Zusammenfassung der Ressource
UNIT 2: Attachment
Case Studies
- Schaffer & Emerson
- Aim: To measure
attachment
between a child
and their
caregiver
- Procedure:
- Sample of 60, working class
babies from Glasgow
- Data was collected
through Observations &
Diary Records
- Attachment measured via:
separation distress and Stranger
Anxiety
- Natural Experiment,
Longitudinal Study
- Findings:
- 0-2 Months = Pre-Attachment
(prefer humans)
- 6 Weeks = Indiscriminative
Attachment (like certain people)
- 7 Months = Specific Attachments
(Mum and Dad)
- 10-11 Months Onwards
= Multiple attachments
- 65% attached to Mum
30%attached to Mum and
Dad 3% attached to Dad
- You are more likely to attach to
someone basesd on sensitivity and
responsiveness instead of who
clothes and feeds you
- The Learning Theory
- Classical conditioning: UCS (Food)
leads to a UCR (Pleasure). When NS
(Mum) accompanies UCS, The child
makes an association of plesure
over time with the NS (mum)
making her a CS due to the
continued pressence of the UCS. So
when the mum is pressent the
baby is happy because it has
associated pleasure with the mum
creating a CR.
- Skinners
box
- Operant Conditioning: An attachment
is formed when the infant seeks the
person who supplies the reward.
- When hungry, an infant feels unconfortable
and enters drive state to seek food. The
infant cries so the care giver feeds the infant
producing a feeling of plesure. Food is the
primary reinforcer (unconditioned
reinforcement) The person supplying the
food becomes the secondary reinforcer and a
source of reward in their own right
(conditioned responce)
- Fox (1977)
- Findings: 122 children in a Israli Kibbutz. Children
are raised as a community and the children are
cared for by a nurse (metapelet). Very little time
was spent with the parents. Results showed that
by observing seperation distress and reunion
behaviour,children were strongly attached to their
parents and notto the nurse.
- The Strange Situation:
Mary Ainsworth
- Procedure:
- 106 Middle
Class Infants
- 8 Episodes
took place on
a 9X9 Ft
square.
- Lab Experiment,
Novel environment
- Observed for: proximity
seeking, seperation
distress, stranger
anxiety,reunion
behaviour, willingness to
explore
- Attachment types:
- Type B Secure Attachment:
(66%) Use mum as a safe
base,willing to explore, show
some seperation anxiety but
easy to soothe. On reunion
they are enthusiastic. Wary of
the stranger. Caregivers are
sensitive to the infant.
- Type A Insecure Avoident: (22%) Willing to
explore, little response on seperation from
parent (indifferent) showed low starnger
anxiety. low reaction on reunion. Care givers
tend to avoid social interaction with infant.
- Type C Insecure Resistant: (12%)
Unwilling to explore, distressed
at seperation,on reunon they
seek and reject.High stranger
anxiety, caregiver alternates
between seeking closeness and
wanting distance.
- Cultural Variation
- Ainsworth: studied attachment in
Uganda. Found that Ugandan infants use
their mothers as a safebase for
exploring. and infanst were securely
attached with caregivers showing
greater sesitvity towards infant.
- Grossmann and Grossmann:
Investigated Germany = insecure most
common because german culture
encourages independance.
- Van Ilzedoorn and Kroonenberg:
conducted a meta-analysis on 32
Studies across 8 countries based on
the Strange situation.
- Findings: Secure attachment was most
common across all countries with insecure
avoident being second most common appart
form in Israle and Japan. 1.5X greater
difference in a country than between them.