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Attachment Psychology - Coggle Diagram
Attachment Psychology
bowlbys theory - explanations of attachment
consequences of attachment - formation of internal working model that acts as template for all future relationships. continuity hypothesis says infants who aren't strongly attached can have social and emotional difficulties in adulthood
study to support continuity hypothesis - followed ppts from infancy to adolescence and found securely attached in infancy were highest rated for social competence
how attachments form - critical period: infants have innate drive to become attached at around 3-6 months. who they become attached to is determined by sensitivity.
social releasers: innate mechanisms that explain how attachments are formed e.g a 'babyface' or smiling
Monotropy: infants have one primary attachment
critical period should be called sensitive period as Rutter has shown it's possible for attachments to form outside this window
The temperament hypothesis - attachment is based on the infants behaviour rather than the attachment figures sensitivity.
multiple attachment model proposes all attachments are integrated into a single IWM
why attachments form - attachment behaviour evolved as a survival function
attachment is adaptive: if attachment evolved for survival, the critical period would be much earlier - attachments develop when infants start crawling as that's when its needed.
animal studies in attachment
Harlow - monkeys - two fake mothers: wire mother and cloth mother. found that even though the wire mother had food, the monkeys only stayed on it to drink and moved back to the cloth mother. - suggest infants develop attachment to those who offer contact comfort
confounding variables - the heads of the mothers looked different
animal studies can act as a useful pointer in understanding humans, but results can't always be generalised
ethical issues - he study created lasting emotional harm
Lorenz - two groups of geese, one left with natural mother one in incubator. the incubator ones saw lorenz first to test imprinting. found: when the groups were put together they divided and the incubated showed no recognition of their natural mother. some effects also long lasting
research support: Guiton - leghorn chicks became imprinted onto yellow rubber gloves when exposed to then during feeding
criticisms: imprinting more plastic and forgiving. Guiton found he could reverse the imprinting of the chickens hat were trying to mate with the rubber gloves
romanian orphan studies - effects of institutionalisation
165 Romanian children who spent their early lives in Romanian institutions. 111 were adopted before 2 yrs old, 54 by the age of 4. compared to 52 british children adopted by age of 6
at the time of adoption, the Romanian children lagged behind. by 4 yrs some had caught up, most of those adopted before 6 months. long-term consequences less severe if they had the opportunity to form an attachment
effects of institutionalisation:
intellectual underfunctioning - cognitive development affected by emotional deprivation
disinhibited attachment - insecure attachment where children don't discriminate between who they choose as attachment figures
physical underdevelopment - Gardner - lack of emotional care is the cause of deprivation dwarfism
poor parenting - Harlow showed monkeys raised by surrogate mother became poor parents. Quinton et al study showed it's similar with women reared in institutions had difficulties acting as parents
Evaluation
longitudinal studies - very time consuming but show how the effects disappear over time rather than mistaking major effects early on
deprivation is one factor - confounding variable such as the poor physical conditions and lack of cognitive stimulation
real-life application - changed the way children were looked after in hospital - babies now adopted within first weeks of birth
slower development - may just need more time to cope with relationships
individual differences - some children not as strongly affected than others
other studies: le Mare and Audet - findings from longitudinal study of 36 Romanian orphans. Found adopted orphans were physically smaller at 4 and a half yrs but that disappeared at 10 and a half yrs.
Zeanah et al - 136 Romanian children who spent 90% of their lives in an institution - showed signs of disinhibited attachment (attach to everyone)
Caregiver-infant interactions
interaction synchrony - infant copying the action of the caregiver
reciprocity - the reaction of the infant as a response to the caregiver
study - meltzoff and moore - adult model displayed facial expressions or hand movements, infant expressions after then filmed. controlled observation of the infants response where observers had to note all instances of certain movements under categories. found association.
pseudo-imitation - piaget - believed true imitation only developed after 1 year, anything before that is a kind of response training
murray and trevarthen - study of infant interacting with mother on live video vs a non-responsive video. infant eliciting response to gain mothers interest. shows infant interection is intentional and supports idea behaviours are innate.
testing infant behaviour is hard as they're constantly moving - meltzoff and moore used observers that didn't no what behaviour was being imitated
individual differences - variations of synchrony depending on attachment type
the development of attachment
Schaffer and Emerson studies 60 working class homes from Glasgow. mothers were visited ever week and reported on the infants response to separation in 7 everyday situations
found stages of attachment:
indiscriminate attachment - similar response to all objects
the beginning of attachment - prefer human company
discriminate attachment - separation anxiety and primary attachment
multiple attachments - multiple attachments formed
unreliable - based on mothers bias reports
bias sample - all working class and from 1960s
Cultural variations - childcare differs - individualistic cultures (e.g uk) vs communal environment (e.g israeli kibbutzim)
Stages are inflexible and thus could be problematic if they become a standard by which families are judged
learning theory - explanations of attachment
all behaviour is learned rather than inborn - classical conditioning + operant conditioning
classical conditioning - learning through association. NS regularly and consistently paired with an UCs it takes the properties of the UCS and becomes a CS and produces a CR. e.g seeing the person that usually feeds gives the infant a feeling of pleasure
suggests food is the main element for attachment - simplifies and ignores important factors such as contact comfort
drive reduction theory limited - some things people find pleasure in that increases discomfort such as bungee jumping
operant conditioning - learning through reinforcement. attachment occurs because the child seeks the person who can supply the reward.
learning theory based on animal studies - may lack validity because they present oversimplified version of human behaviour
social learning theory - hay and vespo: modelling can explain attachment behaviour - imitate parents affectionate behaviour.
Bowlbys theory offers more complete explanation - gives reasons why and strenghts of attachment
cultural variations in attachment
van izjendoorn and kroonenberg did a meta analysis of 32 results from Ainsworth's strange situations across the world - type of attachment most common varies from country to country
found: small differences, secure attachment most common in all studies. insecure avoidant next most common except Israel and japan (were collectivist at the time)
Evaluation:
Cultural similarities due to global culture rather than biology
‘Cultural variations’ exist within countries as well, so caution needs to be taken when assessing whether a sample is representative of a whole culture
Lack validity - the strange situation was designed by an american. What is a sign of secure attachment in one culture could show insecure in another.
Core concepts of attachment are universal - but the way they’re expressed vary
Cultural similarities: Tronick et al - african tribe (the Efe) infants looked after and breastfed by different women but slept with mother at night still showed one primary attachment
Cultural Differences: Grossman and Grossman - higher levels of insecure attachment among German infants. may be because German culture involves interpersonal distance between parents and children. Japanese children showed high levels of insecure resistant and distressed when left alone, maybe because Japanese infants rarely experience separation from mothers.
Ainsworths strange situation - types of attachment
a controlled observation to test attachment security. 9 x 9 foot room, mapped into squares to record movements. 8 episodes to observe infants response such as separation from caregiver reunion with caregiver and response to stranger
found: 3 different attachment types -
insecure avoidant - avoid social interaction and intimacy
insecure resistant - both seek and resist social interaction
securely attached - strong attachments with caregiver
Insecure-disorganised - some infants don't have a consistent type of attachment. Suggests Ainstworth’s conclusions were oversimplified
High reliability of observations - almost perfect agreement between ratings.
Real-world application - this research could be used to tackle situations with disordered patterns of attachment e.g teach caregivers to understand infants signals of distress
Low internal validity - study showed children behave differently depending on which parent they are with, so the strange situation may just be measuring the quality of a relationship rather than personal characteristics
Cultural differences - secure base behaviour varies, but the core concepts of attachment are universal
bowlbys theory of maternal deprivation
Children need a 'warm, intimate and continuous relationship' with a mother .If children don't form attachment during critical period it has lasting effects of the child into adult life
44 juvenile thieves - 44 children in child guidance clinic stealing, those identified as 'affectionless psychopaths' had experienced frequent separation from their mothers
Evaluation: emotional separation can also lead to deprivation
Bifulco et al - 25% of women who had experienced separation for more than a year had reater levels of depression and anxiety compared to 15% o no seperation
real-world - changed the way children were cared for in the hospitable
individual differences - bowlby - children staying at hospital for TB could only be visited once a week but showed no significant differences between them and ther peers
Bowlby didn't specify whether the child's attachment had been formed then broken (privation) or no attachment had ever been made - could negatively affect validity
the influence of early attachment
internal working model: mental model of the world - relates to a persons expectations of the world around them
Hazan and Shaver: left quiz in shop for people to fill in about their childhood and current views on relationships. 620 responses, 205 men, 415 women. Found: prevalence of attachment styles similar to that found in infancy, found positive correlation between attachment type and love experiences and found relationship between the conception of love and attachment type
behaviours influenced by IWM
poor parenting - Quinton et al - lack of IWM means they lack reference for relationships with own children
romantic relationships - securely attached had longer lasting relationships
childhood friendship - securely attached in infancy meant more socially competent (they have higher expectations that others are friendly and trusting)
mental health - attachment disorder - inability to interact and relate to others
evaluation
deterministic - suggests early experiences have fixed effect - children insecurely attached may feel doomed. there are many instances of happy adult relationships without secure infant attachment
low correlation - Fraley - found low correlations for attachment and later relationships
retrospective classification - the questions about their childhood may not be reliable as memories aren't always accurate
alternative explanation - adult relationships guided by a self-variation process - tendency to seek others who confirm your expectations of relationships
research is correlational - cannot claim it's cause and effect