Lifespan Psychology and Attachment
Piaget's Theory of Development
Children move through 4 different stages of intellectual development which reflect the increasing sophistication of children's thought.
Stages of Development
Pre-Operational (2-7 years)
Thinking is influences on what they see, not by logical reasoning.
Egocentric - thinks that others see the world in only their perspective. (3 mountains experiment)
Centration - focusing on only one thing
Concrete Operational (7-11 years)
Children think logically
Conservation - understanding something stays the same in quantitiy even though appearance changes.
Sensorimotor (0-2 years)
Sensory and motor senses, the 5 senses
Object permanence - an object still existing even after being hidden (peek-a-boo)
Formal Operational (11 years+)
Abstract thinking
Schemas
Basic building blocks of cognitive framework that help organise and interpret info.
Assimilation Fitting new info into existing schemas
Accommodation - new experience is very different to past encounters, changing the schemas or creating a new schema
Maternal Deprivation
Separation from mother in early childhood, effecting child's psychological and social development.
Monotropy
attachment with one caregiver/parent
Bolby's Theory
Emotional bond with our primary caregivers during infancy and early childhood. Influences how we perceive and interact with the world.
Types of Attachment
Secure - seeks supports from others, can overcome conflict, communicates
Anxious Ambivalent - clingy, seek validation and reassurance
Anxious Avoidant - avoid closeness, relies on themself, uncomfortable with intamacy
Harlow 1959 Rhesus Monkeys
Purpose - Investigate the importance of contact comfort and it role in formation of attachment between infants and their caregivers
Method - Rhesus monkeys are similar to human in terms of social behaviour attachment. Experiment separated infant monkeys from biological mothers. Then placed them in a cage with 2 surrogate mothers. One mother covered in fur the other made of wire provided milk.
Findings - Infant monkey spent more time with cloth mother. Challenging eh idea that attachment is solely based on the provision of food and highlighted the importance of contact comfort in forming emotional bonds. More socially confident, exhibited more behaviour.
Critical Period
Biologically determined stages of development with well-defined opening and closing windows.
Strange Situation
Separation anxiety, stranger anxiety, reunion behaviour
Depending on the behaviour of the baby during the experiment whether its when the mother leaves, comes back or observer leaving or entering and the baby being alone can give an idea of the type of attachment they have.
Van ljzendroon + Kroonenberg Cultural Variationsin Attachment
Aim - Investigate attachment styles across cultures and how the main 3 attachment styles apply.
Procedure - Meta analysis of existing strange situation, 32 samples in 8 different countries. USA, Netherlands, Germany, Japan, Israel, Sweden, UK, China
Findings - secure attachment most common type of attachment in all cultures. Lowest % of secure attachments was in China, highest in Great Britain.
individualistic countries like Germany had high anxious-avoidant and collectivist like Japan had high levels of ambivalent resistance.