Psychology - Attachment

Attachment is a close two way emotional bond between two individuals where they both see each other as essential to their emotional development. It takes a few months to develop.

Assess attachment by: separation distress, proximity and secure base behaviour.

the distress displayed by infants when a primary caregiver is not in their presence.

Even when independent of an attachment figure, an individual continues to make regular contact with them

A two way mutual process by which two individuals respond to each other's signals in turns to sustain interaction.

When babies signal they are ready for interaction

Mothers pick up on infant signals 66% of the time

At 3 months old interaction with babies are frequent involving signals and facial expressions

interactions between mother and infant is like a dance.

When care giver and infant reflect both the actions and emotions of the other and do this in a synchronised simultaneous way.

observed Interactional Synchrony with infants as young as 2 weeks old and found that when an adult displayed an expression so would the baby.

High levels of synchrony were associated with better quality mother-infant attachment

Wanted to investigate the formation of early attachments, what ages, emotional intensity, and whom the attachment was for.

60 glaswegian babies 31 boys 29 girls from skilled working class families.

Babies visited every month for the first year and once more at 18 months.

25-32 weeks 50% of babies showed signs of Separation Anxiety for mum.

By 40 weeks 80% specific attachment, 30% multiple too.

Infants attached to the caregiver who was interactive and sensitive & who had paid more attention to infant signals & reciprocity. NOT WHO SPENT MOST TIME.

Schaffer and Emerson

-Asocial stage -Indiscriminate attachment -Specific attachment -Multiple attachments

0-6 weeks: when the baby's behaviour towards non human objects and humans is similar, babies are happier in presence of humans and show preference to familiar adults.

6weeks- 7 months: babies display observable social behaviour, show a preference for people instead of inanimate objects, recognise familiar adults, accept comfort from any adult

7-9 months: Specific Attachment for primary attachment figure.

9 months+:

-Form attachments with other adults that they spend time with (secondary attachments) happens after forming a primary (specific) attachment

-In Shaffer and Emerson's study 29% had secondary attachments within a month of forming a primary (specific) attachment

1. High controlled recorded lab studies

2. Difficult to understand infant behaviour

3. Difficult to understand developmental importance (+ isabella counter point)

A strength of infant care-giver interaction studies is that they occured in a controlled lab setting and were filmed.

This is a strength because by controlling the environment of the study, the possibility of extraneous variables distracting the baby and causing results to be less valid are eliminated.

Also, by recording the study, researchers can rewatch the footage to re-analyse so it is harder to miss out on key behaviours - other researchers can inter-observe, increasing the reliability of the study.

Babies also do not understand that they are being observed so they will not act into any demand characteristics that could impact results.

Due to this the studies have high levels of internal validity as well as reliability.

A limitation of infant caregiver interactions is that it is hard to interpret the significance of infant behaviour.

The behaviours observed in the studies were changes in expression as well as hand movements. It is hard to understand if the baby carried out these movements in response to the care-giver or due to other factors.

Babies lack the ability to explain their reasons for showing these movements and expressions so we cannot understand the reasoning from the baby perspective.

Due to this we cant be sure observed infant behaviour has significant importance.

Another limitation of infant-caregiver interactions is that it is hard to understand the developmental importance of these interactions.

Feldman (2007) stated that reciprocity and synchrony are just names given to patterns of behaviour. They exist but aren't useful in helping us to understand the purpose of the behaviours in the development of babies. Observational research can't do that.

HOWEVER....

Isabella et al (1989) found that high levels of synchrony is linked to high quality infant-mother attachments after assessing it with mothers and infants.

This suggests that there is some developmental elements of importance for reciprocity and synchrony.

1. Good External Validity

2. Longitudinal Study

3. Limited Application of findings

A strength of schaffer's stages of attachment is that there is good external validity. This is because mothers made observations on their infants during their every day activities and reported to the researchers.

This means it is highly likely the infants behaved naturally whilst being observed and the results can be generalised to everyday situations.

HOWEVER, asking mothers to become observers may cause bias in terms of what they reported as they may not have noticed when their babies showed signs of anxiety. This means that even if babies behaved naturally, their behaviour may not have been observed accurately.

A strength of the study is that it had a longitudinal design. The same children were followed up and observed regularly.

The quicker alternative would have been to observe children once at different ages and measure their attachment to their parents.

The longitudinal design allows for higher internal validity because they do not have the CONFOUNDING variable of individual differences between participants potentially affecting the results.

A limitation of the stages of attachment is there are limited application of findings.

This is due to the sample size being 60 glaswegian babies from skilled working class families. The fact that all the families were glaswegian in the same area and social class, 50 years ago, limits the generalisability of the study. This is because Glaswegian methods of child-rearing is different to other cultures methods of child-rearing, therefore the progression of attachment may be different in other cultures.

Child-rearing cultures of 50 years ago and different from child-rearing cultures in present day, therefore it also is hard to generalise the study to now.

Lorenz (1935) geese study Harlow (1958) monkey study

Lorenz divided up a clutch of goose eggs, where half were hatched with the mother goose and the other half in an incubator where Lorenz was the first living thing they saw.

He found that the incubator group followed him around everywhere whereas the control group stayed with the mother and ignored him.

When there two groups were mixed they stuck with there original attachment figure.

Lorenz called this imprinting and he suggested that there was a critical period of a few hours depending on the species and if imprinting does not occur then the chicks do not attach to the mother figure.

16 baby rhesus monkeys were reared with two wire model mothers.

In one condition milk was given to the plain wire mother whereas in the second it was given to the cloth covered mother.

He found that the babies always chose to spend their time with the cloth covered monkey over the wire frame one.

Specifically 22 hours compared to 2 hours, this shows that contact comfort was more important to the monkey than drive reduction (food) when it came to attachment.

Harlow also suggested that there was a critical period of 90 days, and if an attachment had not been formed by then, then it never could and the damage is irreversible.

1. Generalisability to Humans Lorenz

2. Ethics of Harlow

3. Real Life application for Harlow

4. Counter Evidence of Lorenz

A limitation of Lorenz's animal study is that it cannot be generalised to humans because birds are biologically different to humans anatomically, behaviourally and physiologically.

Also the attachment formation in humans appears to be different than in birds as they imprint, attaching to their mother instantly whilst human attachment takes months to developed.

Due to this Lorenz's study cannot be generalised to humans however, it influenced our understanding of the development of attachment.

Another limitation of Lorenz's theory on sexual imprinting is that there is counter evidence for it.

Guitton et al (1966) made a chicken imprint on a rubber glove. It began to show courtship behaviourtowards rubber gloves as Lorenz predicted however after experiencing failed mating attempts, it learned to mate with other chickens.

This is a limitation as it suggests that sexual imprinting's impact on mating may not be as permanent as Lorenz theorised.

A strength of Harlow's study is that it lead to real life applications that are useful in everyday life.

Harlow's study shows the impact of maternal deprivation on later life as the monkeys were more agressive, neglectful to their offspring and even killed them aswell. This brought awareness to zoo and wildlife breeding programs, due to this study animals are not separated from their mothers at an early stage as we understand the important of attachment figures for baby animals.

Howe (1998) also used Harlow's study to reinforce the importance of placing children in loving homes to prevent the negative effects of maternal deprivation as social workers now understand the risk factors in child neglect and abuse

A limitation of Harlow's study is that it has ethical issues.

Monkeys are considered as almost biologically similar to humans, so generalisation can be made. The monkeys endured great suffering during the experienment and due to that, had life-long negative impacts. As they are similar to humans, then it can be said that the monkeys indured suffering on the scale of human suffering which breaches the rule of psychology research- protection from harm.

Harlow compared the wired mothers to iron maidens which is a medieval phrase for torture devices.

However, it can be argued that the importance of Harlow's research on our understanding of attachment outweighs its ethical breaches.

An innate system designed to give a survival advantage to infants.

monotropy critical period social releasers internal working model

Babies form an attachment to one caregiver and this attachment is more important than other attachments and must be established before any other secondary attachments can form.

Law of continuity Law of accumulated separation

The more constant and predictable a child's care, the better the quality of their attachment

The effects of every separation an infant has from its mother adds up and impacts the child's development negatively. The safest dose is zero

• Bowlby suggested that babies are born with a set of innate behaviours (smiling) that draws the attentions of adults -These are called social releasers because they activate the attachment system (make an adult love the baby)

-Bowlby suggested that there is a critical period at around 2 years when the infant attachment system is active if attachment has not formed by now the child will struggle to form future attachments

Bowlby suggested that children form a metal representation of their relationship with their primary care giver and it serves as a model of what future relationships should be like.

Can affect ability to parent.

1. Support for Internal Working Model

2. Support for social releasers

3. Mixed Evidence for Monotropy

4. Socially sensitive

A strength of Bolwby's internal working model is that there is research support for it.

Bailey et al (2007) tested the idea that pattenrs of attachment are passed on through generations due to the internal working model.

They measured 99 mothers attachment to their own mothers and then to their own babies. They found that mothers with poor attachment to their mothers are more likely to also have poor attachment to their child.

This supports the internal working model's theory of the attachment relationship with an attachment figure becoming a mental representation of future relationships.

A strength of Bowlby's theory is that there is research support to support the concept of social releasers.

Brazelton et al (1975) conducted a study where they asked mothers, the primary attachment figure, to ignore their babies social releasers in order to test the effect on infant interaction. Once they ignored the babies, they showed significant distress and some of them curled up laying motionless.

The babies curling up and laying motionless suggests that once the babies could not activate the adult attachment system with their innate cute behaviours, it became meaningless to ontinue to express these behaviours.

This illustrates the role of social releasers in attachment formation suggesting that as Bolwby theorised, they are important in activating the attachment system

A weakness of bowbly's monotropic theory is that there is counter evidence for montoropy.

Schaffer and Emerson (1964) conducted a longitudinal study to find out abou the formation of ealry attachments, when and with whom they formed with.

They found that after 40 weeks 80% of infants had formed a specific attachments but 30% had also formed multiple attachments. This shouldn't be able to happen according to Bowlby's monotropic theory as it states that a monotropic attachment must form first before any subsequent attachments can form.

Therefore Bowlby's Theory for monotropy may not be as strict as he thought.

Separation vs deprivation First 30 months=critical period Effects on development: intellectual (I.Q) & emotional (affectionless psychopathy) Continuous care from mother=essential for normal psychological development

Separated for long periods of time from mother or mother-like figure has negative impacts on emotional and itellectual development.

When a child is physically away from their primary caregiver

When a child is separated for prolonged periods of time from their primary care giver which eventually leads to a loss of continuous care.

A child must experience warm, intimate, continuours care from a mother for the first 30 months of their life for normal development.

30 months

Children who had been institutionalised for long amount of time had low IQ compared to fostered children who had experienced a higher level of care.

Delayed intellectual development therefore LOWER IQ

Lack of emotional development AFFECTIONLESS PSYCHOPATHY

The inability to experience guilt or strong emotion for others

1944 44 teenagers accused of stealing and a 44 people control group with emotional disturbance

interviewed for signs of affectionless psychopathy and then interviewed family on early life

14/44 were affectionless psychopaths 12/14 had prolonged separation from their mothers during critical period

in control group no affectionless psychopathy

Conlcuded maternal deprivation is linked to affectionless psychopathy

Research support + counter Critical period may be over exagerrated Real life applications

A strength of bowlby's theory of maternal deprivation is that it has supporting research.

Levy et al (2003) conducted a study where they deprived baby rats from their mothers. It was found that even separation for a day permanently damaged their development in the social aspect. This supports bowlby's theory of maternal deprivation having a negative effect on development.

However it is important to understand that animal studies are not easily generalisable to humans as animals, in this case rats, are anatomically and behaviourally different to us therefore findings from them may not produce the same findings if studied on by humans. Also the study only provided evidence for effects on social development and not the impact of emotional or intellectual development on the baby rats, this would be harder to test for.

A weakness of Bowlby's Maternal deprivation theory is that he may have overestimated the severity of the critical period. It may actually just be a sensitive period instead.

Research by Koluchova (1976) on Czech twins who had been experienced severe abuse and neglect from during a section of the critical period till the age of seven suffered serious detrimental effects on development. These were low IQ of 40, rickets and severe speech impairment.

When they were adopted they caught up with their peers in their age category in IQ and emotional development and went on to get married and also have children.

According to Bowlby's maternal deprivation theory this shouldn't have been able to happen because maternal deprivation leads to affectionless psychopathy which prevents an individual from feeling strong emotions towards others.

Due to these factors, it may suggest that Bowlby overestimated the power of the critical period and adequate recovery can reverse the effects of MD.

A strength of Bowlby's Maternal deprivation theory is that there are real life applications.

It impacted post-war thinking on maternal separation in children hospitals as before they were separated from their parents as it was thought to be bad practice for parents to be present when their children were sick in hospital.

Children with long lasting sickness would experience prolonged separation from parents which according to Bowlby would damage their intellectual and emotional development.

This study played a role in changing rules as parents could now visit their children in hospital to prevent the effects of MD. A real life example of this would be London's Great Ormond Street Hospital, it is a childrens hospital designed for parents to stay long term with their children if needed.

Dollard & Miller (1950): cupboard love approach.

-Cargeiver is the provider of food, infant learns to love their feeder.

Food is an unconditional stimulus that produces an unconditioned response.

At the beginning the caregiver is a neutral stimulus who produces no response.

Caregiver is continually paired with the unconditioned stimulus which is food she slowly becomes associated with the unconditioned pleasure response.

Mother is now conditioned stimulus pleasure is the conditioned response.

Babies cry to be fed/ comforted.

IF cargeiver gives this response then the crying behaviour is reinforced.

Crying is now directed at caregiver for comfort and caregiver respond to stop the crying - this is social suppression.

The infant has positive reinforcement as theyrecieve the reward of food/comfort etc.

The caregiver has negative reinforcement as they stop the unpleasant crying sounds.

Mutual reinforcement strengthens attachment

Hunger is a primary drive.

Sears et al (1957) states the primary drive of hunger is generalised to caregiver as they feed them.

Attachment is secondary as it is formed as an association between the satisfaction of the primary drive of hunger and the caregiver.

Counter evidence from animal studies Counter evidence from human studies Support for conditioning

1969

To observe key attachment behaviours in order to assess the quality of attachment of an infant with their caregiver.

Controlled observation observed through a two-way mirror.

7 episodes, 3 minutes each

1. Caregiver and infant enter the room and ecourage play (exploration + secure base)

2. Stranger enters the room + interact (Stranger Anxiety)

3. Caregiver leaves (Separation + Stranger Anxiety)

4. Caregiver returns + stranger leaves (Reunion beh)

5. Caregiver leaves (Separation Anxiety)

6. Stranger returns (Stranger Anxiety)

7. Caregiver comes back, stranger leaves (Reunion beh)

Exploration + Secure Base Stranger Anxiety Separation Anxiety Proximity Seeking Reuinion Behaviour

3 Attachment Types: Type A: Insecure-avoidant Type B: Secure Type C: Insecure-resistant

High exploration no secure base behaviour No stranger or separation anxiety No comfort needed for reunion

Happily explore + use caregiver as a secure base Moderate Stranger + Separation Anxiety Comfort accepted upon reunion

Doesn't explore, seeks proximity as much as possible High Stranger + Separation Anxiety Dispute comfort upon reunion

Good reliability Support for Validity Culture Bound

The strange situation has good inter-observer reliability. Observers watching the strange situation at the same time agree on attachment types.

This could be from the fact that it took place in a controlled situation meaning there are no confounding variable so key attachment behaviours are easier to observe and come to a conclusion.

This is further supported by Bick et al (2012) where inter-observer reliabilty between trained strange situation observers came to a conclusion of attachment type 94% of the time.

This means that infant attachemnt type is not just dependent of who observes them.

Attachment type as defined by the strange situation are highly predictive of later development.

Secure attachment is highly likely to have better outcomes in many areas of life. Whilst insecure-attachment is highly likely to have the worst outcomes in life.

Kokkinos, 2007 found that bullying in later childhoos is linked to insecure-resistant children as well as adult mental health problems by Ward et al, 2006.

Validity for the use of the strange situation in being predictive of later outcomes as it can explain subsequent outcomes.

• Real life Applications

• Product of environment not just att type.

Strange situation may not be used effectively outside of Western Eupore or USA cultures. This is because different child-rearing practices are used and caregivers in different cultures behave differently in the strange-situation.

Takahasi (1990) stated that the strange situation doesn't work in Japan as Japanese mothers are rarely seprated from babies resulting in the babies having high separation anxiety as the design of the experiement is not suited to their everyday life to test their natural berhaviours.

Japanese mothers also scoop babies up upon reunion because that is their normal behaviour, but due to this we cant assess the key reunion behaviour of the baby clearly.

As the Strange situation is culture bound, it doesn't travel well to other cultures.

Van Ijzendoorn & Kroonenberg (1988) meta-analysis

*Simonella et al (2014)

• Jin et al (2012)

process of combining results from a number of studies on a particular topic to provide an overall view

To look at attachment types between different countries and also look at the differences in attachment within

32 studies, 8 countries Sweden, China, Britain, USA, Netherlands, Germany, Japan, Israel

2000 infants

Across all coutnries, most common attachment type is secure least common attachment type is insecure-resistant.

Differences within cultures 150% greater than between. Same USA: 46% 90% secure

75%-50% secure Britain to China.

Highest type A: Germany 36% Lowest Type A: Japan 6%

Highest type C: Israel & japan (30%, 27%) Lowest type C: Britain 3%

Compared attachment proportions to past proportions in ITaly's previous attachment research.

76 12-month old babies

50% secure, 36% insecure avoidant.

Less babies secure due to mothers working longer hours and using professional child care.

Findings suggest changes in cultural practice has an affect on attachment patterns.

Compared proportions of attachment types in Korea to other studies across countries.

87 children - overall proportions of secure and insecure are similar however more type C than A.

Distribution similar to Japan could be due to child rearing practices.

1. Culture within culture

2. Large sample size

3. Imposed etic

Van Ijzendoorn & Kroonenberg (1988)'s meta-analysis claimed to study cultural variations between countries but they may have failed to factor in the cultural differences within cultures when making comparisons.

Many cultures exist within one country with different child-rearing practices. This could be due to geographical or wealth disparities within a culture.

For example, an area of a country where poverty is more prominent would have different practices of child-rearing that another area where higher wealth is the standard of living. This would result in different proportions of attachment type despite them being in the same overall country.

This is further supported by Ijzendoorn & Sagi (2001) wo found that attahcment proportions in Tokyo are similar to western country studies. This is because TOkyo has an urban 'western like' setting which could result in similar child-rearing practices whereas another area in rural Japan wouldn't follow this pattern due to child-rearing culture resulting in more type C infants.

this means that comparisons between overall countires cannot be accurately made before cultures within a country are invesitgated to come to an overall proportions of attachment types to compare.

The strange situation was designed by an American researcher (Ainsworth). There are questions surrounding if its themes could apply to other countries. IT may have imposed etic.

Imposed etic is trying to use a theory made to fit one country to other countries with different cultures.

For example insecure avoidant attachment is categoriesed by a lack of separation anxiety or need of comfort upon reunion in the USa but in Germany it could signify independence not insecurity - Grossman & Grossman (1990).

This means that children could be classed as negatively attached due to differences in child-rearing practices.

This is supported by Takahashi (1990) said that japanese mothers stay at home with their infants instead of returning to work therefore resulting in more insecure-resistant babies as they are rarely separated frmo thier mothers.

This doesn't mean that their child-rearing methods are bad, it just means that the strange situation can only be applied to western cultures like the USA.

The large sample size of the meta-analysis approx. 2000 babies and their primary attachment figure reduces the impact of anomalous results created by poor methodology or unusual participants.

For example poor methodology due to low levels of control during the experiement allowing extraneous variables like lighting or loud sounds distracting infant or strangers so we dont see clear key attahcment behaviours as clearly.

Further more, other studies of attachment variation, Jin et al (2012) and Simonella et al (2014) have a large comparison groups despite their samples being smaller to prevent the effects of anomalous results and bad methodology.

Romanian orphan studies

The effects of living in an institutional setting like a hospital or orphanage for long, continous periods of time where very little care is given.

Disinhibited attachment and mental retardation

A fourth attachment type said to be the result of mutiple care givers.

When an individual displays attention seeking, clinginess, social behaviours towards all adults- familiar and strangers

Impaired, delayed intellectual development in an individual most seen in children not adopted before the age of 6 months. Can be recovered to a normal standard if adopted before 6 months