PSYCHOLOGY OF ATTACHMENT

Contents

What is an attachment? Bowlby – evolutionary perspective Learning theory – behavioural approach Mary Ainsworth + strange situation Types of attachment Effects of attachment type Factors affecting attachment type See more contents

Contents (cont)

Cross-cultural variations in attachment Van Ijzendoorn + Kroonenberg

– meta analysis Disruption of attachment Failure to form attachment The effects of privation Index

What is an attachment?

An attachment is a two way emotional bond that endures over time. An attachment is not a physical bond, although bonding is an important aspect of the attachment process.

Bowlby – an evolutionary perspective

Attachment is an innate process, which has developed in humans in order to help keep us safe and secure.

Bowlby proposed many theories in his attachment theory:

Bowlby’s theories

Secure base: A securely attached child will use their primary caregiver as a secure base from which they can explore. Returning when they are threatened.

Monotropy: Infants form a special attachment - a bias towards one individual which makes a primary attachment.

Hierarchy: Infants also form many secondary attachments that form a hierarchy. Infants who make no secondary attachments appear to lack social skills.

Bowlby’s theories (cont)

Internal working model: Infants will use their first relationships to form the basis of expectancy about what future relationships will be like.

Continuity hypothesis: There is a consistency between early emotional experiences and later relationships. It is a view that infants which form secure attachments continue to be socially and emotionally competent – whereas insecurely attached infants will have more difficulties.

Bowlby’s theories (cont)

Social releasers: a behaviour or characteristic which ellicits a caregiving response – such as smiling or crying.

Sensitive period: A biologically determined period of time after birth, in which the child is particularly sensitive to specific stimulation. Applied to attachment – this is the second quarter of the first year of the infants life.

Strengths of Bowlby

Lorenz: showed that imprinting is innate, as goslings (baby geese) would imprint on the first thing they saw (this was actually Lorenz himself)

Tronick (Universality): research in Zaire, where infants had multiple carers, showed Tronick that infants still formed attachment’s with one caregiver. Supporting monotropy as well as Bowlby’s theory that attachment formation is an innate process.

Strengths of Bowlby (cont)

Schaffer + Emerson: observed that strongly attached infants had responsive and interactive mothers – whilst weakly attached infants did not. Caregiver sensitivity

Harlow: used monkeys to show that monkeys seeked proximity to a caregiver (wire mother) who offered contact comfort (and not just food) – especially when they were frightened (secure base). Harlow also discovered that monkeys that became attached to the unresponsive wire mother became maladjusted adults.

Weaknesses of Bowlby

Kagan’s Temperament Hypothesis: certain personality or temperamental characteristics shape a caregiver’s responsiveness.

Belsky + Rovine: they found a link between certain psychological behaviours and later attachment types. Calmer infants were more likely to be securely attached.

Learning theory – a behavioural approach to attachment

Learning theory suggests that all behaviour (including attachment) is learned post birth, through two types of conditioning – classical and operant.

Learning theory – operant conditioning

This is learning through rewards and reinforcement:

An attachment is formed because this creates a two way dependent relationship – as the baby seeks the person (secondary reinforcer) who can provide the reward (primary reinforcer).

Infant cries

Crying acts as negative reinforcement to caregiver. They comfort/feed the infant.

Infant is happy buy reward of feeding has acted as positive reinforcement to behaviour. (Food is the primary reinforcer.)

Baby cries again.

Caregiver (who is now the secondary reinforcer) feeds again.

Learning theory – classical conditioning

This is learning through association:

This association between the caregiver and pleasure is the attachment bond.

(Pre-conditioning): Milk makes infant happy (unconditional stimulus) -> milk causes happiness (unconditioned response).

(During conditioning): Infant is fed by caregiver. Infant associates caregiver with milk and happiness.

(Post conditioning): Caregiver produces pleasure associated with food (conditioned response) and therefore the caregiver becomes the conditional stimulus. The infant now feels pleasure when it sees the caregiver.

Strengths of learning theory

Can provide an adequate explanation – because humans do learn through reward, reinforcement and association.

Weaknesses of learning theory Harlow The Origins of Love: monkeys

would become attached to wire mothers wrapped in blankets (providing contact comfort) rather than wire mothers who offered food.

Schaffer + Emerson: In a study of 60 infants from mainly working class homes in Glasgow, they found that most infants were attached to the person that was most responsive; this was not always who fed the infants the most.

Weaknesses of learning theory (cont)

Validity: learning theory is mostly based on studies with non-human animals. Therefore it may lack validity because human behaviour may be similar but not the same (or completely different) as animals.

Learning theory may therefore provide an inaccurate and/or over-simplified version of human behaviour.

Ethical issues of working on animals.

Mary Ainsworth

Mary Ainsworth was a researcher who had influenced Bowlby and his thoughts and theories of attachment.

In 1969, she helped to devise the strange situation experiment, which would enable her to test the nature of attachment systematically.

The strange situation

Aim: To see how infants behave under mild stress and also novelty. Stress was created through stranger anxiety and separation anxiety. The new room was a novel situation and therefore tested the secure base theory.

Procedure: The research room was 9x9 foot, with 16 squares marked on the floor, so that the infants movements could be recorded. The procedure consisted of 8 episodes:

The strange situation (cont)

Episode (3 min duration) Behaviour assessed

Parent and infant play -

Parent sits whilst infant plays Secure base

Stranger enters and talks to parent Stranger anxiety

Parent leaves, infant plays, stranger offers comfort if needed

Separation anxiety

Parent returns, greets infant, offers comfort if needed. Stranger leaves

Reunion behaviour

Parent leaves, infant is alone Separation anxiety

Stranger enters and offers comfort Stranger anxiety

Parent returns, greets infant and offers comfort Reunion behaviour

The strange situation (cont)

Procedure: The observer would record what the infant was doing ever 15 seconds. They would also note behaviours being displayed and score them for the intensity being displayed.

Findings: Ainsworth found that there were three main type of children, or attachments. These were secure, insecure-avoidant and insecure-resistant. These attachments are categorised in the following table:

The strange situation (cont)

Secure Insecure-avoidant

Insecure-resistant

Willingness to explore

High High Low

Stranger anxiety High Low High

Separation anxiety

Some, easy to soothe

Indifferent Distressed

Behaviour on reunion with caregiver

Enthusiastic Avoids contact Seeks and rejects

Percentage of infants

66% 22% 12%

Types of attachment

Secure: a strong and contented attachment. Infants are comfortable with social interaction and intimacy. Is related to healthy subsequent cognitive and emotional developement.

Insecure: develops because of a lack of sensitive responding. Associated with poor subsequent cognitive and emotional developement.

Types of attachment (cont)

Insecure-avoidant: characterises children who tend to avoid social interaction and intimacy.

Insecure-resistant: characterises children who both seek and reject social interaction and intimacy.

Insecure-disorganised: proposed by Main + Solomon (1986) – Is characterised by a lack of consistent attachment behaviour.

Strengths of Ainsworth

Ainsworth believed caregiver sensitivity determined attachment type. This is supported by de Wolff and van Ijzendoorn (1997) who carried out a meta-analysis and found a positive correlation between sensitivity and attachment type.

Weaknesses of Ainsworth

Validity: the strange situation experiment was a highly controlled experiment which is untrue of real life. It therefore lacks ecological validity and/or mundane realism.

Ethics: Should we subject infants to situations which are designed to cause them stress?

Weaknesses of Ainsworth (cont)

Kagan: the temperament of the infant is more important (temperament hypothesis). Temperaments are differences in babies that seem to be innate at birth – three indicators are:

1. Activity – sleep/wakefulness2. Emotionality – deals with emotions3. Sociability – act towards other humans

Effects of attachment type

Prior + Glaser: Behaviour in later childhood1. Secure - positive outcomes; less emotional

dependency, higher achievement orientation, interpersonal harmony.

2. Avoidant - to later aggressiveness and a general negative affect.

3. Resistant – greater anxiety and withdrawn behaviour.

4. Disorganised – hostile and aggressive behaviour.

Effects of attachment type (cont)

Adult romantic behaviour According to Bowlby’s theory of internal

working model, later relationships should be a continuation of these attachment styles.

Hazan + Shaver (1987): tested the theory, by using a ‘Love Quiz’ in a newspaper. The quiz asked questions about early experiences and about current love experiences. The results are in the following table:

Effects of attachment type (cont)

The below table shows the results of Hazan + shaver’s experiment:

This support Bowlby’s theory – though we can’t be certain that early attachment experiences caused later attachment types.

Secure Avoidant Resistant

Current love experiences

Relationships are positive

Fearful of closeness

Preoccupied by love

Attitudes towards love

Trust others and believe in enduring love

Love is not lasting nor necessary for happiness

Fall in love easily, but have trouble finding true love.

Factors affecting attachment type

Sensitivity Ainsworth (Maternal sensitivity scale):

used scale to rate mothers behaviours such as sensitivity, acceptance, cooperation and accessibility. Using the scale she found key group differences in maternal scores in the strange situation:

Factors affecting attachment type (cont)

1. Secure: mother were sensitive, accepting, cooperative and accessible.

2. Insecure: more unresponsive to crying and less affectionate.

3. Avoidant: more rejecting, paid less attention to infants on reunion.

4. Resistant: occupied with routine activities when holding the infant (less accessible)

Factors affecting attachment type (cont)

Maternal reflective functioning Raval (2001): found low correlations

between maternal sensitivity and attachment strength.

Slade (2005): a greater role for maternal reflective functioning – the ability to understand what the infant is thinking and feeling. Suggesting this may be the central mechanism in establishing attachment type.

Factors affecting attachment type (cont)

Temperament Kagan: Temperaments are differences in

babies that seem to be innate at birth – three indicators are:1. Activity – sleep/wakefulness2. Emotionality – deals with emotions3. Sociability – act towards other humans

Temperament may be a component in attachment type, although evidence is uncertain.

Cross-cultural variation

Many studies into cultural varitation in attachment have been done. Some support Bowlby’s theory that attachment is an innate process in all humans.

One key dimension of cultural variation is individualistic vs collectivistic cultures. Both have their impact on childrearing practices, and impact on attachments formed.

Individualistic culture

Western cultures, like the UK and USA are considered individualistic. These cultures encourage individualism and individual responsibility.

In these cultures – mothers leave their infants often, as to make them independent. Therefore in the strange situation, the infants are less distressed because they can be sure she will return. Therefore they are defined as having a secure attachment.

Collectivistic culture

Countries such as Japan and Israel are collectivistic cultures. These emphasise the importance of the group and cooperation. Reliance on family is encouraged also.

In these cultures, caregivers do not leave their infants often. In the strange situation the infants were very distressed on separation because it is not something they are used to. Attachment was often defined as insecure as a result.

Cross-cultural similarities in attachment

Ainsworth (Uganda): infants in Uganda used their caregivers as a secure base for exploration. Caregivers to securely attached infants showed greater sensitivity towards their infants than those who were insecurely attached – much like in the UK and USA (western cultures).

Tronick (Zaire): studied an African tribe. Found infants made one primary attachment despite being cared for by numerous women. Showed attachment was universal.

Cross-cultural similarities in attachment (cont)

Fox (Israel): studied infants from Israeli kibbutzim – who spent most of their time being cared for by metaplot (plural = nurses). Attachment was tested in the strange situation with the nurse and mother – the infants appeared equally attached, with the exception of reunion behaviour; where the infants showed greater joy towards the mother. This suggested that there was a primary attachment formed despite the shard care.

Cross-cultural differences in attachment

Grossman + Grossman: German infants tended to be defined as insecurely attached – due to different childrearing techniques which did not engage in proximity seeking behaviour.

Takahashi: Japanese infants were particularly distressed on being left alone in the strange situation. The response was so extreme that for 90% of the infants the study was stopped after the caregiver had left the room. This was because Japanese infants rarely experienced separation from their mothers.

Cross-cultural variation (cont)Van Ijzendorn + Kroonenberg (1988) – Meta

analysis The analysis was of 32 studies of attachment

behaviour, over 2000 strange situation classifications in 8 different countries.

Aims: to investigate inter-cultural (differences between cultures/countries) and intra-cultural (differences within cultures/countries) differences in attachment.

Procedure: used a meta analysis to compare different cultures/countries.

Cross-cultural variation (cont) Findings:

1. There were some large variations2. Variations were larger within cultures as

opposed to between nations. Due to class, ethnicity, religion etc.

3. Individualistic cultures were more likely to have a higher proportion of secure attachments.

Cross-cultural variation (cont) Criticisms: is it fair to represent

collectivistic cultures with the strange situation – when it was set up from a Western, individualistic viewpoint.

Certain behaviours are viewed as positive by western researchers but not by researchers from other cultures.

For example, is it actually a bad thing that an infant is distressed when it’s caregiver leaves?

Evaluating cultural variations in attachment

Rothbaum: argues that the sensitivity hypothesis promoted the view that secure attachment was related to caregiver sensitivity and responsiveness. Whereas in Japan sensitivity is about promoting dependence. In the two cultures, it has differing objectives.

The secure base hypothesis proposed securely attached infants will be competent individually. In Japan the opposite is true, group orientation is more desired. Again there are opposite objectives of the two cultures.

Evaluating cultural variations in attachment (cont)

Rothbaum: suggests that psychologists should produce a set of indigenous theories. There should be a small number of universal principles, but childcare practices should be related to cultural values.

Posada + Jacobs: there is evidence to show that sensitivity is linked to secure attachment, however secure attachment is manifested across cultures.

Evaluating cultural variations in attachment (cont)

Prior + Glaser: conclude that expressions of maternal sensitivity and manifestations of secure attachment vary across cultures but the core principles are universal.

Disruption of attachment

Robertson + Robertson – the effects of physical separation

John was an infant who was cared for in a residential day nursery whilst his mother went into hopsital. John was in a strange environment with different routines, food, people etc.

The system of care made it impossible for John to get substitute emotional care. This lead him to seek attention through his behaviour. Though the workers did not understand.

Disruption of attachment (cont) This lead to him refusing food + drink,

not playing or sleeping (detachment). He also stopped trying to get attention through his ‘bad’ behaviour.

On reunion with his mother he was aggressive and does not want to interact with her. For many months afterwards John continued to have anger outbursts towards his mother.

Disruption of attachment (cont) Jane was an infant who was cared for by

the Robertsons whilst her mother was in hospital. They kept her food and routines the same, her Dad visited daily and the foster mum was able to provide substitute emotional care.

After a few days she showed the strain of separation – reverting to thumb sucking, being impatience and rejecting contact.

Disruption of attachment (cont) However she still ate, drank, played and

slept. She also still related to the foster family. As a result excessive anxiety was prevented.

On reunion with her mum she was fine – although somewhat reluctant to give up her foster mum.

Disruption of attachment (cont) Evaluation: if an infant had it’s

attachment with it’s primary caregiver disrupted, without substitute emotional care provided the attachment with would suffer over time.

Failure to form attachment

Hodges + Tizard (1989) – Longitudinal study They followed 65 British infants from early life to

adolescence. All infants had institutionalised before the age of four months (an age when they have not yet formed attachments).

There was an explicit policy against the ‘caretakers’ forming an attachment with the children

A study at an early age found 70% were unable to care deeply about anyone.

Failure to form attachment (cont)

The children were assessed at regular intervals up to the age of 16. Some children remained in the institution, some had been adopted and some had been ‘restored’ to their original families.

‘Restored’ children were less likely to have formed attachments with a caregiver, but adopted children were as closely attached to their parents as a control group of ‘normal’ children.

Failure to form attachment (cont)

However both groups of ex-institutional children had problems with peers. They were less likely to have special friends and/or to be liked by peers.

These findings suggest that early privation had a negative effect on the ability to form relationships even when given good subsequent emotional care. Supporting Bowlby’s theory on a sensitive period.

The effects of privation

Attachment disorder Has recently been recognised as a

distinct psychiatric condition. Children with attachment disorder have:1. No preffered attachment figure2. An inability to interact and relate to

others, that is evident before the age of five.

3. Experience of severe neglect or change of caregivers.

The effects of privation

Deprivation Dwarfism Children in institutional care are usually

physically small – one suggestion is that a lack of emotional care is the cause.

Gardner (1972): provided evidence from a case where a girl had to be fed through a tube. For fear of dislodging the tube, her mother never cuddled or picked up her daughter. At 8 months of age, the girl was severely withdrawn and physically stunted.

The effects of privation (cont) When at hospital she thrived on the

attention, and soon returned to normal physically – even though there was no change of diet.

Gardner suggests that emotional disturbance may affect the disruption of hormones (such as growth hormones) – and would therefore explain the link between emotional deprivation and physical dwarfism.

Index

Kagan (Temperament hypothesis): slide 11, slide 27, slide 34.

Harlow (Origins of Love): slide 10, slide 16.

Schaffer + Emerson: slide 10, slide 16. Tronick (Universality): slide 9, slide 38. The sensitivity hypothesis: slide 25,

slide 31, slide 44, slide 45.