Tutor2u

1. Tutor2u Study Notes and online tests. http://www.tutor2u.net/psychology/reference/explanations-for-attachment-revision-quiz

2. Exam essay Outline and evaluate Bowlby’s explanation of attachment. (Total 8 marks) 10 minutes

3. Mark scheme Ao1 AO1 = 4 Bowlby’s theory of attachment suggests attachment is important for survival. Infants are innately programmed to form an attachment. This is a biological process and takes place during a critical period. The role of social releasers is emphasised. The child’s relationship with a PCG provides an internal working model which influences later relationships.

4. Mark scheme Ao2 AO2 = 4 Evaluation of Bowlby’s explanation could relate to criticism of the critical period and monotropy. Candidates might refer to imprinting and the problems of generalising from birds to humans. However, positive references to the importance of Bowlby’s work would be equally relevant.

5. The Specification!

6. Attachment Evolutionary perspective Learning Theory Perspective The tendency to form attachments is INNATE! Tendency is present in both infants and mothers Infants have no INNATE tendency to form attachments They learn attachments because of food

7. Classical Conditioning

8. Result

9. Imprinting

10. Lorenz (1935)

11. Harlow’s Monkeys

12. Bowlby’s Monotropic Theory

13. BowlbyVs Learning Theory In the red corner . . . . In the blue corner . . . .

14. Next Week …

15. Objectives By the end of the today you will be able to … • Describe the Strange Situation experiment • Classify types of behaviour into the three types of infant behaviour: secure, insecure/avoidant and insecure/resistant and understand what behaviour is associated with each. • Understand the different cultural variations in attachment

16. The Strange Situation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s608077NtNI Mary Ainsworth How can we study attachment?

17. The Strange Situation • Ainsworth and Bell (1970) • Aimed to produce a method for assessing quality of attachment. • It places the infant in different situations to invoke comfort seeking and exploration behaviour, both indicators of the quality of attachment. • It systematically studies and measures attachment https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s608077NtNI

18. The Strange Situation • 100 middle-class American infants and their mothers. • Controlled observation of mother and child during a set of pre-determined activities. • Observed: • Separation anxiety : unease infant shows when left by caregiver • Infant’s willingness to explore • Stranger anxiety: the infant’s response to the presence of a stranger • Reunion behaviour: the way the caregiver was greeted on return

19. In Trios – be prepared to act out this procedure and the three different findings.

20. STAGES 1 + 2 Mom and infant go into room to get used to it before the obs. begins

21. STAGE 3 Mom is in room and stranger enters.

22. STAGE 4 Mom leaves and the stranger interacts with the infant

23. STAGE 5 Mom returns (reunion behaviour recorded)

24. STAGE 6 Mom leaves and the infant is left alone. Separation protest is recorded.

25. STAGE 7 Instead of mom, the stranger returns. Stranger anxiety behaviour recorded.

26. STAGE 8 Mom re-enters the room and stranger leaves. Reunion behaviour recorded.

27. The procedure provided Ainsworth with a means of looking at: • stranger anxiety • separation anxiety • re-union behaviour This led Ainsworth to develop 3 broad types of attachment

28. 3 Types of Attachment Behaviour ‘I trust you’ ‘I don’t trust you’ ‘I don’t care!’

29. Securely Attached (70%) • Would explore the unfamiliar room • Subdued when mother left and greeted her positively when she returned • Moderate avoidance of the stranger, but friendly when mother present • Mothers were described as sensitive

30. Avoidant-Insecure (15%) • Did not orientate to their mother while investigating the room and toys • Did not seem concerned by her absence • Showed little interest when mother returned • Avoided the stranger, but not as strongly as they avoided the mother on her return • Mothers sometimes ignored their infants

31. Resistant-Insecure (15%) • Showed intense distress, particularly when their mother was absent • Rejected mother when she returned • Showed ambivalent behaviour towards the stranger, similar to the pattern of resistance and interest shown with their mother • Mothers appeared to behave ambivalently towards their infants.

32. Conclusions The study shows there are significant individual differences between infants There appears to be a distinct association between the mother’s behaviour and the infant’s attachment type. It shows that most American children are securely attached

33. Activity: What goes where?Fill in table with ‘high’ ‘moderate’ or ‘low’

34. Activity: What goes where?Fill in table with ‘high’ or ‘low’

35. Match the evaluative points to the evaluative explanation

36. GRAVER

37. Generalisable • Large sample • Only in Baltimore  Procedure replicated around the world.

38. Reliable • Inter-rater reliability. • Behavioural categories • (Bick found 94% agreement between researchers)

39. Application • New Paradigm • Importance of parental sensitivity • Predictive – attachment type linked to adult behaviours. • Focuses too much on behaviour of child and not behaviour of mother which may distort results. • Test may be culture-bound. Cultural differences in child-rearing mean children respond differently to the test – caregivers also respond differently.

40. Validity • Lacks ecological validity – Lab based with mother and stranger acting a script. • Are we measuring attachment or temperament? Kagan suggests temperament may be a confounding variable.

41. Ethics • Deliberately stresses infants to see their reactions.  Stress is no more serious than everyday anxieties – mother on hand.

42. Efficient: could measure a lot of behaviours quite quickly and easily bring in lots of participants • Easy to replicate: method has been employed in studies the world over – especially in cross-cultural research • Validity:location is different from infant’s normal environment. However, many infants experience new locations quite naturally e.g. with a babysitter, at play group, etc • Generalisations: it would be unreasonable to generalise about all infant behaviour as the findings of this study are restricted to it’s sample type (middle-class Americans) • Ethics: consider distress, infants found most of the situations distressing. What about informed consent? Prior to each study, was the mother informed of the potential distress that their baby might experience? Issues

43. Ainsworth exam questions • Describe how Ainsworth studied types of attachment. (6 marks) • Outline what is meant by secure attachment. (2 marks) • Explain the difference between secure and insecure attachment. (3 marks) • Describe and evaluate the strange situation. (12 marks)

44. Break-time research! • We love our mobile phones. We display attachment behaviour to technology. • Ask people how the feel about their phone, knowing it is close by, what they feel when it is missing. • How might these behaviours be seen as secure, insecure-avoidant or insecure-resistant.

45. Evaluation • In pairs, answer the questions on each card. Prepare to feedback

46. Cultural variations in attachment • Cultural variations in attachment- differences in child-rearing practices and attachment types between different cultural groupings • Germans child-rearing practices value independence more than the UK. • German studies record higher rates of insecure-avoidance.

47. Do you think attachment is different depending on the culture? If so, how?

48. Ijzendoorn (1988) Cross-Cultural Patterns of Attachment The meta- analysis 32 studies in 8 countries 2000 Strange Situation classifications. Intra-cultural Vs inter-cultural variation.

49. Ijzendoon - Findings • Average findings were consistent with Ainsworth’s original research - Secure 67% - Avoidant 21% - Resistant 12% • Intra-cultural variation was nearly 15 times greater than the cross-cultural variations. Van Ijzendoorn speculated that this was linked to differences in socio-economic factors and levels of stress that varied between samples used within each country. • Type A in West – Type C more common in Japan, China & Israel revealed a higher incidence of resistant than avoidant children. • Chinese findings revealed the lowest rate of secure attachments (50%) with the remaining children falling into the other categories equally. • It was concluded that the modest cross-cultural differences reflect the effects of mass media, which portrays similar notions of parenting.