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Theories of Attachment - Coggle Diagram
Theories of Attachment
Bowlby's Theory
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Bowlby's theory of attachment suggested that children come into the world biologically pre-programmed to form attachment with others because this will help them survive.
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He discovered that there are four ways to categorise attachment, these are secure, insecure-avoidant, insecure-ambivalent and insecure-disorganised.
Disorganised - child shows no attachment behaviours, often appear dazed or confused in the presence of the parent.
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Avoidant - child shows no distress when the parent leaves and no acknowledgement when the parent returns, doesn't make contact.
secure - the child is able to separate from their parents and seek comfort in their return, greeting them with a positive response.
He suggested that a baby will form an attachment to one figure to act as a secure base in the exploring world so whenever they get freaked out or need to seek comfort, they have someone to go to.
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the baby will display social releasers such as crying or smiling to increase chances of receiving care.
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Ainsworth's Theory
The strange situation is a standardised procedure devised by Ainsworth to observe attachment security in children within context of caregiver relationships. This applies to infants between the age of 9 and 18 months.
The security of attachment in 1-2 year old children were investigated using the strange situation paradigm, in order to determine the nature of attachment behaviours and styles of attachment.
Mary Ainsworth worked with John Bowlby where she began her research of maternal development of the "strange situation" assessment used to observe child attachment exist: secure, anxious-avoidant and anxious.
The procedure involves a series of eight episodes lasting approximately three minutes each, whereby a mother, child and stranger are introduces, separated and reunited.
The experiment is set up in a small room with one way glass so the behaviour of the infant can be observed covertly. the sample was 100 American families.
The eight stages
- mother, baby and experimenter (lasts for less that one minute)
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- a stranger joins the mother and baby
- mother leaves the baby alone with the stranger
- mother return and stranger leaves
- mother leaves, baby is left alone
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- mother returns and stranger leaves
Scoring: based primarily on four interaction behaviours directed to the mother in the two reunion episodes.
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Rutter's Theory
He suggests that the clingy, attention seeking, guilt and dependent behaviour may not be due to the lack of attachment to their mother but to factors of the lack of intellectual stimulation and social experiences.
He wrote a book called the Maternal Deprivation Re-assessed. In the book, Rutter explained that Bowlby's theory may of oversimplified the concept of maternal deprivation.
Rutter re-assessed Bowlby's theory and suggested that infants and young children display a whole range of attachment behaviours towards a variety of different figures not specific to the mother. the mother is not special in the way that the infant shows its attachment to her.
He concluded it was conflict and stress which came before the separation rather than the separation itself, which was the cause of antisocial behaviour.
Rutter argued that if a child fails to develop attachment, this is 'privation', whereas 'deprivation' is the loss or damage to attachment.
Deprivation - the loss of something someone once had.
Privation - never having something in the first place.
According to Rutter, privation should be the most likely to lead to attention seeking, a personality characterised by lack of guilt and clingy behaviour.
Rutter's procedure:
He studied over 2000 boys between 9 and 12 years old living on the Isle of Wight. He used interviews with the boys and their families to see if the boys who had been separated from their mothers in early life turned to crime later on.
He found that if the separation was due to illness or death of the mother, the boy was unlikely to turn to crime. However, if the separation was due to psychological disorder or one or both of the parents, or to stress and arguments in the family, they were four times more likely to turn to crime.
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