What was Lorenz’s animal study (1935) on imprinting?
Goose Experiment
- He divided gosling eggs into two groups, one group with their mother and the other in an incubator.
- When the incubator eggs hatched, the first moving thing they saw was Lorenz.
- He marked the two groups of goslings and placed them together.
- When Lorenz and the goose mother walked away, the group which was associated with them followed them.
- Lorenz identified a critical period which imprinting must take place or else they did not attach to the “Mother”.
What was Harlow’s animal study (1958) about?
Monkeys
- Reared 16 baby monkeys
- Two conditions with a plain wire monkey and a cloth-covered mother monkey.
- In one condition milk was dispensed by the plain wire mother and in the second condition, milk was dispensed by the cloth-covered mother.
- The babies cuddled the cloth mother in preference to the wire mother and when it was frightened , regardless of who dispensed the milk.
- This showed that contact comfort was more important than food when it came to attachment.
What did Harlow (1958) discover about maternal deprivation in monkeys?
- Most dysfunctional
- Highly aggressive, less sociable, bred less, unskilled parents, tended to neglect or kill their young.
What does learning theory, as an explanation of attachment, involve?
Classical conditioning, operant conditioning, Drive reduction theory
Learning Theory - What is classical conditioning as an explanation for attachment?
Food = UCS which produces a UCR of pleasure.
- During the infant’s early weeks, certain things become associated with food as they are present when the infant is fed. Such as a mother, which would be the NS.
- If an NS is associated with the UCS, it will produce the same response.
- NS becomes CS that produces a CR.
- Meaning a mother would be associated with pleasure.
Learning Theory - What is operant conditioning in terms of explaining attachment?
- Two-way process: Caregiver receives negative reinforcement as the crying stops (escaping from something unpleasant) and the child receives what they want.
- This mutual reinforcement strengthens attachment.
Learning Theory - What is Drive Reduction Theory?
- Hunger = primary drive, it is innate and biological. We eat to remove this drive.
- As caregivers give food, the primary drive of hunger becomes generalised to them.
- Attachment = a secondary drive learnt by associating the caregiver with a satisfication for the primary drive.
What is Bowlby’s monotropic theory (1969)?
Monotropy - Infants form one special emotional bond, different than the rest, with their primary caregiver.
Why - Attachments serve as an important survival function as it aids in survival.
Infants have an innate drive to become attached
How - Babies are born with features that show caring behaviours ( smiling. baby face etc) called “social releases” which activates the adults attachment system.
How is the internal working model formed?
A monotropic relationship provides infants with a mental representation of relationships.
What purpose does the Internal working model provide?
1) Allows the child to influence their caregiver’s behvaiour.
2) Provides a template for all future relationships.
What is the continuity hypothesis?
An infants IWM will influence their later adult relationships - infants who are strongly attached are more likely to have socially and emotionsally competant relationships later.
What was Ainsworth’s Strange Situation (1969) study?
- Designed to see how infants behave under mild stress
- Procedure consists of eight episodes: Proximity seeking, exploration and secure base, behaviour, stranger anxiety, depression on anxiety, and response to reunion.
- Observed using a video-recorder or one-way mirror, with behaviour being recorded every 15 seconds
What are the types of attachment that were developed by the SS?
Insecure-avoidant (Type A) Secure attached (Type B) Insecure-resistant (Type C)
What are the features of the secure attached infant type?
(Type B)
- Not likely to cry when seperated from their caregiver
- Slight distress when left with a stranger
- Easily soothed when anxious by their caregivers
- 60% - 75% of british toddlers
What are the features of the insecure-avoidant infant attachment type?
(Type A)
- Little response to seperation
- Little/No social interaction and intimacy with others
- 20% - 25% of British Toddlers
What are the features of the insecure-resistant infant attachment type?
(Type C)
- High levels of seperation anxiety and stranger anxiety.
- When reuinted with caregivers, they show conflicting behaviours ad resist being picked up.
- 3% of British Toddlers
What was involved in Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg’s study about the cultural variations in attachment (1988)?
- Conducted a meta analysis of the findings of 32 studies of attachment behaviour from eight different countries.
What was the Italian study on cultural differences conducted by Simonella et al (2014)?
- Assessed 76 12-month olds in Italy using the SS.
- Found that: 50% were secure, 36% were insecure-avoident.
- Suggested that the lower rate of secure attached is because there are more mothers working long hours and hiring professional childcare.
- Showing that cultural changes may change patterns of secure and insecure attachment.
What is the Korean study of cultural differences conducted by Jim et al (2012)?
Found more Insecure resistant children were than avoidant, similarly to Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg’s study conducted in Japan.
Possibly due to the fact that both countries have a very similar child-rearing style.
What is Bowlby’s Theory of Maternal Deprivation?
Seperation will have an affect if it takes place in the critical period of development (first 30 months).
What are the impacts of maternal deprivation on intellectual development?
- (Goldfarb)Found lower IQ in children who had remained in institutions than those with emotional care and emotional development.
- Due to lack of maternal care in the crit period
What was Bowlby’s 44 Thieves Study about?
- Study 88 children who were patients at the Chil Guidance Clinic in London - were all emotionally maladjusted.
- 44 Were acused of being thieves and tested for affectionless psychopathy and the rest were used as a control group as they were classed as emotonally distrubed.
- 14 thieves were affectionless psychopaths, 12/14 of them experienced long seperation from their mothers in the first 2 years of their lives. Whereas, only 2 children from the control group experienced long seperation.
- Therefore showing that childhood seperation is linked to affectionless psychopathy.
What was Rutter’s English and Romanian Adoptee Study (2011) about?
- (Rutter and Colleagues) examined 165 romanian children who spent their early lives in a romanian institute. 111 were adopted before 2yrs and 54 by 4yrs.
- Physical, cognitive and social development was examined using interviews with parents at the ages of 4,6,11 and 15 and their progress was compared with 52 british children who were adopted before 6 months old.
- By the age of 4 some, some romanian children caught up with the British children but those adopted after six months showed deficits and signs of disinhibited attachment.
- This highlights the long-term consequences of institutionalisation.
What was Zeanah et al’s study on the Bucharest Early Intervention Project (2005) about?
- Attachment was assessed in 95 children (12-31 months) who had spent most their lives in institutional care and were compared to a control group of 50 children who had never lived in an instution.
- Attachment type was measured using the SS and carers were asked about ay unusal social behaviour (e.g attention seeking).
- 19% of the Institutionalised group were securely attached compared to 74% of the control group.
- 65% of the institutionalised groupwere classified with disorganised attachment.
- 44% of institutionalised children were applied with disinhibited attachment but only 20% of the control.
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1) Social Influence41
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1) Memory25
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1) Attachment35
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1) Psychopathology31
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1) Social Influence - Evaluation15
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1) Memory - Evaluation11
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1) Attachment - Evaluation16
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1) Psychopathology - Evaluation8
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2)Approaches - Behaviourist Approach13
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2) Approaches - Social Learning Theory10
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2) Approaches - Psychodynamic Approach38
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2) Approaches - Humanistic Approach20
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2) Biopsychology - Nervous System and Neurones22
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2) Biopsychology - Localisation21
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2) Biopsychology - Split-Brain Research12
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2) Biopsychology - Plasticity and Functional Recovery8
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2) Biopsychology - Ways of Scanning the Brain12
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3) Issues and Debates - Free Will and Determinism18
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3) Issues and Debates - Idiographic and Nomothetic Approach9
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3) Issues and Debates - Ethical Implications of Research Studies and Theory8
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3) Cognition and Development - Piaget Theory of Cognitive Developmetn35
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3) Cognition and Development - Vygotsky's Theory of Cognitive Development9
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3) Cognition and Development - Social Cognition - Selman's Level of Perspective-taking32
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3) Cognition and Development - Social Cognition - Theory of Mind23
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3) Cognition and Development - Social Cognition - Mirror Neuron System7
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3) Schizophrenia - Psychological Explanations16
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3) Schizophrenia - Drug Therapy13
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3) Schizophrenia - Psychological Therapies10
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3) Schizophrenia - Interactionist Approach5
