In addition to their findings, at the age of four the caretakers reported that the children did not have deep relationships. They were more of an attention seekers and indiscriminately affectionate than the children who were not in the institution. Most of the children who were restored and adopted had formed a close relationship with their parents and adopted parents. Their teachers reported that they children still tend to be more attention seeking and more overly friendly than normal peers. At the age of 16, the adopted children were closely attached to their parents at the control, whereas the restored group were much less like to be close attached. The restored children might not be closely attached with their parents due to their personal issues that lead them into the institution or there is no trust between them. Both the adopted and restored children were less likely to have a special friend or to be liked by other children. They were more likely to be bullies and more argumentative.
To conclude their findings, it shows that at the age of 4 and 8 children did show signs of permanent damage as a result of their early institutional life. At age 16 suggest that early privation had negative effect on the ability to form relationships when the relationship involves someone who wasn’t going to work hard at it. The adopted children formed an attachment at home but not in per relationships. This shows that they not fully recovered form their early privation due to the fact that they were less able to form relationships. (Cardwell and Flanagan, 2005)
The main theme of attachment theory is that mothers who are available responsive towards their infant needs, establish a sense of security. This is when the infant knows that the caregiver is dependable, which then creates a secure base for the child to then explore the world. There are four types of characteristic of attachment, when it comes to a child development. They are:
- Safe Haven- this when the child feels threatened and then returns to the caregiver for comfort.
- Secure Base- the caregiver provides a secure and dependable base, in order for the child to explore the world.
- Proximity Maintenance- this when the child attempts to stay near the caregiver, thus keeping the child safe.
- Separation Distress- when the infant is separated from the caregiver, it then becomes distressed and upset.
Ainsworth's "Strange Situation"
In the 1970’s Mary Ainsworth introduced theory of “strange Situation”, which revealed the deep effects of attachment on behaviour. In her studies, researchers observed children between the ages of 12 and 18months. By experimenting on how they respond to a situation in which they were briefly left alone and then reunited with their mothers. Based upon the responses shown by the children, Ainsworth then went on to describe the three major styles of attachment. They were:
- Secure attachment
- Ambivalent-insecure attachment
- Avoidant attachment
When children are securely attached to their caregiver, they exhibit distress when separated from their caregiver and then happy when their caregiver returns. This is because, the child feels secure and able to depend on his or her caregiver. Even though the caregiver leaves the room, making the child upset, he or she feels assured that the parent or caregiver will return. When frightened, securely attached children will definitely seek comfort from parent or caregiver due to the fact that they know their parent or caregiver will provide comfort and reassurance. Therefore, making them more comfortable seeking them out in times of needs.
An ambivalent attached child also becomes very distressed when caregivers or parent leaves the room but they do not have any trust that they will return back. Research suggests that ambivalent attachment is a result of poor maternal availability. This might because the parents or the caregiver did not form any kind of bond with the child, making them feel insecure. These kinds of children cannot depend on their mother to be there when they are in need.
A child with an avoidant attachment tends to avoid parents or caregivers. When offered a choice, the child will show no favourite between a caregiver and a complete stranger. Research has suggested that, this might be a result of abusive or neglectful caregivers. Children, who are punished for seeking help from their caregivers or parents, will learn to avoid seeking help in the future.
Based on their observation, Ainsworth found that 66% of infants were securely attached. They explored the unfamiliar room, were unresponsive when the mother left and pleased to see her when she returned. The infants were little distrustful of the stranger but were friendly towards the stranger when the mother is present. 22% of then were not bothered whether their mother was there or not and were not excited on her return. This was a sign of avoidant, meaning there was no bond between the infant and the mother. 12% of the infants were resistance. They were distress when their mother was absent. However, they also rejected the mother on her returned.
The behaviourist approach: learning theory
According to the behaviourist approach attachment is learned through classical or operant conditioning. The classical conditioning involves through association. In this situation the food is the unconditioned stimulus, which produces a sense of pleasure. This is known as the unconditional response. The person who feeds the infant becomes associated with the food. The feeder produces the unconditioned response, which is the pleasure. This is association between an individual and sense of pleasure is the attachment bond.
With the operant conditioning, the hungry infant feels uncomfortable and this generates a drive to reduce the discomfort. When the infant is fed, the drive is reduced and this produces a sense of pleasure, which is a reward. Therefore, the food is a primary reinforce because it reinforce the behaviour in order to avoid discomfort and becomes a secondary reinforce. This rewardingness is the attachment (Dollar and Millar, 1950).
However, it was demonstrated by Harlow that food isn’t everything through the study of the rhesus monkeys, which were raised on their own by two wire mothers. One wire mother had a feeding bottle attached and the other was wrapped in soft cloth but offered no food. The monkeys should have become attached to the mother associated with food but they rather got attached by the mother who wrapped in soft cloth because it provided them comfort when they are frightened (Harlow 1959).
Review of Bowlby’s theory.
Bowlby’s theory of attachment is the observation of how a young child behaves towards his or her mother both in her presence and especially in her absence, can contribute to our understanding of personality development. When removed from the mother by strangers, the child responds usually with intensity and after reunion with her anxiety.
Bowlby’s maternal deprivation hypothesis explains why attachment becomes fully developed at about the same time that a child starts to move. For example has child becomes mobile a mechanism is required which makes it want to stay close to its attachment figure. With the continuity hypothesis, evidence is provided by Hazan and Shaver that securely attached infants go on to have stable secure adult relationships as the theory predicts.an alternative view is the temperament hypothesis that states that it is the temperament a baby is born with that determines its attachment type and explains continuity throughout life.
In Bowlby’s maternal deprivation, he suggested that a child needs a close continuous relationship. He did not show whether deprivation meant a disruption of this relationship. For example, the losses of an attachment figure. In addition to the subject matter, Michael Rutter believed that the idea of deprivation was false as there was an important difference between being separated from loved ones and never having formed a relationship with anyone in the first place. This is called privation. She felt that deprivation may not have irreversible consequences, whereas privation might.
Genie is a good example, when talking about privation. Genie was found when she was 13 years old. She was kept in a small room and had no human contact since she was an infant. She could not stand upright and could not speak, she could only cry. She was unable to obtain any language abilities. According to Lennebery, ‘the brain of a child before the age of two is not sufficiently mature for the acquisition of language, while after puberty, when the brain’s organization is complete, it has lost its flexibility and can no longer acquire a first language’ (Lenneberg, 1967). She never fully recovered, socially or in terms of being able to speak. In the case of Genie, it shows that some of the effects of privation are reversible. Genie was able to form attachments with her carers and developed some social skills; most of her social difficulties were due to her intonation which made it difficult for people to understand her.
Another example is the Czech Twin (Koluchova, 1972, 1991). They lost their mother and were looked after by a Czechoslovakian social agency and then fostered by their aunt. When their father remarried they became part of the new family. However as a result, they were locked in a cellar by their step mother and subjected to beating. They had no contact with the outside world until 1967 when they were found and removed from their parents. They communicated mostly in gestures and had no natural speech. Although their new environment was terrifying for them at first, they developed normally showing no signs of psychological abnormality when they were assessed at age 14. They formed good relationships with their adoptive mothers and siblings and both married and enjoyed stable relationships later in life.
The Czech twins demonstrate that the effects of early, privation are reversible. This challenges Bowlby’s maternal deprivation hypothesis. However, they had been raised in a normal home until they were eighteen months old (Koluchova, 1976), so they may have had opportunities to form attachments and this would make this a case of deprivation rather than privation. If they had formed an attachment to their mother and lost her, this may be less damaging than having never formed the attachment in the first place. In addition, the boys were together when they were locked in the cellar and, therefore, may have formed attachments with each other (Cardwell and Flanagan, 2005).
The limitations of Bowlby’s theory of attachment are based on behaviours that occur during stressful situations rather than during non-stressful situations. A good understanding of attachment requires observation of how the mother and infant interact and what they provide for each other during non-stressful situation. For example, how children and mothers interact and not stressed shows more of how the attachment theory works than how the child acts when the mother leaves and then returns. A child’s behaviour towards the attachment figure during departing and reunion times cannot be the only factors used when defining attachment.
Another problem with the attachment theory is that, the list of attachment behaviour is limited to those with the primary attachment figure, which is the mother. Children have attachments to other people rather than their mothers but they do not show this attachment the same way. For example, children may cry or fellow their mother when they are getting ready to leave them but for a sibling or peer they may just become unable to sleep. Also, the attachment theory behaviour list only includes obvious behaviours but there may be physiological changes during separations and reunions.
The other weakness to the attachment theory is that the mother is viewed as the primary attachment figure when in fact; a father or sibling can have the same type of attachment with the child at the same time.
Review of behaviourist approach: Learning theory
The behaviourists suggest that attachment is a learned behaviour.
Classical conditioning
Food is associated with pleasure.
Food Pleasure
UCS (unconditional stimulus) UCR (unconditional response
Food is associated
with feeder
Food + person who feeds Pleasure
UCS UCR
Feeder Pleasure
CS CR
The attachment bond is formed by associating the carer with food. This is known has the cupboard theory. With the behaviourist approach it talked about how infants learn through association and reinforcement. However, food may not be the main reinforcer because attention and responsiveness from caregiver are also rewarding.
This was demonstrated in Harlow’s research. It ignores the love and comfort that a carer provides and there are no evidences that support this theory. Schaffer and Emerson showed that infants were not necessarily attached to the person who fed them or who spent most of time with them but it is about sensitivity and responsiveness.
Review of Ainsworth’s theory
Although Bowlby and Ainsworth worked separately, they were both influenced by Freud and other psychoanalytic thinkers directly in Bowlby’s case and indirectly in Ainsworth’s. Ainsworth’s Strange Situation procedure has been criticized more in its suggested application than in its strength. For example, many critics feel the twenty-minute timeframe for the procedure was too short, and that too many variables can come into play, such as the caregiver’s and infant’s moods at the time, the role that cultural variation can play.
In all the theories it has indicated that, if a child does not form attachment, it then becomes a failure to from secure attachments early in life but some of the theories also argued that the effects of privation are reversible. It can have a negatively influence on the child’s behaviour in later childhood and throughout his or her life. Research as shown that, those children who are diagnosed with oppositional-defiant disorder, conduct disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder frequently show attachment problems, due to early abuse, neglect or trauma. This has been effectively demonstrated in Bowlby’s theory. For example, children who are adopted after the age of six months have a higher risk of problems with attachment but some children can restore that attachment. Early attachments can have a serious impact on later relationships. For example, those who are securely attached in childhood tend to have good self-esteem, strong relationships and the ability to self-disclose to others.
Review of Hodges and Tizards longitudinal approach.
The advantage of the longitudinal approach is that the children are being compared with themselves. However the major disadvantage of using longitudinal approach is the slow destruction. Of the 51 ex-institutional children studied at eight, nine were unavailable; two families restored adolescents refused contact, as did four adoptive families (all these adolescents were still with their family). Because of such destruction they had to question the respresentativeness of the remaining 16 years-olds.
Another disadvantage of the longitudinal approach is the lack of control of variables. The design of the investigation was a natural experiment as the variables could not be controlled as in a true experiment and therefore cause and effect statement cannot be made. As a result, other possible explanation could be found for why children turned out how they are. For example, throughout the study, they mention of a comparison or control group. The control group allowed a comparison to be made and was chosen in order to match the ex-institution children in term of sex; social class etc. on the other hand, Hodges and Tizards was very successful in demonstrating that Bowlby’s greatly oversimplified the effects of maternal deprivation.
By reviewing all these theories the most common criticisms of attachment theory is that non Western societies tend to offer up persuasive counter example. For example, in Uganda, the idea of a child being intimately attached to a caregiver is rather unfamiliar and child nurturing are more evenly disturbed among a wider group of people. ()
All the attachment theories state that a strong emotional and physical attachment to at least one primary caregiver is critical to personal development. These theories have had a profound influence upon child care policies, as well as principles off basic clinical practice for children. The critics of attachment theory point out the lack of parental attachment. However, I think the best theory is Bowlby’s theory due to the fact that his theory has explanations and evidences to why attachment is vital and the consequences that might take place if attachment is not formed this was demonstrated in his monkey experiment.
Bibliography
Cardwell, M and Flanagan, C. (2005)
Revised Edition Psychology As The complete Companion, Nelson Thrones, Cheltenham
Heinemam, Hilary Taiman, BTEC National Diploma in Health and Social Care Book2 (2007)
References
BTEC National Diploma in Health and Social Care