Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Attachment
- What is attachment?
- Attachment is a close
two-way emotional
bond between two
individuals in which
each person sees the
other as essential for
their own emotional
security.
- Attachment in
humans takes a few
months to develop.
- We know that an attachment
has formed when people
display:
- Proximity - wanting to
stay physically close to
the person to whom we
are attached.
- Separation Distress - feeling distressed
(anxious) when the attachment figure
leaves our presence.
- Secure-base Behaviour - even when
we are independent of our
attachment figures, we tend to
make regular contact with them.
- Children display secure-base behaviour
when they regularly return to their
attachment figures while playing.
- Animal Studies of Attachment
- HARLOW
- The Importance of Contact Comfort
- Procedures
- Harlow (1958) tested the idea that
a soft object serves some of the
functions of the mother.
- In one experiment, he reared 16 baby rhesus
monkeys with two wire model 'mothers'.
- In one condition, milk was dispensed by a plain
wire mother whereas in another condition milk
was dispensed by a cloth covered mother.
- Findings
- Harlow found that
the baby monkeys
cuddled the soft
object in preference
to the wire one.
- The monkeys also sought comfort
from the cloth-covered 'mother'
when frightened, regardless of
which dispensed milk.
- This showed that 'contact comfort' was
more important to the monkeys than
food when it came to attachment
behaviour.
- Maternally Deprived Monkeys as Adults
- Harlow and his colleagues also followed the monkeys who
had been deprived of a 'real' mother into adulthood to see if
early maternal deprivation had a permanent effect.
- The researchers found severe
consequences:
- The monkeys rare with the
wire mothers only were the
most dysfunctional.
- However, even those reared with a
soft toy substitute did not develop
normal social behaviour.
- They were
more
aggressive
and less
sociable than
other
monkeys.
- They bred less often
than is typical of
monkeys as they
were unskilled at
mating.
- As mothers, some of the deprived
monkeys neglected their young,
others even attacked or killed
their children.
- Harlow's Critical
Period for Normal
Development
- Based on his study of maternal deprivation in
rhesus monkeys, Harlow concluded that there was a
critical period for normal development.
- A mother-figure had to be introduced to
an infant monkey within 90 days for an
attachment to form.
- After this time attachment was impossible and the damage done by early
deprivation was irreversible.
- LORENZ
- Imprinting
- Procedures
- Lorenz set up a classic experiment in
which he randomly divided a clutch of
goose eggs.
- Half of the eggs were hatched with the mother goose in their
natural environment while the other half hatched in an incubator
where the first moving object they saw was Lorenz.
- Findings
- The incubator group followed
Lorenz everywhere whereas the
control group (which hatched in the
presence of their mother), followed
the mother goose.
- When the two groups were mixed up, the
control group continued to follow the mother
goose and the experimental group continued
to follow Lorenz.
- Conclusions
- This phenomenon is called
imprinting whereby (bird)
species that are mobile from
birth attach to and follow
the first moving object they
see.
- Lorenz identified a critical period
in which imprinting needs to take
place.
- Depending on the species this
can be as brief as a few hours
after hatching (or birth).
- For the geese, the critical period
was between 12 and 17 hours
from hatching.
- If imprinting doesn't occur within the critical
period, Lorenz found that the chicks didn't
attach themselves to a mother-figure.
- Sexual Imprinting
- Lorenz also investigated the link
between imprinting and adult
mate preferences.
- He observed that
birds which
imprinted on a
human would
often later display
courtship
behaviour
towards humans.
- Schaffer's Stages of Attachment
- Stage 1: Asocial Stage
- First few weeks.
- This is not really an asocial
stage as the baby is
forming bonds with carers.
- The baby's behaviour to
non-human objects and
humans is quite similar.
- The baby shows some
preference to familiar
adults - those individuals
find it easier to calm them.
- The baby is happier
when in the presence of
other humans.
- Stage 2: specific Attachment
- The baby shows preference for people
rather than inanimate objects and
recognises familiar adults.
- From 2 to 7 months.
- The baby accepts cuddles
from any adult and
doesn't usually show
separation distress or
stranger anxiety.
- The baby's attachment
behaviour is indiscriminate
because it is no different
towards any one person.
- Stage 3: Specific Attachment
- Around 7 months.
- The baby starts to display
stranger anxiety, and separation
anxiety when separated from
the primary attachment figure
(who is the biological mother in
65% of the cases).
- The baby forms a specific
attachment to the primary
attachment figure (who isn't
necessarily the person with whom
the baby spends the most time, but
the one who offers the most
interaction and responds to the
baby's signals the best).
- Stage 4: Multiple Attachments
- Shortly after forming a specific
attachment to one adult, the baby forms
multiple attachments to people with
whom they regularly spend time
- In Schaffer and Emerson's
study, 29% of babies formed
secondary attachments within
one month of forming a primary
(specific) attachment.
- The majority of babies
develop multiple
attachments bu the age
of one.
- Caregiver - Infant Interactions
- RECIPROCITY
- Reciprocity - a description of how two people
interact. Mother-infant interaction is reciprocal
because both the mother and the infant respond
to each other's signals and both elicit a response
from the other.
- From birth, mother and baby
spend a lot of time together in
intense and pleasurable
interaction.
- Babies have periodic alert
phases and they signal that
they are ready for
interaction.
- According to Feldman and
Eidelman (2007), mothers
pick up on and respond to
these signals around 2/3 of
the the time.
- At 3 months, interaction between mother and baby
becomes more frequent and involves close attention
to each other's verbal signals and facial expressions
(Feldman, 2007).
- The baby takes an active role as
both the mother and infant can
initiate interaction and they
appear to take turns in doing so.
- INTERACTIONAL SYNCHRONY
- Interactional Synchrony -
Mother and infant reflect both
the actions and the emotions
of the other, and do so in a
coordinated way.
- Feldman (2007) defined this as
"the temporal coordination of
micro-level social behaviour".
- Metzoff and Moore (1977) observed the
beginnings of interactional synchrony in infants
as young as 2 weeks old.
- As an adult displayed one of three
facial expressions or one of three
distinctive behaviours, the reaction of
the baby was filmed and identified by
independent observers.
- An association was found
between the gesture or
expression that the adults
had displayed and the
actions of the babies.
- Interactional
synchrony is
believed to be
important in the
development of
mother - infant
interactions.
- Isabelle et al. (1989)
observed 30 mothers and
infants together, assessing
their degree of synchrony
and the quality of mother -
infant attachment.
- They found that high levels
of synchrony were
associated with better
quality mother - infant
attachment.
- Attachment Figures
- PARENT - INFANT
ATTACHMENT
- Typically assumed to be mother - infant attachment.
- In their 1964 study,
Schaffer and Emerson
found that 65% of the
babies form their first
attachment to their
biological mothers.
- The babies formed secondary
attachments to the rest of their
family within a few weeks or
months.
- 75% of babies formed an
attachment to their fathers
by 18 months. The
researchers knew that an
attachment to the father
had been formed because
the infants displayed
separation distress when the
fathers left the room.
- ROLE OF THE FATHER
- Grossman conducted a
longitudinal study in 2002 in
which he investigated the
relationship between the
behaviour (role) of each parent
and the quality of a child's
attachment as a teenager.
- He found that the quality of
infant attachment to the mother
but NOT the father was related
to children's attachment in their
teens.
- This suggests that the
father's attachment to the
infant was less important.
- However, Grossman found
that the quality of a
father's play with the
infant was related to the
quality of the child's
attachment in adolescence.
- This suggests that the
father's role is more to do
with play and stimulation
and less so with nurturing.
- FATHER AS
PRIMARY CAREGIVER
- When fathers take on the role of
primary caregiver, they adopt
behaviour more typical of mothers
- Tiffany field (1978) demonstrated this in a study where she
filmed 4-moths-old infants in face-to-face interaction with
primary-caregiver mothers, primary-caregiver fathers and
secondary-caregiver fathers.
- She found that, like primary
caregiver mothers, primary
caregiver fathers spent more
time smiling at, imitating and
holding their babies than
secondary caregiver fathers.
- This behaviour appears to be key in
building attachment with infants.
- The results of her study suggest
that the key to attachment
relationships is level of
responsiveness and not the
gender of the parent.
- Theories on Attachment
- THE LEARNING THEORY
- Opernat Conditioning
- Operant conditioning can explain why
babies cry for comfort - an important
behaviour in building attachment.
- Crying leads to a response
in the caregiver (e.g.:
feeding).
- As long as the caregiver provides the correct
response, crying is reinforced and the baby then
directs crying for comfort towards the caregiver,
who responds with comforting 'social suppressor'
behaviour.
- The reinforcement is a two-way process because the baby is
positively reinforced while the caregiver is negatively reinforced
(the baby stops crying once he/she has been fed or comforted).
- The interplay of mutual reinforcement
strengthens the attachment.
- Classical Conditioning
- 1. In the case of attachment, food
serves as an unconditioned
stimulus.
- 2. Being fed gives us pleasure,
which is the unconditioned
response.
- 3. The caregiver
starts as a neutral
stimulus.
- 4. When the same
person provides
food over time,
they become
associated with
FOOD so when the
baby sees the
person, there is an
immediate
expectation of
food.
- 5. The neutral stimulus
has become a conditioned
stimulus.
- 6. Once conditioning has taken
place, the sight of the
caregiver produces a
conditioned response of
pleasure.
- Attachment as a Secondary Drive
- Part of the Learning
Theory is 'drive reduction'.
- Hunger is the primary drive -
an innate biological
motivator and we are
motivated to eat to reduce
our hunger.
- Sears et al. (1957) suggested
that, as caregivers provide
food, the primary drive of
hunger becomes generalised
to the caregiver.
- It follows that attachment is a secondary
drive, learned through association to the
satisfaction of the primary drive.
- BOWLBY'S THEORY
- Evolutionary Explanation
- Attachment is an innate system that
gives us a survival advantage.
- Attachment (and imprinting in animals) evolved because
they ensure that young animals stay close to their
caregivers and this protects them from hazards.
- Monotropy
- Bowlby's theory is mono tropic because he
placed great emphasis on a child's attachment
to one particular caregiver.
- He believed that this particular attachment is
different from and more important than
others.
- Bowlby called this person the 'mother' but was clear
that it need not be the biological mother.
- He believed that the more time the baby spent with
this primary attachment figure, the better.
- The law of continuity: the more constant and
predictable a child's care, the better the quality
of their attachment.
- The law of accumulated separation: the effects of every
separation from the mother add up.
- Social Releasers
- Bowlby suggested that babies are born with a
set of innate 'cute' behaviours (social releasers)
which encourage attention from adults.
- For example, smiling, cooing and gripping.
- The purpose of social releasers is to
activate the adult attachment system.
- Bowlby recognised that attachment is is a
reciprocal process because both mother
and baby have an innate predisposition to
become attached and social releasers
trigger this response in caregivers.
- Critical Period
- Bowlby proposed that
there is a critical
period around two
years when the infant
attachment system is
active.
- He viewed this as more of a sensitive
period as a child is maximally
sensitive at the age of two.
- If attachment is not formed in this time, a child will
find it much harder to form one later.
- Internal Working Model
- Bowlby proposed that a child forms a mental representation
of their relationship with their primary caregiver.
- This is called an internal working model because it
serves as a model for what relationships
are like, so it has a powerful effect on the nature of
the child's future relationships.
- The internal working model also affects the child's
later ability to be a parent them-self.
- People tend to base their parenting behaviour on
their own experiences of being parented.