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PSYCHOLOGY ATTACHMENT - Coggle Diagram

- - - - Adopted children had formed cose attachments to thier new parents whereas restored children did not this is likely due to the fact that the parents may have had a reason they gave the child up for adoption which affects the quality of care they recieve
      - Both groups of chldren were more likely to seek adult attention and approval than controls, they were also less socially successful in building relationships
    - - At ages 8 and 16 the children along with a control group were interviewed
      - At 4 years, 24 had been adopted, 11 went back to thier original homes and the rest remained at the orphanage
      - 65 children who had been placed in an orphanage which had strict rules against carers forming attachments with the children suggesting they experienced privation
  - - - Quinton compared 50 ex institutionalised women with 50 controls and found that the institutionalised women had difficulty with parenting and more of thier children spent time in care themselves
      - Harlow's research showed that the monkeys raised without a mother were unfit mothers in the future
  - - - 54 were adopted by the age of 4
      - Compared to a control group of 52
      - Tested for physical social and cognitive development at the ages 4, 6, 11 and 15
      - 111 children were adopted before the age of 2
    - - Consequences are likely to be severe if a child does not form an attachment
      - Consequences are less severe than once thought for a child who is able to form an attachment earlier
    - - By age 4 many of the children who had been adopted before 6 months had caught up with control group
      - For many of the children who were not adopted before 6 months, they showed disinhibited attachment type
      - At the time of adoption romanian orphans were behind the control group in every category
      - Disinhibited attachment- when a child does not seem to prefer parents over other people and will seek comfort and attention from anyone
  - - - Practical applications as it shows the effects of privation and instututionalisation meaning that we can improve care for children in order to avoid these consequences, e.g allocating each child a key worker that thet can develop a more focused attachment
      - The findings of these studies have higher internal validity as many other orphans that could be observed have often suffered trauma prior to institutionalisation which is a confounding variable
      - Longitudinal studies are important when researching long term consequences, as it avoids making assumptions about how long the effects of institutionalisation can last, it is therefore a more valid account of the consequences
    - - Low generalisability- because the conditions in romanian orphanages were so extreme and rare it is hard to generalise findings to even regualr orphans or other children in care
      - We can never be certain of the full long term effects as we cannot monitor them thier whole lives and niether could we then conclude that the problems experienced are down to institutionalisation
- - - - Law of accumulated separation- the effects of every separation from the PCG add up therefore the safest dose is 0
      - Law of continuity- the more constant and predictable a childs care is the better the quality of attachment
  - - - Intellectual- Low IQ, Goldfarb demonstrated that children who remained in institutions had a lower IQ than those who left into foster care
      - Emotionless psychopathy
        
        Inability to experience guilt or strong emotions for others
        
        Associated with criminality and difficulty forming relationships
        
        Lack remorse as they cannot appreciate a victims feelings
    - - +
        
        Bifulco
        
        Studied 250 women who lost mothers before 17
        
        Loss of the mother via seperation or death doubles the risk of anxiety and depressive disorders in adult women
        
        rate of depression was highest amongst women who lost mothers before the age of 6 supporting Bowlby's idea of the critical period being important
        
        Harlow's monkeys, the long term consequences such as inability to socialise/ parent supports this
        
        Bowlby 44 juvenile theives
        
        44 were thieves other 44 were control
        
        Categorised 14 of the 44 theives as emotionless psychopaths
        
        Studied 88 children who were emotionally maladjusted
        
        12 of the 14 emotionless psychopaths had experienced frequent early seperation from thier mothers
        
        Strengthens the suggested link between maternal deprivation and consequences such as emotionless psychopathy
      - _
        
        Lewis
        
        History of prolonged seperation from mother did not predict criminality or difficulty forming relationships
        
        Suggests other factors caused Bowlby's results
        
        Replicated the 44 theives with a sample of 500
        
        Sensitive period, not critical
        
        Damage is not irreversable
        
        Koluchova twins were locked in a cupboard by step mother but after rehab they went on to marry with normal IQ
        
        Unclear
        
        Rutter points out how bowlby seems to mix up privation and deprivation, as privation has the long term effects not deprivation
    - - Brief seperations dont have lasting effects but prolonged separations without substitute care, maternal deprivation, leads to serious long lasting problems
      - Damage is ineviable if the child is seperated from the mother for an extended period of time during the critical period (first 2.5 years)
  - - - Infants form one main attachment (monotropy)
      - This one attachment provides an internal working model
      - Infants need to attach within a critical period or there may be negative consequences
  - - - Bailey research
        
        Interviewed the mothers on thier attachment to thier own mother, observed the babies attachment to the mothers
        
        Found that mothers who reported poor attachments with thier own mother also had poorly attached babies upon observation, supports the idea of the IWM
        
        Assessed 99 mothers with 1 year old babies
      - Hazan and Shaver love quiz found that adults who had secure attachments in childhood had positive beliefs about love, and it being mutually loving long lasting and trusting, supports the idea of IWM and first attachments affecting adult relationships
    - - Shaffer and Emerson found that forming multiple meaningful attachments was the norm for babies, the mother was not the primary attachment figure for 35% of the babies and 31% formed multiple attachments, this challenges the beliefs of monotropy
      - Kagan temperament hypothesis
        
        The opposite is true, that some children have an innate difficult and incompatible personality making comfort from a caregiver less likely
        
        Challenges Bowlby's idea that innate drive to attach is universal, as there are individual differences in temperament
        
        Argues that some children are born with an innate personality which makes them more appealing to a caregiver, more friendly, therefore it is easier to attach
        
        These temperaments would also affect a child adult relationships, not the IWM
- - - - Dollard and Miller argue that a baby is fed almost 2000 times in the first year providing lots of opportunity to be conditioned, they therfore suggest that this is the way babies form attachments
      - Learning theory is most suitable- we can see that children learn through reinforcement as the strongest attachments form with caregivers who are attentive to the babies signals, so there are other factors aside from feeding that can condition an attachment, this is kind of a strength and a weakness and the theory is not exhaustive enough to cover the other influences but is still true
    - - Challenged by Harlow- harlow's monkey study found that tactile comfort was more important than feeding, as babies spent more time on thier cloth mother even when she was not the one providing food, arguing that food is not crucial for forming an attachment
      - Challenged by Shaffer and Emerson- In 39% of cases the mother who fed the baby was not the primary attachment figure suggesting that there are other activities that help form an attachment
      - Bowlby challenges- Bowlby's theories emphasise the biological factors involved in forming an attachment such as his idea that all children have an innate drive to attach as a means of survival as a vulnerable child, and that adults have an innate drive to attach to thier infants otherwise the 2 way bond would not develop
- - - - 56% were secure
      - 25% avoidant
      - 19% anxious
      - Securely attached aduls believed love lasted forever and rarely got divorced
      - Insecurely attached adults reported more loneliness
      - These findings suggest that attachment types can affect adult relationships
    - - _
        
        The research is correlational, can't be sure of cause and effect
        
        Volunteer sample so you can't generalise because they may have distinctive characteristics
        
        Self- report techniques are used which risks social desirablility bias and also everyday people may not have a good understanding of thier own self
  - - - Practical applications, if schools and parents can understand that a child's IWM affects them in later life, they can target this and attempt to create a healthy IWM by tackling things such as bullying and lonliness, this can ultimately improve the lives of adults which is good
    - - Continuity hypothesis is deterministic and may lead people with bad childhoods to believe they are doomed to a socially difficult or loveless life
      - Things like childhood and adult relationships can't be easily or ethically manipulated long term so its hard to test experimentally
      - Bowlby said the IWM is subconscious so its untestable
      - Kagan's temperment hypothesis argues that a child's predisposed prsonality is the reason for their relationships not thier IWM
- - - - Both groups spent more time with the cloth mother even when she didnt have food
      - When food was available from the wire mother, they only went to the wire mother when they needed food and the immediately returned to the cloth mother
      - Infant explored more when cloth mother was present and sought refuge from fear with cloth mother
      - Long term results
        
        much more timid
        
        when monkeys were left with the surrogates for more than 90 days, when they grew up they were:
        
        didnt have socialising skills to interact with other monkeys- were aggressive
        
        had difficulty finding mates/ mating
        
        the females were inadequate mothers
        
        when monekys spent less than 90 days with the surrogates these effects were reversible
    - - 16 monkeys were separated from their mothers immediately after birth and placed in cages with access to two surrogate mothers, one made of wire and one covered in soft towel material
      - 8 monkeys could get milk from the wire mother, 8 could get milk from the cloth mother
    - - _
        
        Application to humans- findings can only be generalised to an extent because we are a different species to monkeys
        
        Ethical issues- caused long term irreversable trauma to the monkeys which caused physical and psychological harm (some monkeys self mutilated)
        
        Confounding variable- the cloth mother had a more monkey like face with fake eyes, the wire one did not. This confounding variable means that the babies may have prefered the cloth mother due to the familair face, not the feeding. this means that results lack internal validity as this was not controlled for
      - +
        
        Application to humans- humans and mokeys are both mammals which have a similar emotional attachment style therefore results may be generalised (to an extent)
        
        Shows the importance of tactile comfort on attachment which can inform how we care for human babies for example letting new mothers hold thier babies after birth
  - - - divided a clutch of goslings into two groups. one group left with natural mother and one put in incubator .
      - marked them both to distinguish them and reunited them, placed a box over them and had him on one side and their natural mother on the other side, when he lifted to box half ran to each side
      - when the incubator group hatched the first thing they saw was Lorenz and they started following him around.
    - - +
        
        Guiton
        
        Shows that chicks/ animals are predisposed to imprint not specifically on the mother but on anything that is present during the critical period
        
        Demonstrated that chicks could imprint on the rubber gloves used for feeding
        
        Important information- Lorenz' idea of a critical period influenced Bowlby's work on humans and thier critical period, this means it is a crucial study for the attachment theories of humans, the results can be extrapolated
      - _
        
        Different species- despite the importance of lorenz' work, sudies on birds are hard to generalise to humans. this is because birds and mammals have different parenting styles for example mammals are more emotional. this means results between species aren't reliable
        
        Questionable findings- While Guiton supports Lorenz' work he also challenged it, he found that his chicks which imprinted on rubber gloves did try and mate with gloves as adults as lorenz would predict but with experience learned to mate with other chickens, suggesting that imprinting does not determine mating behaviour as strongly as lorenz believed, and his theory lacks validity
- - - - What was observed
        
        Infants willingness to explore- whether they use thier mother as a safe base
        
        Seperation anxiety- the amount of unease shown when the caregiver leaves
        
        Stranger anxiety- the amount of unease in the presence of a stranger
        
        Reunion behaviour- the way the infant greets the caregiver upon return
      - 8 steps
        
        Parent and infant play
        
        Parent sits infant plays
        
        Stranger enters and talks to parent
        
        Parent leaves
        
        Parent returns, stranger leaves
        
        Parent leaves, infant is alone
        
        Stranger enters
        
        Parent enters
      - A controlled observation
      - Participants- 100 middle class american mothers and thier children
    - - Ainsworth identified 3 different types of attachment and behaviours in each situation according to different attachment types
      - Types
        
        Secure
        
        Happily explores and seeks proximity with caregiver
        
        Experiences moderate separation anxiety
        
        Experiences moderate stranger anxiety
        
        Requires and accepts comfort from caregiver upon reuinion
        
        66% of babies are securely attached
        
        Insecure avoidant
        
        Little/ no seperation anxiety
        
        Little/ no stranger anxiety
        
        Requires no comfort upon reunion
        
        Child explores freely and does not seek proximity to CG
        
        22% of babies are insecure avoidant
        
        Insecure resistant
        
        Explores less and seeks more proximity
        
        Considerable seperation anxiety
        
        Considerable stranger anxiety
        
        Resists comfort upon reunion
        
        12% of babies are insecure resistant
    - - _
        
        Main and Solomon observe a 4th attachment type- disorganised attachment where a child displays both avoidant and resistant behaviours, suggests that Ainsworths original categories were not exhaustive and therefore not fully valid
        
        Methodological issues- Ainsworth's research only looks at the childs attachment to the mother, when a child's primary caregiver may be a father or grandmother, this confounding variable could make a child seem insecurely attached to the mother, but they are securely attached to the father. This confounding variable decreases internal validity
        
        Unethical- may be stressful for a child to be seperated from mother and exposed to a stranger
        
        Lacks generalisability- done on american women only
      - +
        
        Inter rater reliability- Bick et al found that different observers watching the same children agreed on attachment type 94% of the time. This shows that the behavioural categories are well explained and the level of control is good, adds reliability and validity to research
        
        Practical applications- teaching caregivers to be more attentive to an infants distress signals can increase the number of securely attached children
        
        Predictive validity- we can see that childhood attachments affect life and relationships as secure children become more successful adults and insecurely attached children can be bullied or have mental health problems. we can then use attachment types to predict where a person may need help and intervene, improving lives
  - - - Israel
        
        Resistant attachment common
        
        avoidant attachment rare
      - Japan
        
        Avoidant attachment rare
      - Germany
        
        Highest percentage of avoidant attachment
        
        German parents seek independent non clingy infants
      - China
        
        Lowest percentage of secure attachment
      - Britain
        
        Highest percentage of secure attachment
        
        Resistant attachment rare
    - - With over 2000 babies
      - In 8 countries
      - 32 strange situation studies
    - - +
        
        Applications to psychology- this was the first major attachment meta analysis and provided valuable insight into how global child rearing practices and variations influence attachment
        
        Really large sample size of over 2000 babies makes it more generalisable
        
        Meta anlaysis is ethically sound as no babies were caused distress in the experiment as it was all data analysis, no new experimentation
      - _
        
        Ethnocentrism- the strange situation and attachment types are built around american values and norms, while insecure avoidant has negative connotations it is encouraged and common in germany therefore not appropriate for other cultures
        
        Not representative- there were 18 studies in the USA but only 1 in china, this means that the results may not represent the whole country and cannot be nationally generalised
        
        There are more differences within cultures than between them as lots of varation in amount of securely attached children was found across america, this means the cultural differences may not be as drastic or important as they seem