model -Bailey assessed attachment relationships in 99 mothers and their 1 year old babies. Measured the mothers' attachment to their own primary attachment figures (parents) -Researchers also assessed the attachment quality of their babies. Found that mothers with poor attachment to their own primary attachment figures were more likely to have poorly attached babies -Supports Bowlby's idea that mothers' ability to form attachments to their babies is influence by their own internal working model, which is due to their own early attachment experiences |
| A weakness of of Bowlby's theory? | -A lack of reserach support for monotropy which Bowlby was said to be crucially important -Schaffer and Emerson found that although most babies did attach to one person at first, a signifiant minority formed multiple attachments at the same time. -Although the first attachment does appear to have a strong influence on later behaviour, this may simply mean its strong, no different in quality from the child's other attachment. Eg: other attachments to family members provide all the same key qualities (emotional support, safe base) -Means that Bowlby may be incorrect with his assertion that there is a unqiue quality and importance to the child's first primary attachment figure |