ATTACHMENT

1. Outline Bowlby’s theory of attachment

Bowlby suggests that attachment is innate and caregiving traits are passed down through evolution. Children give out ‘social releasers’ such as smiling, crying and laughing which elicit caregiving characteristics. A child should have formed an attachment with their monotropy (usually the mother) in the critical period, which is the second half of their first year. Children also learn their behaviours by taking note through a schema of their parents relationships, therefore how their parents act affects their relationships when an adult.

Evaluate Bowlby’s theory of attachment

+ hodges and tizard’s study proves the internal working model as the children who had no attachments as a child had difficulties in later life

+ Genie who never formed any attachments grew up to dislike all people as the only people she knew attacked and abused her as a child

+ Lorenz supports that caregiving is innate due to the fact he managed to become a monotropy with geese, as they attached to the first thing they saw (which was Lorenz)

2. Outline learning theory

Infants become attached to whomever satisfies their biological need for food, all behaviour is learned and we are born a blank slate. He provided two ways in which we learn behaviour, either through association or through reward and punishment. Classical conditioning suggests that the child associates the caregiver to the pleasure they get from the food, and thus forming an attachment. The food is originally the unconditioned stimulus before the conditioning which leads to an unconditioned response, which would be the pleasure from eating the food. During the conditioning, the unconditioned stimulus becomes associated with the neutral stimulus (mother providing the food). Therefore, after the conditioning the neutral stimulus leads to a conditioned response, the child will gain pleasure from seeing the mother as they know they gain pleasure from her. Operant conditioning is learning behaviour through reward and punishment. The child will be punished from doing something they shouldn’t do, for example they would be asked to sit on the naughty seat if they shout at the parents, this behaviour would then be less likely to be copied because they know the consequence. Alternatively, the child can be rewarded for doing a behaviour, for example, get praised for eating their vegetables.

Evaluate learning theory

+ Pavlov’s dogs support classical conditioning as the dogs salivated at the sound of the bell after conditioning that they get food when the bell is rung

- Harlow’s monkeys criticise as the monkeys formed an attachment with the cushioned surrogate mother who didn’t provide them with food when they were frightened and only went to the wire monkey when hungry.

+ can be applied to abnormality as a cause for the development of phobias so this has led to further research into finding out how to unlearn a behaviour and therefore treat the abnormality

3. Outline the three attachment types

Safe base

Separation anxiety

Stranger anxiety

Reunion behaviour

Secure

Used mother as safe base for exploration happy to play while she was there

Distressed on separation

Wary of stranger but happy to play if mother present

Greeted mother warmly on return

Insecure-avoidant

Play not affected whether mother there or not

Little distress when separated from mother

Avoids comfort from stranger

Avoids contact upon mothers return

Insecure-resistant

Very fussy and clingy towards mother

Very distressed when mother leaves

Wary of stranger when mother present

Seeks comfort from mother but then resisted to the comfort

4. Outline the strange situation

Mary Ainsworth conducted a study to examine safe-base behaviour, separation anxiety, stranger anxiety and reunion behaviour in children. This was a controlled observation where she recorded the child’s behaviour every 15 seconds. She recorded proximity and contact seeking, contact maintaining, proximity and interaction avoiding and contact and interaction resisting on a scale from 1 to 7 to put the child into one of three categories; secure, insecure-avoidant or insecure-resistantly attached. She observed through a camera the child and mothers behaviour, the child would be between 12 and 18 months old.

Evaluate the strange situation

- Ainsworth’s study assumes that all children would fit into the 3 categories so she may change her answers so that the children fit into the categories

- observations rely on subjective judgements of the observer, Ainsworth may think a child is being more resistant than someone else which reduces the validity of the study

- this study is ethnocentric as she only did it in America, this reduces the external validity of the study as the results can’t be generalised to wider countries. Van I and K proved that there are cross-cultural differences as American babies are mostly Secure whereas collectivist cultures had a lot more ambivalent children than America.

- due to the fact it wasn’t a longitudinal study and only done on one day means that it depends of the child’s mood on that day. A child may seem more resistant on that day as they may be teething, therefore the results would be less accurate.

5. Outline research into cultural variations in attachment

Van I and K – meta-analysis of 18 studies doing the strange situation in 8 different countries, covering a total of over 2,000 children. Results showed that secure attachment was most common in all countries and cultures, whether individualist or collectivist. However, insecure-resistant was the highest out of all countries in Japan, China and Israel, all collectivist cultures. Overall, it was found that intra-cultural differences are 1.5x greater than inter-cultural differences.

Ainsworth’s Uganda study – observed infants and mothers, used mother as safe-base for exploration and the mothers of the children who were securely attached responded most sensitively to the needs of the child.

Evaluate research into cultural variations in attachment

- the strange situation is an example of indigenous research which means that it was made specifically to be tested in one specific country, or culture, therefore cannot be applied to a very different culture, Van I and K found that collectivist cultures were most likely to be insecure-resistant.

- this study is a meta-analysis which means it could be prone to publications bias, as the researcher may have chosen the studies which support his hypothesis, therefore we don’t get a true and accurate reading of culture variations in attachment

+ the large population size means that the results can be generalised to other children who weren’t in the study, and means the study has higher external validity

6. Outline research into disruption of attachment

Robertson and Robertson – took 4 children into their own home for a few weeks, all were under 3 years old; Jane, Lucy, Thomas and Kate. Their fathers visited regularly, and routines were maintained similar to that at home. All of the children adjusted well and didn’t reject parents on return. However, some showed signs of distress and were reluctant to leave, shows how an emotional bond was formed.

Robertson – looked at two children admitted to hospital; john and Laura. Laura was in hospital for 8 days, she alternated between distress and calm, as time went on she coped more with the disappointment of no parents. John was in hospital for 9 days, he behaved normally for the first 2 days but then begun efforts for getting attention, he ended up forming an attachment to a teddy bear. For months afterwards he was angry towards his mother.

Evaluate research into disruption of attachment

+ the Robertson study made use of a real life situation that would be unethical to manipulate

- highly influential has it has taught institutions that emotional care should be maintained in order for no attachment to be disrupted.

- the children may have been insecure-avoidant which meant they wouldn’t be that distressed by having no parents there, which reduces the external validity of the study as securely attached infants would be much more distressed and this may have had a much worse impact on them

7. Outline research into privation (failure to form attachment)

The Czech Twins – were locked up and abused by step-mother (real mother died shortly after child birth), they were found at the age of 7 and at the time couldn’t speak at all. They were then looked after by two sisters and by the age of 14 had near normal intellect and social functioning. By the age of 20 they had above average intelligence and had good relationships with foster family

Genie – locked up by father as a child as he thought she was mentally ill. She was found at the age of 13 and couldn’t speak. She never fully recovered after being looked after by several different people. Never managed to form an attachment and grew up not liking anyone due to extreme early emotional privation

Evaluate research into privation (failure to form attachment)

+ case studies so have high ecological validity due to high mundane realism, no demand characteristics

- Genie could’ve actually had a mental illness as her dad thought, therefore this would have heavily affected the validity of the results, this is therefore an issue with having no control over the manipulation of variables in a case study. Therefore, if someone didn’t have a mental illness, would the effect be as bad?

+ takes advantage of a situation that would be unethical to manipulate in a laboratory setting, shows people the importance of emotional care

8. Outline research into institutionalisation

Hodges and tizard – 65 British children placed in an institution all under the age of 4 months (before an attachment would have formed) until they were 16 years old, their behaviour was regularly assessed and it was made sure no emotional bonds were formed. 70% of children could never care about anyone when they were older. Restored children (given back to original family) were less likely to then form a bond. All children were likely to be bullies.

Rutter – 1,000 Romanian orphans were given to British families and assessed at the ages of 4, 6 and 11. Children who were adopted before the age of 6 months had ‘normal’ emotional development whereas; if they were adopted after 6 months they had disinhibited attachments and problems with peers.

Evaluate research into institutionalisation

+ supported by Genie as she never formed an attachment and later in life had difficulties with relationships. Shows that emotional bond is needed

+ both longitudinal studies which means that it is affected on the behaviour of the child on one particular day, it therefore gets a more accurate account of the effects rather than relying on memory

- however, in longitudinal studies, it is likely that the children may drop out, as they are unable to give their consent at such a young age, therefore when they are able to they may disagree, this lowers the amount of participants and therefore lowers the external validity of the study and makes it less generalisable

9. Outline research into the effects of day care on aggression

NICHD – over 1,000 children from 10 different locations, showed that the more time children spent in day care, the more aggressive and disobedient they were. Children in full time day care were 3x more likely to have behaviour problems than those being cared for by mothers at home.

EPPE – 3,000 children, took into account background characteristics of the children (home environment and experience of day care). A sample of ‘home’ children were recruited by means of comparison, looked at local authority nurseries, private day nurseries and nursery schools. Children who spent longer in day care were rated as more aggressive and showed more ‘anti-social’ behaviour. Most of the children had started day care before the age of two, if the day care was of high quality this reduced the effect of the amount of time spent in day care.

Evaluate Outline research into the effects of day care on aggression

+ takes into account background characteristics, results are more accurate as their home experience isn’t included in the results, e.g. someone may have been brought up to be insecurely attached which meant they would be more likely to be aggressive, so the nursery may not have had an impact on this.

- only takes three types of day care into account, doesn’t take au pairs, etc. into account, more types to use as comparison

10. Outline research into the effects of day care on peer relations

Shea – videotaped 3 and 4 year olds during play time in their first 10 weeks at nursery school (naturalistic observation). Two groups consisting of full time attendees and part-time attendees (2/3 days a week) children in the full-time group were more sociable as they went looking for people to talk to and made more contact with others, aggressive behaviour decreased over the 10 week period in all groups. Day care decreased aggression and increases social skills.

Field – amount of time spent in in full time day care positively correlated with the amount of friends they had when they went to school.

Evaluate Outline research into the effects of day care on peer relations

- Shea only looked at one nursery therefore low external validity as EPPE found that the quality of day care makes a difference and that one day care practice may have been higher or lower quality than average.

+ naturalistic observation means that the children were in their normal environment and therefore no demand characteristics would have occurred which means the results can be generalised to similar day care practices

- Shea states that the full time attendees were more sociable, this could just be because they knew the other children more than the part-time attendees, who just didn’t know them well enough to be very sociable with them, therefore the study doesn’t give a truly accurate approach

11. How has research into attachment influenced day care practices?

Research by the Robertson showed that an emotional bond must be maintained in order to counteract the negative effects of day care. Therefore, parents are allowed to visit their children in hospital much more regularly than they were used to, to avoid disruption of attachment.

Children used to not be allowed to be put up for adoption until after 6 months old until the ‘sensitive period’ for attachment had passed. Since Bowlby’s theory, babies are now encouraged to be put up for adoption within the first week of their birth, to avoid the disruption of attachment.

12. How has research into day care influenced day care practices?

Low child to staff ratios are now heavily encouraged in day care practices. This is due to the NICHD which found that the children should have an emotional bond whilst at day care, so the ratio should be 3:1.

Minimal staff turnover – Schaffer argued that minimal staff turnover is just as important as a bond being broken, which can be detrimental. Therefore, day care practices now limit staff turnover as much as possible to aid emotional bonds between children and staff.

EPPE found that the quality of day care is positively correlated to the social development of children. Therefore, day care practices are aiming to put their staff through these qualifications to aid child development.

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Summary of all the content in the topic of 'Attachment' in Psychology, AQA AS Unit 1