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.
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.