1. PSYA1

2.  Attachment can be defined as a ‘deep reciprocal emotional bond between two people.’  Macoby’s characteristics of attachment are:  Seeking proximity, the desire to be close to the person to whom you are attached.  Separation anxiety, the distress that results from being separated from that person.  Pleasure when reunited, relief and observable joy when reunited with them.  General orientation of behaviour towards the caregiver, the child’s awareness of where the person is, and the reassurance they feel by them being close.

3. Aim: To investigate the age at which infants become attached, who they become attached to, and whether it is possible to develop multiple attachments. Procedure: Rudolph Schaffer and Peggy Emerson conducted a longitudinal study on 60 Glaswegian infants over the first 18 months of their lives. They visited the children at monthly intervals in their own homes and observed their interactions with their caregivers. In addition, the caregivers were interviewed about the infant’s behaviour. Evidence for the development of an attachment was that the baby showed separation anxiety after a carer left. Results:  The first attachment was usually formed between 6 and 8 months of age.  The mother was the main attachment figure for 65% of the children at 18 months old, whilst only 3% of the infants studied developed a primary attachment to their father.  By 18 months old, 31% of the infants had formed multiple attachments, e.g. to grandparents, siblings, etc. Conclusions: The results of the study indicated that attachments were most likely to form with those who responded accurately to the baby's signals, not the person they spent most time with. Schaffer and Emerson called this ‘sensitive responsiveness’. They concluded that the most important factor in forming attachments is not who feeds and changes the child but who plays and communicates with him or her. This study also shows that a significant number of infants form multiple attachments.

4. The main assumption behind the learning theory explanation of attachment is that children learn to become attached to their caregiver because they provide them with food.

5.  Because this is a theory about why attachment occurs, the main method of evaluation is to assess whether the key assumption of learning theory (that infants attach due to food) is supported by research evidence.  Schaffer and Emerson found that the child did not attach to the person who fed it, but to the person who responded the most sensitively to its needs. This doesn’t support the learning theory of attachment.  Harry Harlow carried out a study on young Rhesus monkeys who had been separated from their mothers at an early age. He offered them two substitute mothers; both were made of wire but one was covered in cloth and the other was fitted with a bottle providing food. Harlow found that the baby spent up to 23hrs per day with the cloth mother and only went to the wire monkey for food. This suggests that comfort is more important that food, which does not support the learning theory of attachment.

6.  Adaptive – attachment is an innate process that improves the infant’s chances of survival (because the caregiver provides food and protection).  Social releasers – infants are born with characteristics which unlock the innate tendency of adults to care for them. These can be behavioural (e.g. cooing) or physical (large eyes, etc.)  Critical period – attachment must occur within the first 2 ½ years of life or it will not occur at all. If it does not occur, the child will suffer severe emotional, cognitive and even physical damage, and will not be able to form other attachments as an adult.  Monotropy – Bowlby believed that the child would form one special bond that was stronger than any others – the primary attachment - usually to the mother or to a suitable ‘mother substitute’.  Internal working model – the monotropic bond acts as a template or blueprint for all future relationships. So, if a secure attachment was formed with the primary caregiver, the child will be able to form secure attachments to others in later life.  Adaptive – attachment is an innate process that improves the infant’s chances of survival (because the caregiver provides food and protection).  Social releasers – infants are born with characteristics which unlock the innate tendency of adults to care for them. These can be behavioural (e.g. cooing) or physical (large eyes, etc.)  Critical period – attachment must occur within the first 2 ½ years of life or it will not occur at all. If it does not occur, the child will suffer severe emotional, cognitive and even physical damage, and will not be able to form other attachments as an adult.  Monotropy – Bowlby believed that the child would form one special bond that was stronger than any others – the primary attachment - usually to the mother or to a suitable ‘mother substitute’.  Internal working model – the monotropic bond acts as a template or blueprint for all future relationships. So, if a secure attachment was formed with the primary caregiver, the child will be able to form secure attachments to others in later life.

7.  Again, evaluation of Bowlby’s theory involves a consideration of whether each component is supported by research evidence:  Critical period – partially supported by Rutter’s research with Romanian orphas – there does seem to be an optimum period for attachment to form, but it is still possible after 2 ½ years with good quality care. Rutter called this the ‘sensitive period’.  Monotropy – partially supported by Schaffer and Emerson – mother was main attachment figure for majority of infants, but a third had developed multiple attachments by the age of 18 months – not one special attachment.  Internal working model – partially supported by Hazan and Shaver’s ‘Love Quiz’ – found a positive correlation between infant attachment style and adult attitudes towards romantic love. Those who had secure infant attachments were more likely to believe in love and have happy romantic relationships, whereas both insecure types (avoidant and resistant) had less positive attitudes and relationships. However, not this was not true for all participants,, meaning that infant attachment type did not always predict adult relationship quality.

8. The Love Quiz was printed in local newspaper the Rocky Mountain News and readers were asked to complete questionnaires assessing infant attachment type and attitudes to romantic relationships in adulthood. Hazan & Shaver analysed the first 620 replies sent in from people aged from 14 to 82. They classified the respondents’ according to Mary Ainsworth’s infant attachment types of secure, anxious-resistant and anxious-avoidant and looked for corresponding adult love style. They found a strikingly high correlation between the infant attachment types and adult romantic love styles.  Secure types described their love experiences as happy, friendly and trusting. They were happy depending on others and comfortable if others are dependent on them.  Insecure-resistant types experienced love as involving obsession, a desire for reciprocation, emotional highs and lows, extreme sexual attraction and jealousy, and worry that their partners didn’t really love them or might abandon them. Their desire for intense closeness could frighten others away.  Insecure-avoidant types typically feared intimacy, emotional highs and lows, and jealousy and believed they did not need love to be happy. They were uncomfortable being close to and/or depending on others. Hazan & Shaver concluded that there was evidence to support the concept of the inner working model having a life-long effect. However, they did concede that not everyone stayed true to their infant attachment style and that some people did change as they grew older.

9.  Self report method – participants may not have been honest about their experiences/attitudes due to social desirability bias. They may also not remember childhood experiences clearly. Therefore, internal validity is lowered.  Biased sample – volunteer sample obtained from a localised area of the USA means that results may not generalise to all of the population. Volunteer samples likely to be similar types of person – time on their hands, interested in the research, outgoing.  Correlation – cannot establish cause and effect between infant attachment type and later relationship style. Other variables may have an effect (e.g. experiences after infancy).

10.  The Strange Situation is a procedure for assessing the quality of attachment between the infant and mother.  It was developed by Mary Ainsworth et al (1978) and uses a controlled observation methodology (usually in a laboratory made to look like a playroom).  Observers will monitor and record the child’s reactions to a series of eight stages (episodes): 1. Parent (or caregiver) enters room with child 2. Child explores for 3 minutes 3. A stranger enters and joins the parent and infant, talks to mother 4. Parent leaves the infant with the stranger 5. Parent returns and the stranger leaves. Parent settles the infant. 6. Parent leaves again 7. Stranger returns 8. Parent returns and stranger leaves.

11. Ainsworth used the Strange Situation with 100 middle class American women and their children. The quality (type) of attachment between mother and infant was judged based on how the child reacted to four key stages in the procedure:

12.  Good reliability - Main, Kaplan and Cassidy (1985) tested babies at 18 months and then retested them at 6 years of age. They found that 100% of the secure babies were still classified as secure and 75% of the avoidant babies were still under the same classification.  Ainsworth herself also tested inter-rater reliability (the extent to which different observers score a behaviour in a similar way). This was also found to be very high.  Influential – Ainsworth’s technique has been (and still is) widely used. It has generated further research and is generally accepted as the standard technique for assessing the quality of attachment.

13.  Identifies only the type of attachment to the mother - the child may have a different type of attachment to the father or grandmother, for example. This means that is lacks validity, as it is not measuring a general attachment style, but instead an attachment style specific to the mother.  Does not consider temperament of the child or other influences – only measures attachment on one day so does not consider that the child may be hungry, ill, tired etc. Reduces validity because infant’s behaviour on that day may be different to usual.  Demand characteristics – although the child is too young to change its behaviour as a result of being in a psychological study, the mother may show social desirability bias – where she responds more sensitively to the child because she knows she is being watched. This reduces the validity of the research because it is not the mother’s usual behaviour.

14.  Ecological validity – although the laboratory was designed to look like a playroom, it was still an artificial situation for mother and child, meaning that they may have acted differently than they would have in real life. This means that findings may not be generalisable to real life settings.  Population validity – Ainsworth’s original research used only 100 mother and baby pairs, who were all middle class Americans. This means that the findings may not generalise to all populations. In particular, because research was based on Western culture and childcare practices, the findings may not apply to other cultures

15.  Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg (1988) carried out a meta-analysis combining the findings of 32 other studies using The Strange Situation from a variety of countries and based on the observation of over 2000 children.  The main findings were:  Secure attachment was most common in all cultures studies (roughly 2/3rds)  Germany had the most insecure avoidant infants  Japan and Israel had the most insecure resistant infants  There were more differences within cultures than between (possibly due to sub cultures)

16.  Despite the large number of studies combined in this meta-analysis, over half (18 of the 32) were still in the US. Only five of the 32 were carried out in collectivist cultures. Therefore, the sample is still biased and may not give a true representation of all cultures.  The Strange Situation may not be a valid measure of attachment in non Western cultures, as differing child rearing practices may lead the child to act in a way that is wrongly interpreted when using the imposed etic of The Strange Situation.

17.  Takahashi (1990) compared attachment types in 60 middle class Japanese infants aged under 12 months with American infants using the Strange Situation. The findings were that 68% of Japanese infants were securely attached, 32% were insecure-resistant, and no infants were insecure-avoidant.  When the Japanese infants were left alone they were so distressed that the ‘leaving the infant alone’ stage of the Strange Situation had to be abandoned, however if they had not been so distressed then as many as 80% of Japanese infants would have been classed as securely attached.  Japanese children are raised to believe it is very impolite not to interact with others, even strangers = no insecure avoidant  Japanese infants rarely separated from their mothers = high levels of insecure resistant  Suggests that the Strange Situation is an imposed etic and may not be a valid measure of attachment for children in non Western cultures

18.  Disruption of attachment occurs when a bond has been formed but is later broken. This can be either temporary, such as hospitalisation, or permanently, such as death of the parent.  The Robertsons observed children in hospital, using a time sampling video technique (they filmed each child for 40 minutes at the same time each day).  One of the children they filmed, John, was shown to pass through the stages of protest, despair and detachment, leading to the development of the PDD model by Robertson and Bowlby.

19.  The PDD model  Protest:  Child cries and calls for its mother. Panic is usual. This can last from a few hours to a few weeks!  Despair:  Child becomes apathetic (i.e. uninterested in what is happening around them). They continue to cry occasionally and call for mother.  Detachment:  The child cries less and is more interested its surroundings. Onlookers may think that the child is getting over the separation, whereas in fact the child is hiding its feelings. When the mother returns the child shows little interest and may even be angry or push the mother away.

20.  Influential – The Robertson’s research led to a change in hospital visiting policies for children. Whereas previously, parents may have only been allowed to visit for an hour a week, now visiting times for children are often unlimited.  Case studies – The use of a small number of case studies means it may be difficult to generalise findings to the wider population.  Ecological validity – Should be high as real life settings (e.g. hospital) were used, so results should generalise to other real life settings.  Ethical issues – Children were extremely distressed in some of the Robertson’s videos, but did not intervene. This could be ethically wrong, although it could also be argued that the end justified the means, as they eventually improved conditions for all children separated from their parents due to hospitalisation.  Other variables – Some children may react more strongly to separation than others due to individual differences e.g. insecure resistant children are more likely to be distressed as they don’t trust the parent to return.

21.  Genie  Found at age 13  Locked in a room  Speech/growth/cognitive /social ability affected  Studied mainly using observations by psychologists – Genie’s mother initially contributed but found to be unreliable  Cognitive tests also carried out  Some abuse after discovery  Did not fully recover cognitive or social ability  Czech twins  Found at age 7  Locked in cellar together  Similar effects to Genie  Adopted by two sisters into warm loving home  Observations of caregivers and cognitive/intelligence tests  Followed into adulthood and appear to have no long lasting cognitive or emotional effects, able to form normal relationships and have average intelligence

22.  Genie and Czech twins – case studies  Rich detailed information which allows us to gain deeper understanding of effects of privation  Low population validity – specific to these cases of privation only so findings may not be generalisable to other cases  Risk of bias because researcher develops close relationship with participant (e.g. Susan Curtiss/Genie)  Cannot replicate to check reliability due to ethical issues  Hodges and Tizard and Rutter – longitudinal natural experiments  Attrition can lead to small, unrepresentative sample (those that suffer least/most may drop out) = low population validity  Sample may not be representative of all privation cases – small groups of American and Romanian children

23.  All research methods:  Difficult/impossible to separate the effects of privation (just lack of attachment) from effects of neglect/abuse (cause and effect cannot be established because IV is not manipulated in case studies or natural experiments).  Ethical issues – children are already traumatised, it could be argued that they should not be subjected to further stress of psychological research.  Difficult to compare effects of privation because different cases have very different outcomes e.g. Genie and Czech twins. Possible explanations include age when found and care after adoption/discovery.

24. Rutter et al (2007)  This is an on-going longitudinal study which began in 1998.  Aim: To investigate whether good quality care after adoption can make up for very poor early institutional experiences.  Procedure: 111 Romanian orphans were adopted into British families. Rutter wanted to see if good care could compensate for the privation the children had suffered before the overthrow of the Communist dictator Ceaucescu.  This has been run as a natural experiment with age of adoption being the naturally occurring independent variable (IV). Rutter is studying three groups:  Adopted before the age of 6 months  Adopted between 6 months and 2 years  Adopted after the age of two (late adoptees).  Results: Rutter found evidence of disinhibited attachment behaviours in the Romanian adoptees, most commonly in the children who were adopted at an older age. He defined disinhibited attachment as ‘a pattern of attention-seeking behaviours with a relative lack of selectivity in social relationships’ – in other words, children are more likely to seek attention from all adults, even strangers and make inappropriate physical contact without checking back to the parent in a stressful situation. Disinhibited attachment was extremely rare in UK-born adoptees and children who were adopted at a younger age. This evidence shows that children who have spent longer in institutions are more likely to display signs of disinhibited attachment.  Conclusions: The effects of early privation do not seem to be completely irreversible (as suggested by Bowlby), but children exposed to institutional privation are more likely to make a fuller recovery if adopted into a caring environment at an earlier age.   As a result of this research, Rutter suggested that Bowlby’s ‘critical period’ could be better described as a ‘sensitive period’; meaning that, although there is an optimal period for forming attachments, it is not impossible to form them after the age of 2 and a half if the child is adopted into a warm and loving environment.

25.  Hodges and Tizard (1989)  Aim: To investigate the effects of long term institutional care.  Procedure: This was a natural experiment, studying 65 children bought up in a children's home in America until the age of 4 (all had been placed in care before the age of 6 months). During this time the children were unable to form an attachment to any of the adults as staff were discouraged from doing so to prevent upsetting the children when they left the job.  By age 4, 24 had been adopted, 15 restored to their birth parents, and the rest stayed in the institution. All three groups were compared to a control group of ‘normal’ children raised in their own homes.  Data was collected using questionnaires, and by interviewing children, parents and teachers at age 4, 8 and 16. However, it should be noted that only 39 (out of 65) participants were left in the study at age 16, due to attrition.  Results:  At the age of 4, the children hadn’t formed attachments.  At age 8 and 16, most of the adopted children had formed close attachments, as strong as those in the control group, with their adopted parents. The children who returned to their own homes had formed poorer attachments than the adopted group.  At 8 and 16, both the adopted and restored groups had difficulties at school; they more attention seeking and had problems forming relationships with other children.  More than two thirds of the children who remained in the institutions were described at four and a half years old as ‘not caring deeply about anyone’, and many were attention seeking. At 8 years old, many had serious problems at school.  Conclusions: The attachments that the adopted children formed with their adoptive parents suggest that, contrary to Bowlby’s claim, the effects of privation can be reversed to some extent. However, the problems that the adopted children experienced at school suggest that some of the effects of privation are indeed long lasting. The characteristics of the children who stayed in the institutions, and the problems experienced by the other two groups suggest that the lack of an early close relationship with one particular person could contribute to later social and emotional problems.

26.  Longitudinal natural experiments  Attrition can lead to small, unrepresentative sample (those that suffer least/most may drop out) = low population validity.  Sample may not be representative of all privation cases – small groups of American and Romanian children.  Impossible to separate effects of institutionalisation from those of neglect/abuse that the children may have suffered whilst in care.

27.  Shea (1981)  Procedure: Infants aged between 3 and 4 were videotaped in the playground during their first 10 weeks at nursery school. Their behaviour was assessed in terms of:  Rough and tumble play  Aggression  Frequency of peer interaction  Distance from the teacher  Distance from the nearest child  Results: Over the 10 weeks, the children's peer interaction increased and their distance from the teacher decreased. There was a decrease in aggression and increase in rough and tumble play. The increase in sociability was more evident in the children that attended daycare 5 days a week than those attending 2 days – this suggests that it was the effect of daycare rather than just the children maturing that increased sociability.  Conclusions: Daycare causes children to become more sociable and less aggressive. Evaluation  Use of videotapes should improve inter rater reliablity/validity  Real life environment so ecological validity should be high  Only 10 weeks – may not be long enough to see full effects  Only 3 and 4 year olds, may be different effects on other age children

28.  Di Lalla (1998)  Procedure: In a laboratory playroom, 62 pairs of same sex 5 year olds who had not met before played together for 20 minutes. They were rated for:  Pro-social behaviour (talking politely, inviting the other child to play, smiling at the other child in acknowledgment or praise and helping)  Aggression (teasing, hitting, grabbing, yelling and throwing toys)  The incidence of each behaviour was then correlated with the length of time spent in daycare.  Results: Children who experienced little or no daycare were more likely to behave prosocially, and those with a ‘difficult’ temperament showed less pro-social behaviour. Gender was a significant predictor of both aggressive and prosocial behaviours, with boys being both more aggressive and more pro-social.  Conclusions: Daycare reduces prosocial behaviour but does not affect aggressive behaviour. Other factors, such as gender and temperament, need to be taken into account when assessing the effects of daycare on social development. Evaluation:  Laboratory playroom is an artificial environment, may reduce ecological validity  Children hadn’t met before, behaviour may have been different with familiar children, so validity could be affected

29.  Effective Provision of Pre-School Education Project (EPPE) (2003)  Procedure: This was a government funded long term study of over 3000 children attending various types of daycare (e.g. childminders, day nursery, etc) in the UK. The children’s progress was monitored between the ages of 3 and 7 years old. Data was collected via observations, standardised tests, and reports from the daycare staff. The child’s home and family background was also assessed.  Results: There was a slight increase in antisocial behaviour when children spent more than 20 hours per week in nurseries. This increased noticeably when they spent more than 40 hours a week in care. It was also noted that there is an increase in levels of aggression amongst children whose carers are constantly changing. However, children who attended daycare showed increased independence and peer sociability at 5 years; this effect was particularly pronounced with children from disadvantaged families.  Conclusions: Day care can increase aggressive behaviour. The longer young children spend in day care, particularly nursery care or a care environment where they lack a constant care figure, the more pronounced the aggressive behaviour is. Good quality daycare can improve peer sociability, particularly in children from disadvantaged homes. Evaluation:  Large scale study with a variety of children from different backgrounds and in different types of daycare, so population validity should be good  Range of data collection techniques used, which should improve validity

30.  The main problem with daycare research is that there are a huge amount of studies with differing findings regarding the effect on peer relationships and aggression. This is likely to be because there are a number of other variables which may have an effect:  Time spent in daycare – Shea and EPPE found that the more time a child spent in daycare, the more aggressive they were likely to be.  Gender and temperament of child – DiLalla found that boys suffered more negative effects from being in daycare. The type of attachment pre daycare may also have an effect.  Quality/type of care – EPPE found that good quality daycare can improve peer relationships. There may also be differences between nurseries and childminders, etc.  Type of research method used – Some studies have used naturalistic observations, whilst others have used structured lab based techniques, making it difficult to compare findings.

31.  Hospital visiting – The Robertson’s work showed that children could suffer as a result of separation when they or their caregiver was hospitalised. Visiting hours for children are not much more generous, often unlimited, and parents may be able to stay overnight when their child is in hospital.  Adoption policies – It was previously believed that a child should be removed from its birth mother immediately if it was to be adopted. However, Bowlby’s theory showed that it was important for the child to develop an early bond, so infants may stay with birth mothers for longer. Also, Bowlby and Rutter’s work has shown that it is important for a child to be adopted before 2 ½ years.  Daycare – Research has shown that it is important for children to be able to form a bond with their caregivers in daycare settings. As a result, most nurseries offer a key worker system and will limit the number of children that can be looked after by one member of staff, particularly in very young children.

32.  Scarr (1998) identified several factors that make for good quality daycare:  Good staff training – able to respond sensitively to the child’s needs  A good ratio of staff to children – so that staff and children can form attachments (key workers?)  Minimising staff turnover so that children can form stable attachments with carers  Adequate space  Appropriate toys and activities