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Attachment A03, Counter evidence from animal studies
For example Lorenz…
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- Counter evidence from animal studies
For example Lorenz ducks imprinted on the first moving object they saw regardless if this object was associated with food. Also considering Harlow's research with monkeys there is no support for the importance of food, as Harlow's monkeys preferred contact comfort with the soft wire monkey compared to the wire monkey that provided milk. This shows there are other factors other than food in the formation of an attachment
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- Lorenz
existence of support for the concept imprinting,
Regolin and Vallortigara. Chicks where exposed to a simple shape combinations that moved. Such as a triangle with a rectangle in front. The chicks followed the original most closely. This supports the view that young animals are born with an innate mechanism to imprint on a moving object, in the critical period
- Generalisability to humans
one criticism is the ability to generalise the findings from birds to humans, The mammalian attachment style is quite different and more complex than birds. its a two way process
- Harlow
- this research is important to real world applications, for example its helped social workers and clinical psychologists understand the lack of bonding experience which may be a risk factor in a child's development. (Howe)
Along with the importance of attachment figures for baby monkeys in zoos and breeding programs in the wild.
- One limitation is the ability to generalises Harlow's findings to humans, Monkeys are more similar to humans than birds but human behaviour and brains are still more complex than a monkeys
- Ethical issues
- Learning theory has some explanatory power
it can explain some aspects of behaviour, infants do learn through reinforcement and association. But food may not be the main reinforcer. It may be attention as responsiveness from the caregiver are the important rewards that assists in the formation of attachment. . Furthermore it may be responsiveness that infants learn to imitate. This means that conditioning may still be involved and learning theory may still be useful in understanding attachments
- however it can be argued that there is better explanations. Bowlby's theory of the monotropic theory has many strengths compared to learning theory. It explains why attachments form not just how as according to Bowlby its a survival tactic that includes protection, This suggest that Bowlby offers a more complete explanation of attachment
- Validity of monotropy challenged, as it lacks validity. Schaffer and Emerson found that although most babies did attach to one person at first, a sig minority formed multiple attachments at the same time. The first attachment does have a strong influence on later behaviour, this does not mean its stronger and may not be different in quality to other attachments. Attachment with other key members of families provide all the same key qualities such as emotional care
suggesting Bowlby may incorrect that there is a unique quality and importance to the child's first attachment.
- support for social releasers
one strength is that there is support for social releasers, as cute baby behaviours are designed to elicit interaction from caregivers. (Brazelton) observed babies trigger social interaction using social releasers. The researcher's the ordered the babies primary attachment figures to ignore the babies social releasers. The babies became increasingly distressed and eventually curled up and remained motionless. This illustrates the importance of social releasers on emotional development and the process of forming an attachment.
- Support for IWM, The idea of the iwm predicting patterns of attachment that will be passed on one generation to the next is supported by Bailey at al. who assessed attachment relationships in 99 mothers and their one year old babies. they then assessed the attachment of the mothers, to there own parents. They found mother with poor attachment also had poorly attached babies. This supports Bowlby's view that mothers ability to form attachments to their own babies is influenced by their own IWM
- Good reliability, it has good inter-reliability. Bick tested inter-reliability, for a team of trained observers and found agreement on 94% of cases. This high level of reliability may be because the controlled conditions the experiment takes place in. and the behavioural categories contain large movements that are easily observable.
This means we can be confident that attachment type does not depend on subjective judgements
- However the strange situation may be culture bound. as it may not be a valid measure of attachment in different cultural contexts
the strange situation was developed in Britain and the USA. Babies have different experiences which may affect to their reaction to the strange situation. For example a Japanese study Takahshi babies displayed high levels of separation anxiety and so a disproportionate number was classified as insecure-resistant. He suggests that the anxiety response was not due to high rates of attachment insecurity but to the unusual nature of being separated in japan.
This means it is difficult to know what the strange situation is measuring outside of western Europe Europe and USA
- Confounding variables
one limitation of cross cultural research, including meta analysis is the impact of confounding variables
Studies conducted in different countries don't usually match the methodology. Characteristics such as poverty social class, urban/rural make-up and age can confound, Environmental variables can also differ between studies, and confound results. For example the size of the room, and the availability of interesting toys there compared to large rooms. There might be less proximity seeking seeking because of room size. this might classify the child as avoidant. This means looking at attachment behaviour in non matched studies, conducted in different countries. may not tell us anything about cross cultural patterns of attachment.
- Imposed etic
a further limitation of cross cultural research is trying to impose a test designed for one cultural context to another context. Cross cultural, psychology includes ideas of etic, (cultural uniqueness) occurs when we impose an idea or technique that works in one cultural context to another. An example of this is the response to reunion with the caregiver in the strange situation. In Britain and USA, lack of affection on reunion may indicate avoidant attachment But in Germany such behaviour would be interpreted as independence, rather than insecurity.
This means that behaviour assessed may have different meanings in different cultural contexts and comparing them is meaningless.
- real world application
one strength is that the studies, is their application to improve conditions for children growing up outside their family home.
studying roman orphanages has improved psychologists understanding of the effects of early institutional care and prevent the worst of these effect
This has led to improvements in the conditions experienced by looked after children. For example children homes now avoid having large numbers, of caregivers for each child, Instead they have key workers who play a centralised role in their emotional care. institutional care is looked at less now to house children instead foster homes and adoption is more sort after
- One strength of Romanian studies is the lack of confounding variables. There was many orphan studies before Romanian orphans such as during the second world war. Many children who were studied in orphanages had varying degrees of trauma, However the children from the Romanian studies had been handed over by loving parents who could not afford to keep them. This means the results are less likely to be caused by negative early experiences. it has higher internal validity.
- however studying children from Romanian orphanages might have introduced different confounding variables. The quality of care was poor, with children receiving little intellectual stimulation, or comfort.
This means the harmful effects seen in the studies of Romanian orphanages may represent poor institutional care
there is contrasting evidence against the critical period, for Bowlby damage was inevitable is the child had not formed an attachment in the first two years of there life. However there are cases, that good quality aftercare can prevent most damage
Jarmila koluchova reported the case of the czech twins, the twins experienced extreme emotional and physic abuse from the age of 18 months to 7 years old. However in there teens they received exellent care and they recovered fully. This means lasting harm is not inevitable and the critical period may be explained by the sensitive period.
one limitation is the poor quality of evidence it is based on. In Bowlby's 44 thieves studies he himself carried out family interviews and the assessments. This left him open to bias because he knew in advance which teenagers where expected to show findings of affectionless psychopathy. Furthermore Bowlby was influenced by Goldfarb, who researched the development of deprived children in orphanages during the war. This study had confounding variables as the children had experienced early childhood trauma as well as prolonged separation.
however new line of research shows that maternal deprivation has long term affects. Levy at el, separated baby rats from there mothers this has a permanent effect on there social behaviour
- Influence of early attachment on later relationships
- most research in the influence of early attachment is assessed retrospectivity. Research is not usually longitudinal as they assessed the same person over a period of time instead they ask people questions about there relationships with there parents. This causes validity problems, as asking questions relies on the honesty of the person. It also makes it difficult distinguish whether early attachment or adult attachment is being assessed. This means that the measures of early attachment has many confounding factors.
- Confounding variables
Studies may have validity problems because associations between early attachment and adult attachment may be affected by confounding variables. Such as parenting style, furthermore temperament can affect both factors. This means we can be sure that early attachment has a direct effect on later attachment