DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY

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DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY

• ATTACHMENTS IN DEVELOPMENT

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YOUR EARLY LIFE

• In partners, discuss the first 2 years of your
  life.
• Your birth
• Amount of crying
• Feeding
• Sibling involvement
• Fathers involvement
• Your first word? First steps?
• Homework interview your parents to find out
  more. Write up.

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THE BOOKLETS

• 1. ATTACHMENTS
• DISRUPTION OF ATTACHMENT
• ATTACHMENT IN EVERYDAY LIFE

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ATTACHMENTS

• Schaffer an attachment is a close emotional
  relationship between two persons, with mutual
  affection and a desire to maintain proximity

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4 KEY BEHAVIOURS

• Maccoby proposed
• Seeking proximity to caregiver
• Distress on separation
• Pleasure when re-united
• General orientation towards the primary caregiver
• Attachments are reciprocal, i.e. bonding
• takes place because both partners want it

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BENEFITS OF ATTACHMENT

• Animals born helpless need protection to survive
• So a strong attachment bond between mother and
  infant will ensure its survival
• Attachment is therefore an innate (instinctive)
  behaviour
• It exists in species where it increases
  reproductive success

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LONG TERM BENEFITS

• It provides a basis for long term relationships
• The infant learns how to form a loving
  relationship
• BOWLBY called this
• AN INTERNAL WORKING MODEL.
• This is a schema the infant holds about how to
  form a relationship

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INTERNAL WORKING MODEL

• This is a template based on the first bond the
  infant makes
• It sets a pattern for that individuals future
  relationships
• So it should predict what kinds of relationship
  that individual will make in future life

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THE LOVE QUIZ P.76/90

• RESEARCHERS Hazan and Shaver
• AIMS to see if a persons attachment type in
  adult life correlated with their experiences as
  infants
• PROCEDURE a love quiz appeared in a newspaper
  for volunteers to complete. Sample was aged
  between 14 82.
• Ps were classified according to their answers as
• secure, ambivalent or avoidant
• Their beliefs about romantic love

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APFCC - LOVE QUIZ

• FINDINGS Secure types assessed their present
  relationships as happy
• Ambivalent types described their present
  relationships as worrying (jealousy, not feeling
  loved, etc)
• Avoidant types feared intimacy and and did not
  need love to be happy

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APFCC LOVE QUIZ

• CONCLUSION a persons attachment type in early
  infancy is related to the relationships they form
  in adulthood.
• EVALUATION the data is retrospective. Recall of
  childhood memories may not be accurate
• People may have answered the questionnaire in a
  socially desirable way
• The sample was biased because it was self selected

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DEVELOPMENT OF ATTACHMENTS
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STAGES OF ATTACHMENT

• Schaffer and Emerson proposed that babies go
  through 4 stages of attachment
• ASOCIAL STAGE smiling and crying, not directed
  at a particular person (0-6 weeks)
• INDISCRIMINATE STAGE Attention sought and
  accepted from different people (6 weeks 7
  months)
• SPECIFIC ATTACHMENTS strong attachment to one
  individual. Shows separation protest and
  stranger anxiety (7-11 months)
• MULTIPLE ATTACHMENTS infant forms bond s with
  other caregivers, e.g. father, siblings.
  Independence is increasing (11 months onwards)

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SEPARATION PROTEST

• Securely attached infants show this. They cry or
  hold up their arms when mother leaves
• STRANGER ANXIETY
• This is the distress shown by an infant when
  approached by a stranger
• These are both signs of secure attachment

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EVALUATION OF STAGE THEORY

• Carpenter found that 2 week olds can recognise
  their mothers face and voice.
• PROCEDURE Infants looked at a face and heard a
  voice.
• FINDINGS babies spent longer looking at their
  mothers face
• If the mothers face and voice did not match,
  baby became distressed

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BUSHNELL ET AL

• They found that 2 day old babies stared longer at
  mothers face than a strangers face.
• There is also evidence that 2 day olds turn their
  head towards a pad soaked in their mothers milk
  more readily than towards one soaked in another
  womans milk

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SCHAFFER AND EMERSONS STUDY OF GLASGOW BABIES

• AIMS a longitudinal study to find out more about
  attachments in development
• PROCEDURE 60 infants were observed periodically
  over a period of 2 years
• They were observed every 4 weeks
• Attachment was measured using separation protest
  and stranger anxiety

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APFCC GLASGOW BABIES

• FINDINGS First specific attachment occurred
  between 6-8 months
• Intensely attached infants had mothers who
  responded quickly to their demands.
• Weakly attached babies had mothers who failed to
  interact

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INDIVIDUAL DIFFERNCES

• By 18 months only 13 of infants were attached to
  only one person
• 31 had 5 or more attachments
• 65 of the infants were attached primarily to the
  mother
• 39 of the cases the person who usually
  fed,bathed and changed the infant was not their
  primary attachment figure

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CRITICAL PERIODS

• Ethology is the study of animal behaviour
• Konrad Lorenz, (see p.80/108) an ethologist,
  discovered that goslings and other baby birds
  follow the first moving object they see on
  hatching.
• This is called IMPRINTING, and as mother is
  invariably going to be the first thing they see,
  this clearly has survival value

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IMPRINTING

• This occurs only within a critical period 24
  hours in birds, geese and ducks
• It is irreversible
• It has lasting consequences. When zebra finches
  were raised by Bengalese finches, they preferred
  to mate with the type they had imprinted on
• The human equivalent of a critical period is
  called a sensitive period. Bowlby estimated that
  if an infant had not attached by 3years, it would
  never form a deep attachment

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KLAUS AND KENNELL

• They argued that there is a critical period in
  human infants soon after birth
• Bonding occurs through skin-to-skin contact
• They showed this by comparing a group of new
  mothers who had extended contact with their
  newborns, and a group who did not.
• One month later the extended group showed more
  cuddling, eye contact and comforting than the
  other group, i.e more evidence of bonding

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SKIN TO SKIN HYPOTHESIS

• Cross cultural studies do not support the idea
  that skin to skin contact improves the attachment
  bond, but
• De Chateau found that mothers who had skin to
  skin contact with their unwashed babies straight
  after birth, and put their babies to the breast
  immediately, breastfed their babies for longer
  than other mothers

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MONOTROPY HYPOTHESIS

• Bowlby proposed that infants have an innate
  tendency to form a strong bond with one
  caregiver, usually the mother
• This deep and intense attachment is the basis for
  forming future relationships.
• It lays down a schema or internal working model
  for future deep relationships
• Bowlbys emphasis on one single strong
  relationship has sometimes been disputed

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MULTIPLE ATTACHMENTS

• Psychologists have proposed that several
  attachments is more desirable than one primary
  attachments.
• PARKE found that fathers style of play is often
  more unpredictable and physical, whereas mothers
  is soothing and comforting
• In caribbean countries
• children form several
• attachments

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CROSS CULTURAL EVIDENCE

• Tronik studied the Efe tribe in Zaire, Africa
• They live in extended family groups
• Infants were looked after and even breastfed by
  different women, yet by 6 months they still
  showed a preference for their mothers
• Which hypothesis does
• this support?

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SENSITIVE RESPONSIVENESS THEORY

• Whereas Bowlby emphasised the importance of a
  primary caregiver, Schaffer and Emerson believed
  it was the QUALITY of care, rather than the
  QUANTITY of care which determined the strength of
  the attachment bond.
• They proposed that a secure attachment is due to
  a caregivers sensitivity and responsiveness to
  the infants needs

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KIBBUTZ CHILDREARING

• Kibbutzim are collective farms set up in Israel.
  The children spend the day in the infant house
  and are cared for by a nurse.
• They see their parents every evening.
• Nevertheless, their strongest attachment was with
  their mother.
• This supports the caregiving
• sensitivity hypothesis

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CAREGIVING SENSITIVITY HYPOTHESIS

• Ainsworth proposed that it is the
• quality of the relationship which
• matters most of all
• She found that mothers who responded to their
  infants in a sensitive manner had securely
  attached children.
• Isabella et al also found that mothers and
  infants who were more responsive to each other at
  one month were more securely attached at 6
  months.

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INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN ATTACHMENT

• All infants are different. Some like to be
  cuddled, some dont.
• They form different numbers of multiple
  attachment, depending on who they live with and
  who cares for them.
• The main difference lies in whether a child is
  securely or insecurely attached
• This can be measured using
• the Strange Situation

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THE STRANGE SITUATION

• AIMS To devise a reliable and valid way of
  determining secure and insecure attachment in
  infants
• PROCEDURE infant is observed in a room, for 8
  different episodes, each lasting 3 minutes.
  These are either with mother, with mother and
  stranger, just with stranger, and alone
• secure attachment was measured by separation
  protest and stranger anxiety

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APFCC CONTD

• FINDINGS 70 of infants displayed behaviour
  which was typical of secure attachment, i.e.
  cried when mum left, comforted on her return, and
  wary of stranger.
• 10 were resistant i.e. cried when she departed
  but were not comforted when she returned
• 20 were avoidant, i.e. did not show distress on
  separation and did not seek contact when mum
  returned

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APFCC CONTDCONCLUSIONS

• The strange situation is regarded as a good
  measure of attachment.
• Secure attachment was seen as the preferred type
• This is because secure attachment is linked to
  healthy social, emotional and cognitive
  development

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APFCC EVALUATIONS

• Much research confirms this investigation
• However Main and Solomon proposed a 4th
  attachment type disorganised attachment. This
  was a mixture of approach and avoidance
• The strange situation was carried out in a lab
  situation and was therefore artificial
• The strange situation was created and tested in
  the USA. It is culturally biased

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RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY OF THE STRANGE SITUATION

• Reliability consistency. If you do something
  again with the same people do you get the same
  results.
• Validity does it measure what it is supposed to
  measure?
• If you had a recipe for fairy cakes, and every
  time you made them they turned out the same, the
  recipe is ____________
• If the recipe really does produce fairy cakes,
  the it is _______

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RELIABILITY OF SS

• RELIABILITY if the same child, tested at
  different times, produces the same result, then
  the measurement is reliable.
• Main and Kaplan assessed infants in the SS before
  18 months with mum and dad
• They were retested at age 6. Overall, the
  children tended to remain in the same categories
  (secure or insecure), unless there had been a
  change in their care, e.g. divorce

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VALIDITY OF SS

• Does the SS measure what it is supposed to
  measure? If it measures secure/insecure
  attachment, then we would expect secure infants
  to show better adjustment in later life.
• Sroufe reported that infants rated as secure at 1
  year were later found to be more popular, have
  more initiative and higher self esteem.
• So the SS is valid in that it early attachment
  behaviour predicts later social and emotional
  development

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TEMPERAMENT HYPOTHESIS

• This states that it is the infants innate
  characteristics which determine the strength of
  attachment. Proposed by Kagan
• This contradicts the caregiving sensitivity
  hypothesis, which states that is is early
  experiences which determine the strength of
  attachment.
• Belsky and Rovine found that babies with unstable
  behaviours (tremors and shaking) bonded less well
  with mother.
• Which hypothesis does this support?

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EVALUATION OF TEMPERAMENT HYPOTHESIS

• Evidence tends to support the caregiving
  sensitivity hypothesis.
• There are 3 variable which can affect the
  strength of the bond
• The mothers temperament
• The babys temperament
• The interaction between the two of these.
• German mothers who interpreted their babys
  responses as positive had stronger attachments.
• This supports the idea of interaction

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CULTURAL VARIATIONS IN ATTACHMENT

• P.99