Section 1- Attachments

Topic 1- What is attachment?

There are two widely accepted definitions of attachment:
1. A focused, enduring and emotionally meaningful relationship between two people,
characterised by seeking closeness to the other person through physical contact or
communication.
2. Kagan (1973) defines attachment as an intense emotional relationship between
two people that lasts over a long period of time, causing great stress when the two
people are separated.
The first attachment we are likely to form is with our parents. Maccoby (1980)
identified four characteristics of this first attachment:

Seeking closeness when upset.

Being distressed when separated.
Showing pleasure when re-united.
Orientating your behaviour around the primary care giver.

Topic 2- Attachment Theories

There are two widely accepted theories as to why/how we form attachments- The
learning theory and the evolutionary theory.:
The learning theory: This is the theory that is supported by behaviourists. It can
divided into three areas:

Operant Conditioning: This is the idea that we learn our behaviours through
reward. Dollard and Miller (1950) suggested that when a child is hungry, it
experiences a drive to ease its hunger. Being fed will ease this state, so the
child will associate food as being a reward (primary reinforcer). The person
who feeds the child is a secondary enforcer, and the child wants to be with
them because they supply a reward.
Classical Conditioning: This is the idea that all of our behaviours are learnt. It
states that we are born with reflex responses. When a child is presented with
something such as food, this produces pleasure, which is an unconditioned
response. As a result of this, the person who gives the child the food is
conditioned to become a source of pleasure, so the child will respond to them,
even when they dont feed them, forming the basis of an attachment.
The third idea is the social learning theory, which suggests that we learn our
behaviours from what we observe.

The evolutionary theory: This theory was put forward by John Bowlby. It states that:

A child is born with an innate desire to survive, so it forms attachments for

survival.
Children gain care giving through social releasers such as crying, gurgling etc.
Adults are programmed to respond to these social releasers.
Children form attachments who respond to them in the most sensitive
manner.
Children form one special attachment with a particular person. This is known
as the concept of monotropy. Often, the attachment will be to a significant
female in the childs life, the most likely person being their mother. Bowlby
states that the father is insignificant to the child, and is purely there to support
the mother.
The person who the child forms an attachment with is an internal working
model for the child- Someone who provides the child with a schema of how to
correctly form relationships.
Bowlbys theory states a child must form an attachment within a critical period
of up to two and a half years. If the child fails to do so, they will find it hard to
form attachments later in life, and this could lead to social and emotional
difficulties.

Topic 3- Evaluating Attachment Theories

These are the main evaluation points for each attachment theory...
Learning theory:
Disadvantages:

Dollard and Millers learning theory predicts that a child will form an
attachment with the person who feeds it. However, many research studies
have suggested this is not the case.
Behaviourist theories have been criticised as they do not take into account
why we behave in the way we do.

Research studies against the learning theory:

The findings of Harlow and Harlow (1962) disagree with Dollard and Millers
theory. The study found that infant monkeys responded not to a wire mother
that provided it with food, but a cloth mother that provided it with comfort.
The findings of Schaffer and Emerson (1964) also disagree with aspects of
Dollard and Millers learning theory. Fewer than half of the infants in this study
had a primary attachment with the person that cared for them the most.

The evolutionary theory:

Advantages:

The evolutionary theory is a major theory.

It has generated a great deal of research into the topic of attachment.
It had had an enormous impact on the emotional care of young children.

Disadvantages:

The theory doesnt take into account how some children are able to cope with
poor attachment experiences whilst other are not.
The theory has been described as being too assumptive- It relies on studying
a behaviour and arguing that persistent behaviours are adaptive, when the
way a child behaves could be completely down to chance.
The temperament hypothesis: This is the idea that some children are better at
forming attachments than others.

Research studies in favour of the evolutionary theory:

Sroufe et al (1999) was a longitudinal study, that followed a cohort of children

until the age of twelve. The children were reported on by specialists at events
held for them. It was found that children who were identified as securely
attachment as infants were also securely attached as children, supporting
Bowlbys continuity hypothesis and the internal working model.
McCarthy (1999) contacted women who had been identified as insecurely
attached as children, and researched their attitudes to relationships. It was
found that women who were identified as avoidant insecure struggled with
romantic relationships, while women who had been identified as resistant
insecure struggled with friendships. This supports Bowlbys idea that poor
attachment experiences in early childhood have consequences of later
development.

Research studies against the evolutionary theory:

Rutter et al (1998) studied children from Eastern European orphanages who

had been adopted into Western families. It was found that children adopted
before the age of one made the best developmental progress, while children
adopted later made slower progress. Based on his findings, Rutter suggested
that instead of saying there is a critical period in which a child has to form an
attachment, there should be a sensitive period in which a child is better at
forming attachments.

Topic 4- Attachment Types

Ainsworth and Bells Strange Situation Classification (1970) identified three types of
attachment. Within the context of their study, the attachment types and their
characteristics are:
Secure Attachment
The most common form of attachment, around 70% of children are identified as
securely attached in any strange situation study. The characteristics of a secure
attachment are:

The child is upset when the mother leaves the room.

The child is happy when the mother returns.

The child doesnt interact much with the stranger, although feels more
confident to interact with them when their mother is present as they feel safer.

Secure attachment is associated with a responsive and sensitive primary care giver.
Avoidant Insecure
Around 20% of people are said to be avoidant insecure. These are the
characteristics of avoidant insecure attachment:

The child is unconcerned with its mothers absence.

The child is unresponsive when its mother returns.
The child avoids both the mother and stranger.

Avoidant insecure attachment is associated with an unresponsive and insensitive

primary care giver.
Resistant Insecure
Around 10% of people are said to resistant insecure. Within the context of the
strange situation, these are the characteristics of resistant insecure attachment:

The child is greatly distressed when its mother leaves.

The child is fearful of the stranger.
When the mother returns, the child is clingy yet these feelings are also mixed
with feelings of rejection.

Resistant insecure attachment is associated with an inconsistent primary care giver.

Topic 5- The Strange Situation & Other Research into Attachment
The strange situation was a study originally carried out by Ainsworth and Bell in 1970
to measure of quality of attachment. The most strange situation studies have taken
place in North America. Below are some of the evaluation points of the study.

Evaluation points in favour of the Strange Situation:

Wartner et al (1994) found that the Strange Situation is useful when

classifying children of different ages. Melhuish et al (1993) reported similar
findings, saying that differences in the childs quality of attachment were likely
to be caused by their care pattern.
Ainsworth and Bells caregiver sensitivity hypothesis states that attachments
were the result of mothers being sensitive to their children. The findings of
Isabella et al (1983) agree with this- Women who had a good attachment with
their children at the age of one month had a good attachment with their
children at the age of twelve months.
The Strange Situation enables us to see the quality of a childs attachment as
well as how it affects their behaviour.

Evaluation points against the Strange Situation:

Some studies have found that infants behave differently depending on who
they are with. For example, according to Lamb (1977), children may be
classified as having a secure relationship with their mother and an avoidant
relationship with their father. So, if the child is attached in different ways to
different care givers, what can we understand about their general attachment
type? This could lead us to believe that the strange situation only enables us
to measure particular attachments rather than a general attachment.
Van IJzendoorn et al (1992) discussed the idea that children behave
differently with different caregivers. The study found that the best way to
predict a childs later behaviours was to form an average of all its
attachments. This suggests that whilst the theory set out in the strange
situation may be valid, we need to consider more than one type of
attachment.
The temperament hypothesis- According to Kagans temperament hypothesis,
some children may simply be better at forming attachments than others. A
childs ability to form attachments may account for their behaviour in the
strange situation rather than the sensitivity of the care giver. Research studies
such as Belsky and Rovine 1987 found that children who had been identified
as having behavioural instabilities at birth found it harder to form attachments
with their mother, suggesting that it is down to chance and not down to
sensitivity that children form attachments.

Topic 6- Cross Cultural Research into Attachment

Summary
Cross cultural research is used to see how people behave in different cultural
settings. It enables psychologists to investigate whether or not the behaviours they
have identified are universal (apply to people all over the world) or are only
applicable to particular cultural settings.

Cross cultural research can make two types of comparison between behaviour in
different cultures. Studies that make an explicit comparison make specific
comparisons between the behaviours of two or more different cultures. Studies that
make implicit comparisons are studies that make comparisons in the way behaviour
variates between different cultures.
Research Studies
There are two research studies that are used as prominent examples of cross
cultural research.
Study 1: Van Ijzerndorm and Kroonenborg (1988)
This particular study is a meta analysis. A meta analysis is a study in which the
psychologists do not carry out the research themselves, but collect the data from
different research studies on the topic.
In this study, the researchers collected the results of thirty two strange situation
studies which had been carried out across different countries. The study found that:

Overall, secure attachment was the most common attachment type, although
the actual percentage of children who were identified as securely attached
varied.
Attachment has some universal features.
There is variation in attachments between and within different cultures.

Study 2: Takahashi (1990)

This study took a sample of middle class Japanese children and carried out a
strange situation test.
The aim of this study was to see whether or not it was appropriate to use the strange
situation other than on cultures it was originally designed for, and by making
comparisons between the American and Japanese groups, reveal the cultural
assumptions on which the procedure is based.
There were sixty participants (plus mothers) in total, all of whom were middle class
and raised in the home.
The study found that:

68% of children studied were identified as securely attached.

0% of children studied were identified as being avoidant insecure.
32% of children studied were identified as resistant insecure.
When the observational data was examined further, it was discovered that
many of the children classed as insecurely attached became too distressed
after their mother left the room. Had the procedure not been stopped due to
this, over 80% of the children would have been classed as securely attached.

The study concluded that:

There are cross cultural variations in the way Japanese children respond to
being left alone. Japanese children very rarely leave their parents, so would
have found the strange situation extremely stressful.
Japanese children are taught that avoidant behaviour is extremely rude and
are discouraged from behaving in this manner, which explains the fact that
none of the children were classed as avoidant insecure.
The strange situation was not designed to be stressful for the children
involved, which brings into question its appropriateness as a measure of
attachment behaviour in this case.

Evaluation:

The study may have gone against ethical guidelines such as those on
exposing children to psychological harm.
As did the original study, the Japanese study was carried out on a limited
sample. Therefore, we could question whether or not it is appropriate to
generalise the findings of Takahashis study to the whole Japanese
population.

Evaluation of Cross Cultural Research

The strange situation may not be the best tool for cross cultural research as
the behaviours it classifies may not have the same significance in different
cultures:

- Avoidant behaviours are strongly discouraged in Japan, whereas we wouldnt pay

attention to this in our culture.
- Grossman and Grossman studied West German children, and identified more of
them as insecurely attached. This is likely to be down to the fact that many West
German children are used to being left alone and encouraged to be independent,
which may not have the same significance in other cultures.

Different child rearing practices are used in different countries. As the strange
situation was designed to measure attachment behaviour within Western
cultures, it may not be appropriate for measuring other cultures where
different child rearing practices are used.
Cultural Variance: Different societies will in turn have many sub-cultures, so
the strange situation may not be appropriate as it was only designed for one
particular culture.
Small Samples: The samples of children used in cross cultural research into
attachment were limited. For example, the one Chinese strange situation
study was carried out on only thirty six infants, which questions its reliability.

Also, Strange Situation studies have been carried out in some countries more
than others.
Because Van Ijzendorm and Kroonenbergs study is a meta analysis, it may
not be reliable, as there could have been inconsistencies in the methods used
by the different researchers.
Based on evidence from Van Ijzendorms studies, Bee (1999) identified that
there was an incredible level of consistency between different cultures. She
argued that the same caregiver infant interactions contribute to secure
attachments in all cultures. However, Ijenzdorm has stated that this could be
down to cultural influences.

Topic 6- Maternal Deprivation

In psychology, there are two terms that are used to refer to lack of attachment
experience:

Deprivation- Loss of or disruption to early attachments.

Privation- Lack of attachment experiences.

Bowlbys Maternal Deprivation Hypothesis

This hypothesis focuses on the importance of a relationship between a child and its
mother/mother substitute. Bowlby states that in relationships where there is
separation between mother and child, the relationship will be unstable and
unpredictable and will not properly develop.
Bowlby stated that a continuous attachment between mother and child should
develop by the time the child is two and a half. However, the relationship can be
disturbed at any pint up until the child is five. At this point, the child should be able to
deal with separation.
Bowlby believes that a child must form a special relationship with its mother in order
to develop successfully.
Important Points:

The term maternal does not refer specifically to mothers, but refers to any
mother figure.
The maternal deprivation hypothesis isnt as comprehensive as Bowlbys
evolutionary theory: It does not talk about social releasers, the internal
working model etc.

Evaluation points of Bowlbys MDH are overleaf.

Topic 7- Privation

Privation is where there is a lack of attachment experience. It is difficult to carry out

research into deprivation, so most research studies focus on privation. Below are
summaries of the main studies of privation:
Research Studies On Privation
Study 1: Hodges and Tizzard 1989
This study was a longitudinal study, observing a cohort of children over a period of
sixteen years.
Aim:
To investigate the effects of privation on later social development.
To test the maternal deprivation hypothesis.
Procedure:

The study focused on sixty five children that were placed into care before the
age of four months. The institution in which the children were placed adopted
a policy that caregivers were not to form attachments with those in their care.
This suggests that the children had experienced early privation.
At the age of four years, twenty five of the children were adopted, fifteen
returned to their original homes and the rest remained in the institution.
The researchers assessed the children at the ages of eight and sixteen, which
involved interviewing the children, their teachers and peers. The children were
also compared to a control group of peers who were considered to be normal
for their age.

Findings:

The adopted children were able to form good attachments with their families
after eight years, however, this could not be said for the children that returned
to their original home.
Both groups displayed similarities in their behaviour outside their family
environments such as attention seeking from adults and trouble interacting
with people their age.

Conclusions:

Some of the evidence disagrees with the maternal deprivation hypothesis. For
example, the children who returned to their original homes displayed qualities
that required them to be placed into care in the first place, whereas the
adopted children went into homes were they were wanted by their parents.
This disagrees with the maternal deprivation hypothesis as it demonstrates
that recovery is possible in the right circumstances.

Some of the evidence agrees with the maternal deprivation hypothesis.

Children struggled with their behaviour outside their families, which agrees
with Bowlbys idea that early privation impacts on later social development.
However, Clarke (1979) put forward a suggestion for this, that the children in
this study could have displayed these behaviours simply because they did not
receive the same love outside their family as they did inside.

Evaluation:

Usually, random selection is used in experiments to maintain control,

however, this technique may not have been appropriate in this study.
Differences between the children, such as the social viability of those who
were adopted compared to those who were not confound the results, as they
offer an alternative explanation.
Attrition- This is a problem in all longitudinal studies. Over time, participants
may have become unavailable or less willing to participate in the study. This
then leaves a very biased sample on which to base results.

Case Studies On Privation

1: Curtiss 1977 (Genie)
Genie was discovered locked in a room and tied to a chair when she was thirteen
years old. Throughout her life, she experienced great social isolation, and abuse
from her father. In his report, Curtiss described her as unsocialized, primitive and
hardly human. Despite being placed in foster care [the consistency of which has
also been argued] she never achieved a good level of social adjustment or language
acquisition.
2: Kouichnova 1976 (The Czech Twins)
The subjects were two male twins whose mother had died at birth. They were placed
in care for eleven months, lived with an aunt for sixth and then went to live with their
father and step mother. The father had low intelligence and the step mother was
exceptionally cruel. They were never allowed out of the house, and often kept in an
unheated cupboard or a cellar. They were discovered at the age of seven, and
displayed physical difficulties such as an inability to walk and poor spontaneous
speech. They were placed in a hospital and later foster care, and made great
developmental progress.
3: Freud and Dann 1951 (Child survivors of Nazi death camps)
This study examined a group of six children from a German concentration camp,
who arrived in England at the end of the war in 1945. The children were aged around
three years old. They had never been cared for by an adult, so had no attachment

experiences. Often, they were made to witness traumatic events such as executions.
Despite this, they still showed attachment behaviour towards each other.
Evaluation of Case Studies of Privation
Genie:
It is problematic when using case studies as a method of psychological research, as
they differ depending on several factors. Factors that could make Genies case
different to other cases include:

Genie was in isolation longer than the two children in the other studies.
Genie was completely alone in isolation, and had no attachment experience.
Genie was put in isolation because of her individual characteristics.
Genie was abused by one of her foster families.

Czech Twins:
Again, factors of the Czech Twins case make it different to other cases:

The twins were found at a much younger age.

They had each other to form an attachment with.
The twins received more consistent care once they had been recovered.

Freud and Dann:

Factors of this case that make it different from other cases include:

The children had each other to form attachments with.

Unlike the children in the other cases, the children here displayed
recognisable attachment behaviours towards each other when they were first
recovered.

A General Evaluation of Cases Studies as a Research Tool

Information in case studies is retrospective, so we can never be sure of exact

details of events.
The studies are based on single individuals, so cannot be generalised to the
population.
Case studies provide us with a great amount of information on the topic they
study.

What do these studies show about whether or not the effects of privation can be
reversed?

In the case of Genie, despite being placed with a foster family, the child never
developed.

In the case of the Czech Twins, the boys made a full recover, having been
shown to be normal for their age when assessed at the age of 14. They now
have successful jobs and stable families of their own.

Based on this evidence, we can conclude that the effects of privation can be
reversed, but only if the child receives consistent and loving care.
Topic 8- The effects of day care on emotional development
Day care refers to caring for children by non relatives for all or part of a day. For the
exam, we will be required to look at the effects of day care on aggression and peer
relations. A summary of research into the effects of day care is below:
Aggression
Some studies have found that children raised in day care are more likely to have
higher aggression rates as adults. The main piece of research into this field is Sylvia
et al (2003). More commonly known as the Effective Provision of Pre-school
Education, it studied 3,000 children in the UK in several forms of day care from the
age of three:
Aim:

To study the impact of pre- school on young childrens social development,

and whether this relates to social inequalities.
To see if some types of pre-school education are more effective than others,
and to determine the characteristics of an effective pre-school setting.

Procedure:

The study looked at six types of pre-school provision: Play groups, local
authority/ voluntary day nurseries, private day nurseries, nursery schools,
nursery classes and centres that combined care and education.
The children were assessed when they entered primary school, and several
analyses were carried out to compare the childrens progress. The analyses
took into account any factors such as social background etc, with the aim of
seeing what value pre-school added to the childs development.

Findings:

The cognitive (i.e. intellect, attention, concentration etc) and social (i.e.
independence, relationships) development of the children who attended preschool was better compared to children who had been raised in the home.
The study suggests that children from disadvantaged backgrounds are likely
to have adverse social profile at the age of three and upon entry into primary
school. The study argues that good pre-school care at these stages could
reduce the risk of antisocial behaviour.

The type of pre-school care also has an impact on the childs developmental
progress. For example, combined care centres promoted good cognitive and
social development, even when factors such as the backgrounds of the
children were taken into account.
Disadvantaged children did better in settings with people from mixed social
backgrounds rather than in environments with m
ostly disadvantaged children.

Conclusions:

This study shows that pre-school care improves better social and cognitive
development, and helps children to overcome factors such as a
disadvantaged background. This in turn suggests that pre-school is a useful
tool in overcoming social barriers and reducing disadvantage.
The quality of a childs development depends on the quality of the pre-school.
A high quality pre-school should offer both good cognitive and social
development to children.

Evaluation:

The study has been supported because it makes conclusions based on

evidence, and uses appropriate research methods.
It has been argued that the conclusions in this study have not been made
widespread enough. For example, despite the introduction of the govern Sure
Start programme, many parents say they still find it hard to find suitable early
year care for their children.

So, what can we learn from Sylvias study..?

Sammons et al (2003) pointed out that the findings from Sylvias study
suggest there is an increase risk of aggression in children who spend more
than 20 hours a week in day care, and a high risk of aggression in those who
spend more than 40 hours a week in day care.
Melhuish (2004) stated that children whose carers are constantly changing
are more likely to be aggressive.
A USA government study carried out by the National Institute of Child Health
and Human Development examined children aged four and a half years old
who were in kindergarten. The study assessed the children based on social
competence and problem behaviours, but also took into account factors such
as the childs background. The study suggested that young children raised
outside the home were more likely to display problem behaviour.
Following the introduction of universal day care in Quebec, the proportion of
naught to four year olds in day care rose by fourteen percent. This was
accompanied by a large number of women returning to the workplace. Baker
et al (2005) analyzed data from 33,000 single parent families, and found that

in this period, aggression among two to four year olds in Quebec rose by
twenty four percent. This was accompanied by a decline in the well being of
parents.
Peer Relations
It has also been noted that early year care can have an impact on a childs ability to
form relationships with other children:

Clark Stewart et al (1994) found that children in group based day care were
more competent in forming relationships than children raised in the home by
single childminders.
Field (1991) found that the more time children spent in day care, the more
friends they had, the more social activities they were engaged in and the more
physical activities they engaged in.
Campbell et al (2001) expanded on Fields study, to try and determine the
ideal age at which children should experience pre-school care. The study
found that social competence with other children stabilizes at age three and a
half, so the amount of out of home care a child receives before this age is
important in shaping its later social skills.
Larner et al (1989) studied 120 Swedish children. Sixty children were enrolled
in high quality state nurseries, whilst the other sixty were cared for in the
home. The children were assessed at the age of ten, but it was found that
individual differences in the children were overtaking their development. No
evidence was found to suggest their care methods made them behaviour
more or less aggressively.

A key piece of research into whether or not early care effects a childs ability to form
peer relationships in Harvey (1999):

The study evaluated the development of six thousand children, and found that
children of women who worked outside the home suffered no permanent harm
as a result of their mothers absence.
The children were examined again at the age of twelve. It was argued that
any problems detected in these children in early year may have gone away by
this time.
The studies suggests that there are more important issues than a mothers
employment to take into account when raising children (i.e., the quality of
relationship between mother and child).

An Evaluation Point: Harvey study disagreed with earlier studies of the topic.