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Attachment: Part 2 - Coggle Diagram
Attachment: Part 2
Bowlby's theory of Maternal Deprivation
Not receiving suitable suitable emotional care from a maternal figure
Critical Period: If attachment is disrupted / not formed with mother figure who provides adequate care within 30months of birth, its too late
Irreversability: Negative intellectual and emotional consequences due to deprivation are permanent
Consequences of Deprivation:
Delinquency
: Due to delayed social development behaviour is often outside acceptable norms
Affectionless psychophathy
: Delayed emotional development children are unable to show caring behaviour to others or empathy for other peoples feelings and have little guilt for their own harmful actions
Low IQ
: Delayed intellectual development general cognitive abilities are lower than peers
Continuity Hypothesis: Prolonged separations/deprivation from mother limits development of an effective template for later relationships (internal working model) - if fails to develop childhood and adulthood relationships will be unsuccessful as well as future parenting skills
44 older children who had been accused of theft and a control group of 44 emotionally disturbed non-thieves in a child protection program were interviewed to establish if they suffered from affection less psychopathy - their parents were also interviewed parents to find out if there had been any long periods of separation from their mothers during the critical period
Findings were that out of the 44 thieves group 14 matched the criteria for affection less psychopathy compared to none of the control groups - 12 of the 14 sffectionless psychopaths had experienced prolonged separation compared to only 2 of the control group
This suggests that the affection less psychopathy that led to criminal/deliquant behaviour is linked to separation that the thieves experienced early on in life
Evaluation: :no_entry: Much of Bowlby's theories come from assuming findings from animal studies should be applied to humans - significant biological and psychological differences therefore cannot generalise. :no_entry: Researcher bias - Bowlby was aware of what he wanted to find and so may have phrased the interview questions in a way that influenced the response of the questions i.e. leading questions :check: Bowlby's work on attachment led to significant changes in the policies many institutions had for child welfare such as visiting time for mothers
Influence of early attachment on childhood and adulthood relationships
Internal working model
- Bowlby suggested infants develop schema based on attachment to their primary caregiver - acts as a template for parenting and relationships
The Continuity Hypothesis
- suggests future relationships will follow a pattern based on IWM -
Measuring adult attachments - Hazan and Shaver Love Quiz
620 responses (205m/415f) from an newspaper love quiz examining feelings on romance and then categorised into:
Secure = balanced between closeness and independence ( 56%)
Avoidant = avoiding closeness (25%)
Anxious = Clingy, doesnt cope well with independence (19%)
Pptc's also completed questions on their childhood attachments with their parents
Findings: There was a correlation between adult and child attachment types - securely attached adults believed love was long lasting, reported being happy in their relationship and didn't want to get a divorce - Insecure types reported more loneliness
Eval: :no_entry: Correlation does not mean causation :no_entry: volunteer sample
:no_entry: Self report method
It is expected that children with a secure attachment type will go on to be socially capable in childhood due to an affective IWM
Evaluation: :check: Real - life application - knowledge that origin of childhood friendships comes from the childs internal working model - schools can use this to address and stop issues such as bullying
:no_entry: Deterministic as it is stating that if a child has an insecure attachment - when they grow up they won't form secure adult relationships - this may make people feel doomed
:no_entry: Lack of validity using the self -report technique especially in the assessment of childhood attachments = problematic because memory is reconstructive and unlikely to be accurate
Explanations of attachment: Bowlby's Monotropic Theory
Evolutionary explanation - babies have an innate attachment drive to survive as security = survival - Bowlby's theory based on Lorenz's investigation on imprinting and Harlow's monkey experiments
Monotrophy - Unique strong attachment to a single caregiver (the mother)
ASCMI
A = Adaptive - attachments are an advantage or beneficial to survival as it ensures a baby is kept safe, warm and fed
S = Social Releasers - e.g. a cute face on a baby - these unlock the innate tendency for adults to care for a child
C = Critical period - The time when an attachment can form - between 2.5 to 3 years old
M = Montropy - means 'one carer' - Bowlby suggested you can only form one intense attachment (unique, stronger and different to others)
I = Internal Working Model - A mental schema for relationships where behaviour to allow you to know how to behave around different people is stored - our perception of the attachment we have with our primary care-giver
Those with a dysfunctional internal working model will seek out dysfunctional relationships and behave dysfunctionally within them
Bowlby suggested that if an attachment is not formed in this time then it never will - if an attachment is not formed then you will be socially, emotionally and physically stunted - demonstrated by Bowlby with 44 juvenile thieves where maternal deprivation was associated with affection less psychopathy and mental retardation
Evaluation: :check: based on scientific study conducted by Lorenz - suggest potential strength of attachment to single caregiver - explained evolutionary by significant survival advantages
:no_entry: Bowlby's theory is criticised as suffering from Alpha bias exaggerating the difference between the role of the mother and the father suggesting the role of the father is simply to provide for the family - :no_entry: lacks temporal validity - in modern society men are expected to have a much more equal part in the care of their children
:no_entry: Socially sensitive - Negative implications for working mothers
Ainsworth's Strange Situation (1970)
Mary Ainsworth designed a study called the 'Strange Situation' as a procedure to see how securely attached a child was to its caregiver - controlled observation through a two way mirror
From observations of Ugandan and American mothers, Ainsworth identified a range of behaviours that indicated attachment strength:
proximity to mother
exploration/secure base
Stranger anxiety
Separation anxiety
reunion response
Sensitive responsiveness of mother to child
The Procedure - Infants (12-18 months) and their mothers took part in a structured observation in a controlled lab setting containing chairs and toys - number of stages 3 minutes each - infants response at each stage is recorded with video cameras for later analysis
Stages: 1. Mother and child enters the room and infant can explore 2. Stranger enters the room, sits and breifly talks to mother , then attempts to interact with the infant 3. mother leaves the room, infant is alone with stranger 4. mother returns and stranger leaves 5. mother leaves infant alone in the room 6. Stranger returns, interacts with infant 7. mother returns stranger leaves
The observation allows the researchers to assess the infants willingness to use mum as a safe base and explore the environment (1,4) , assess separation anxiety from mum (3,5) assess reunion response (4,7) assess stranger anxiety (2,3,6)
Provides evidence for 3 distinct attachment types that Ainsworth names: Insecure avoidant, Secure and Insecure resistant
This suggests that secure attachment due attention of a consistently sensitively responsive mother
Attachment types -
Insecure Avoidant
: Keeps distance from mother, not using her as a secure base but exploring freely. Infant has low stranger anxiety and little separation anxiety and don't attempt to get comfort from mother when she returns - the mothers seem to show little sensitive responsiveness
Secure
: Use mother as a safe base as they explore the environment. Infant has higher stranger anxiety and separation anxiety but happy reunion response allows comfort to get back to exploration - caregivers show sensitive responsivness
Insecure Resistant:
Will not explore and are inconsistent in wanting distance and closeness with mum. Have high separation and stranger anxiety but unable to settle when reunited with mum, rejecting her attention. Mothers appear inconsistent with their sensitive responsiveness
Evaluation: :check: Highly controlled observation - has high scientific validity and is easily replicable amongst different cultures therefore enhancing the generalisability of the findings
:no_entry: Lacks ecological validity - conducted in a lab setting and therefore can not be generalised to reality
:no_entry: It only measured relationship type with one attachment figure - lacks internal validity
Effects of institutionalisation
Institutionalisation - When living away from the family, such as children's homes and hospitals
May result in loss of personal identity, deindividuation and factors identified by Bowlby
Romanian Orphans - The fall of the communist gov in 89 revealed the terrible conditions of 300,000 orphans - they lacked physical and emotional care from the staff and many were malnourished and abused
Effects of institutionalisation Privation - Rutter et al (2007) - Longitudinal study of 165 Romanian orphans adopted into British families - 4 Groups;
58 under the age of 4 months
59 between 6 and 24 months
48 over 24 months
a control group of 52 British adoptees
Findings:
At Age 6:
Children adopted after 6 months showed disinhibited attachment = an overly friendly behaviour to strange adults
-
At Age 11:
54% of the children who showed disinhibited attachment at age 6 still displayed this behaviour. Children adopted after 6 months showed delayed intellectual development, scoring lower on IQ tests and difficulty concentrating, those adopted after 24 months had an average IQ of 77
General:
In a small number of cases, quasi-autism tendencies identified , problems understanding social context. Intellectual problems continued at the 15 year follow
This suggests adoption within 6 months is important as effects of deprivation and privation in institutions are long - lasting - however there may be some recovery as children develop suggesting critical period is acc
sensitive period
Evaluation: :check: Changed policies around adoption and care in orphans or other institutional settings - prioritised early adoption, higher level of care in institutions and priorities to new families
:check: Evidence to support by Goldfarb - compared 15 children who had been bought up in a foster home since age 3 to group under 6 months - found at 12 years old, early fostered group had significantly higher levels of mental abilities and social skills
:no_entry: Hodges and Tizard - suggests that adverse affects of institutionalisation can be overcome with adequate substitute care - children adopted with effective families coped better on behavioural and peer relationships the children returned to their original families
Deprivation - not receiving suitable emotional care from a primary attachment - can happen with both frequent and extended absences
Privation - The total lack of ability to form an attachment bond (this is what happened to the Romanian orphans)
Cultural Variations in attachment
Van leerdoorn and Kroonenberg - Large Scale Meta-analysis of 2000 infants attachment
Procedure: Data from 32 studies including 8 countries were collected - each study classified attachment types of infants and mothers using the 'strange situation' observation.
Findings: In all countries - secure attachment was the most common type and insecure resistant least common. Avoidant was more common in western cultures and resistant in non-western.
More extreme results:
Germany 35% - insecure avoidant
- value independence and not being clingy which is reflected in their results.
Japan (27%) and Israel (29%) - insecure resistant
- Japanese mothers spend a lot of time with infant - Israeli children were raised in Kibbutz , a communal way of raising children where they really encounter strangers but littler interaction with mother
UK 75% - Secure
Due to the global trend of secure attachment suggests that there is a preferred parenting style adopted by many globally.
Simonelli et al (2014) - attachment types in Italy - found less secure attachments than perviously suggested (50%) and more insecure avoidant (36%)
Researchers suggested this change is due to the changing demands of modern life - more frequent separations with mum and more complex childcare arrangement due to the demands of work
Evaluation: :check: large sample size
:check: dominant attachment style for all was 'secure' suggesting evidence for Bowlby's theory that there is an instinctive to parent in ac certain way to form secure attachments
:no_entry: Strange situation may suffer cultural bias by view western American/English styles of parenting viewed as 'secure' and others viewed as insecure - taking an epic concept (local norm) and imposing it as an metic concept to the wider world