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Attachment - Coggle Diagram
Attachment
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Monotropic theory
Bowlby proposed an evolutionary explanation that attachment gave a survival advantage since imprinted and attachment developed to ensure that offspring stayed close to their parents to protect them from hazards.
He emphasised the importance child attachment to one specific caregiver, usually the mother, which he believed was more important than other attachments.
The Law of Continuity stated that the more predictive and consistent a child's care is, the better the quality of their attachment with their caregiver.
The Law of Accumulated Separation stated that the effects of every separation adds up, so that the safest dose is zero.
He stated that social releasers were innate 'cute' behaviours such as smiling to encourage adults to pay attention to children. These trigger a mother's predisposition to become attached.
He identified a critical period of up 2.5 years; if an attachment is not formed within this time frame, the infant will suffer physiological, psychological, emotional and intellectual consequences.
Bowlby claimed a child will develop an internal working model which is a mental representation of their relationship with their caregiver which serves as a template for future relationships. this also effects the child's ability to parent their own child in later life.
EVALUATION
contradicting evidence Bowlby suggests that a child will form one attachment, however, Schaffer & Emerson found that most babies were able to form multiple attachments.
Support for social releasers Brazleton et al observed mother-baby interactions and reported the existence of interactional synchrony. When instructed to ignore the babies' signals, the babies stopped moving. This shows that social releasers are used to get their caregiver's attention.
Support for internal working models Bailey et al assessed 99 mothers with their own babies and with their own mothers. Those who reported a poor attachment with their mother were more likely to have a poor attachment with their child - supporting the idea that internal working models are passed through families.
Socially sensitive it has implicated for the lifestyle choices of the mother. Burman states that the Law of Accumulated Separation puts a burden on new mothers not to return to work.
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Strange situation
Mary Ainsworth's strange situation was a controlled observation designed to test attachment security by assessing infant's response to being in an unfamiliar room, being alone, being left with a stranger and being united with their caregiver.
Ainsworth judged behaviour based on:
- proximity seeking: well-attached infants will stay close to their caregiver
- exploration and secure base behaviour: good attachments enables an infants to explore, using their caregiver as a secure base of safety
-stranger anxiety: well-attached infants will display stranger anxiety
-separation anxiety: well-attached infants will protest at separation from their caregiver
-response to reunion: with the caregiver after a short separation
Secure attachment infants show proximity seeking and secure base behaviour with moderate stranger and separation anxiety. They accept comfort in the reunion stage. 60-75% of british toddlers have this attachment style.
Insecure avoidant infants do not shoe proximity seeking or secure base behaviour. They have little stranger or separation anxiety and do not require comfort at the reunion stage. 20-25% of british toddlers have this attachment style.
Insecure resistant infants explore less and display very high stranger and separation anxiety. They resist comfort at the reunion stage. 3% of british toddlers have this attachment style.
EVALUATION
Good inter-rater reliability different observers generally agree in the attachment style of infants, maybe due to the good level of control the study has. Bick et al found at 94% agreement.
Culture bound - culture differences in childhood experiences mean that children will respond differently. Takahashi states the test doesn't work in Japan because mothers are rarely separated from their children so separation anxiety is very high.
Confounding variables - Kagan suggests temperament influences the personality of the children which is more significant than behaviour
Another attachment style - Main & Solomon point out that a minority of children display a combination of characteristics which fall under multiple categories. They identified disorganised attachment as an atypical attachment with a mix of resistant and avoidant behaviours.
Later relationships
Bowlby's internal working model suggests that the child's first attachment is crucial as it forms the basis for future relationships. They will expect all relationships to be like the first one they experienced.
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Myron-Wilson & Smith suggested insecure-avoidant were most likely to be bullied and insecure-resistant were most likely to be the bully.
McCarthy studied 40 adult women who had been assessed for their attachment type as children and found that secure attachments as an infant suggested better quality adult friendships and relationships.
EVALUATION
Contradicting evidence Zimmerman assessed infant attachment and adolescent attachment to parents. He found little relationship between the quality of each.
Validity issues - self-reporting questionnaires can lead to social desirability bias. Similarly, the volunteer sample can be of a similar demographic - e.g. those who read a certain newspaper - and so may not be able to be generalised to a wider society.
Pessimistic view if you have a bad relationship with your parents, you are not doomed to have bad relationships for the rest of your life.
Hazan & Shaver analysed 620 replies to a love quiz. Those reported as securely attached were more likely to have better quality and longer lasting romantic relationships.
Learning theory
Dollard & Miller proposed caregiver-infant attachment can be explained by learning theory, aka cupboard love.
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Operant conditioning
Explains why babies cry for comfort. Crying leads to a response from the caregiver, e.g. feeding, which reinforces the crying. The caregiver also receives negative reinforcement as when feeding the infant, their crying stops. This mutual reinforcement between the two strengthens their attachment.
Classical conditioning
Food is an unconditioned stimulus with an unconditioned response of pleasure. The caregiver, a neutral stimulus on its own elicits no response. However, when paired with the UCS of food, the NS produces an unconditioned response of pleasure. Eventually the NS will become the conditioned stimulus and produce a conditioned response of pleasure.
Food (UCS)>Pleasure (UCR) caregiver(NS)>no response caregiver(NS)+food(UCS)> pleasure(UCR) caregiver(CS)>Pleasure(CR)
EVALUATION
Contradicting research Harlow found that monkeys prefer comfort over food which is the opposite to cupboard love.
Reductionist - ignores other factors that could explain attachment such as interactional synchrony and reciprocity - influences that Isabella et al deemed detrimental.
Cultural variations
Van Ijzendoorn & Kroonenberg conducted a study to look at the proportions of secure, insecure-avoidant and insecure-resistant across a range of countries.
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In all countries, Secure was the more common attachment type
Insecure resistant was most common among Germans and least common in Japan.
Insecure resistant was 30% in Israel. This shows that cultural practices have an influence on attachment type.
EVALUATION
Large sample - almost 2000 babies where used which increases the internal validity as it reduces the impact of anomalous results.
Unrepresentative of culture - comparisons were actually made between countries instead of cultures. Since they can be many cultures and subcultures in a country, these country comparisons have little meaning.
Biased methodology they used the Strange Situation, which is based on Western cultures and British theories, which may not apply to all cultures,
Lacks validity - the strange situation may actually measure temperament rather than attachment style.
Maternal deprivation
Bowlby focused on the idea that deprivation from a mother in the critical period would lead to psychological, physical, emotional (affectionless psychopathy), and intellectual (low IQ) defects to the child.
He devised a critical period of 2.5 years within which an attachment must form otherwise it never will and irreversible damage to the child will take place.
Bowlby conducted a 44 juvenile thieves study where 44 young thieves were interviewed for signs of affectionless psychopathy (lack of empathy) and for signs of maternal deprivation in the critical period. 14/44 were affectionless psychopaths, of which 12/14 experienced prolonged maternal deprivation in the critical period.
EVALUATION
Selective bas Bowlby was his own support and chose the sample and information from the interviews which he knew would support his theory
Contradictory evidence Hilda replicated this study on a larger scale and found that prolonged separation from the motherin the critical period did not predict criminality, suggesting other factors are involved.
Privation vs deprivation Rutter criticised Bowlby of muddling the two concepts together. This results in a lack of validity.
Romanian orphans
Rutter followed 165 Romanian orphans who had been adopted in England to test whether good care could make up for poor early experiences.
When they first arrived in the UK, 50% showed signs of delayed development and the majority were severely malnourished.
Zeanah et al assessed attachment in 95 children aged 12-31 months who had spent most of their lives in institutional care using the strange situation. 65% has disorganised attachment. This can be an effect of institutionalisation since they get used to having multiple carers and therefore show little signs of stranger or separation anxiety. They also noted that by the age of 4, those who were adopted before 6 months had caught up with their IQ.
EVALUATION
Practical application led to improvements in childcare institutions, for example, giving less carers to children, or assigning a key worker.
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Lack of generalisabilityRomanian orphanages had severely poor conditions with overcrowding a lack of nutritional diet. This may have been an influential factor in their attachment - leads to a lack in validity.
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