ATTACHMENT

EVIDENCE OF AN ATTACHMENT

• Proximity seeking• Separation distress• Joy on reunion• General disorientation (for behaviour towards the

other person- interaction and engagement)

THE LEARNING THEORY

• Classical conditioning– The person that feeds the infant becomes associated with

the food, bringing pleasure; association between the individual and pleasure leads to an attachment bond

– Pavlov’s dog study• Operant conditioning– A type of learning that takes place because of actions and

rewards that would reinforce the behaviour• Social learning– Role models

BOWLBY’S EVOLUTIONARY THEORY

• Survival– Babies form attachments in order to survive; infants require adults to

feed, care for and protect them, and humans have evolved so that babies have innate tendencies to form attachments

• Monotropy– A single attachment to one person who is most important to the baby

• Internal working model– Attachments at a young age provide a template for all future relationships

• Sensitive/critical period– If attachments are not formed within the first 3 years of a child’s life, it can

have serious consequences for future relationships, as attachments will not form outside of this period

AINSWORTH’S STRANGE SITUATION STUDY

• 8 stages– Mother and child introduced to the room– Mother and child left alone to investigate toys– Stranger enters and approaches child– Mother leaves and stranger interacts with child– Mother returns to comfort child– Child left alone– Stranger returns and tries to engage with child– Mother returns to comfort child and stranger leaves

• easy to replicate• low ecological validity• demand characteristics• ethical issue- psychological harm

AINSWORTH’S TYPES OF ATTACHMENT

• Secure (70%)– Baby uses mother as a safe base and is happy to explore– Gets distressed with mother leaves– When mother returns, baby quickly settles down and plays again

• Insecure-avoidant (15%)– Baby shows some distress when mother leaves– Doesn’t seek comfort on reunion; can be comforted by strangers

• Insecure-resistant (15%)– Easily distressed when mother leaves– On reunion, baby alternates between seeking comfort and

rejecting it

COLLECTIVIST VS. INDIVIDUALIST

• Van Ijzendoorn & Kroonenberg– Most common = secure– Non-Western countries- more collectivist– Western countries- insecure-avoidant– China- 50/50 split between two insecure types

• based on strange situation study, so there is potential for having all variables controlled in the same way, meaning that results can be compared with other researchers

• mixture of collectivist and individualist cultures• each study that was compared were slightly different to each other,

so comparisons may not be reliable• ethical issues- distress to infants• small sample- only one study in the UK, Sweden and China

DISRUPTION OF ATTACHMENT

• Separation- child is away from the caregiver they are attached to for a relatively short time, just hours or days.

• Deprivation- the loss of something that is wanted or needed, a long-term or even permanent loss

• Stages of disruption– Protest- few hours, crying, panicking etc.– Despair- day or two, withdrawn, eat/sleep less– Detachment- alert, ‘recovered’, possible permanent damage to

attachment• Robertson & Robertson

– Short term separation can have very bad effects or possible permanent damage to an attachment

THE PDD MODEL

• PDD Model– Separating a child from its caregivers should be avoided– Children in foster care do better than those in an

institutionalised setting; they can cope with the separation if they still receive one-on-one emotional support

– Many factors influence a child’s reaction to separation which might not necessarily produce the PDD effects

BOWLBY- 44 JUVENILE THEIVES

• Bowlby– 44 teens who were convicted of stealing, 44 teens who

had never stolen anything but were still ‘emotionally disturbed’

– 17 thieves had frequent separation before the age of 2 from the convicted group, but only 2 from the control group

– Deprivation has harmful long-term consequences• cannot determine cause/effect or explain any

extraneous variables

LONG TERM EFFECTS OF SEPARATION

• Affectionless psychopathology– As seen in the 44 juvenile thieves

• Anaclitic depression– Appetite loss, sleeplessness, impaired social and

intellectual development• Deprivation dwarfism– Physically underdeveloped

PRIVATION

• Privation- never forming a bond with a caregiver• Genie– Never formed an attachment, discovered at 13- physically

underdeveloped– After a lot of help, she learned some language, but her social and

intellectual skills never fully developed• Czech twins– Locked in a cellar, found at the age of 7 with rickets and very little

social or intellectual development– They made lots of progress after being adopted, and had above

average intelligence and normal social relationships by the time they reached adulthood.

GENIE VS. CZECH TWINS

• Length/Age– Czech twins had more time to develop because they were found at a younger

age• Experiences

– Twins were kept together so they became attached to each other but Genie was alone

• Quality of care– The twins were adopted but Genie was put in an institution so it would have

been harder to form attachments there• cannot generalise findings• mixed results• more controlled, scientific evidence needed, but ethically wrong to

put children in situations of privation

HODGES & TIZARD

• Hodges & Tizard– 65 children in residential nursery before they were 4 months old– They had no chance to form close attachments– By the age of 4, some were adopted, some stayed at the nursery and some

were returned to their mothers– Children can recover from early privation if they are in a good quality, loving

environment, although their social development is not as good as children without privation

– The adopted children showed strong family relationships, where others showed poorer relationships

• natural experiment- high ecological validity• supported by Rutter (Romanian orphans)- adopted have a better

chance than those not adopted• small sample- hard to generalise results

THE EFFECTS OF DAYCARE

• Clarke-Stewart– Peer relationship study- 2/3 year olds experienced daycare and were

good at coping in social situations– Strange situation replication- 18 month olds with high intensity daycare

were found to have a direct relationship between distress levels and their low intensity daycare

– controlled, easily replicated– lacks ecological validity, cannot generalise

• Belsky & Rovine– Children who received daycare were more likely to have insecure

attachments, and children with no daycare were more securely attached– controlled, supported by other research in the area– lacks ecological validity

WHAT IS GOOD DAYCARE?

• Good staff training• Adequate space• Appropriate toys and activities• Good ratio of staff to children• Minimal turnover so that children form stable

attachments with the carers