Please enable JavaScript.
Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.
Psychology - Attachment - Coggle Diagram
Psychology - Attachment
-
Animal Studies
Harlow
-
-
-
Procedure
-
These cages had access to two surrogate mothers, one made out of wire and one cloth. Four of the monkeys could get milk from the wire mother and four could get milk from the cloth mother.
-
Results
-
Infants would only go to the wire mother when hungry, returning to the cloth mother after feeding.
If a frightening object was placed in the cage, the monkeys would seek refuge to the cloth mother.
-
-
Lorenz
-
-
Aim - To investigate imprinting, seeing if infants bond to the first subject they see.
Procedure
-
Half of the eggs were placed under the mother and the other half were kept beside Lorenz for several hours.
When the geese hatched, Lorenz imitated clucking geese sounds of a mother as soon as they hatched.
Results
The newly hatched geese regarded Lorenz as their mother, they started following him accordingly.
-
Geese follow the first moving object they see, during 12-17 hours (the critical period) after hatching.
-
Imprinting
When infants attach to the first moving object they see (within the critical period) after being born.
Suggest that attachment is innate and is programmed genetically, this allows for short-term survival and a internal template for later relationships.
If no attachment is formed within 32 hours, it's unlikely that an attachment will ever develop.
Learning Theory
Operant Conditioning
This refers to learning through positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement and punishment.
Drive Reduction Theory - When animals are uncomfortable this creates a drive for that animal to relieve the distress.
When infants are fed this creates a feeling of fulfillment and pleasure, this acts a positive reinforcement. Infants will carry out behaviour that will give them food (e.g crying.) Food acts as the primary reinforcer, where babies carry out behaviours to avoid discomfort.
-
Classical Conditioning
This refers to learning through paired association, two stimuli become repeatedly paired.
-
The unconditioned stimulus of food elicits an unconditioned response (of the baby being content.) The baby then is presented with their mother (a neutral stimulus,) which elicits no conditioned response. The mother and milk becomes paired and therefore the baby responds with a conditioned response even when the mother doesn't have milk available.
Cupboard Love
This refers to the forming of attachments based on primary care provision (such as food.) Attachments are only formed so infants can receive the care they need from their mothers.
-
Bowlby
Evolutionary Theory
Evolution - the process by which different kinds of living organism are believed to have developed from earlier forms, becoming better suited for survival.
Attachments between primary caregivers and infants are crucial to not only allow the infant to survive, but to also ensure species live on.
Social releases - characteristics infants are born with to elicit caregiving, e.g smiling.
-
-
Continuity Hypothesis
-
Strong attachments in infancy will go on to make the child socially and emotionally competent later.
-
-
Internal Working Model
Bowlby suggested that the quality of attachments in infancy forms a mental representation (template) for what the child should expect in future relationships.
-
-
Critical Period
The time frame in which an attachment must form, if not at all.
Bowlby extended Harlow and Lorenz ideas of the monkeys and geese having a critical period, to humans.
Bowlby proposed that babies have sensitive period after which it would be difficult to form an attachment
-
Maternal Deprivation
-
-
-
Bowlby believed that continuous care from a mother is essential for normal psychosocial development (to prevent damages to intellectual and emotional development.)
-
-
Schaffer and Emerson
Stages of attachment
Asocial
-
Infant behavior is directed at anyone or anything with a positive reaction, such as a smile.
-
Specific attachment
-
Infants prefer particular caregivers and look to them for comfort, security, protection, and reassurance in stressful situations.
Multiple attachments
-
Infants become increasingly independent and form attachments with multiple people in their lives who respond sensitively to them, including grandparents, siblings, or neighbors.
Aim - To investigate the formation of early attachments, what age they are formed.
Procedure
Use of a longitudinal study (running over a long period of time,) observing 60 Glaswegian babies from mainly skilled working-class families.
Parents were told to observe their children in different circumstances, keeping a diary (which was used to report back to the researchers.)
-
-
Results
Babies develop a primary attachment to their mothers at 6-7 months. A secondary attachment to the father and other family members developed at about ten months. By 18 months, 31% of babies had formed attachments to siblings, grandparents, neighbours, or other relatives.
-
Definition - A close two-way bond between individuals where each individual see each other as essential for their own emotional security.
-
