At age 8: Most of the ex-institutional children had formed close attachments with their parents or adopted parents. The children’s teachers reported that the ex-institutional children still tended to be more attention-seeking and also more ‘over-friendly’ than ‘normal’ peers. They also tended to be unpopular, but did not lag cognitively when compared to ‘normal’ peers.
At age 16 two important findings emerged:
1. Relationships within the family: in general the adopted children were about as closely attached to their parents as the control group, whereas the ‘restored’ group were less likely to be closely attached.
2. Peer relationships: All the ex-institutional adolescents were less likely to have a special friend, to be part of a crowd, or to be liked by other children. They were also more quarrelsome and more likely to be bullies.
Conclusion-
The findings at age 4 and 8 suggest that the children did show signs of perminant damage as a result of their early institutional life.
The findings at age 16 suggest that early privation had a negative effect on the ability to form relationships when the relationship involved someone who wasn’t going to work hard at it. The adopted children were doing fine at home, but not in peer relationships. This suggests that they handn’t fully recovered from there early privation because they were less able to form relationships.
Criticism: Attrition- The original sample was reduced in subsequent follow-ups. This is called attrition and is a problem in longitudinal studies because particular kinds of participants are likely to be the ones who ‘drop-out’. It is possible that more troubled children dropped out – though this should have affected both the adopted and restored children equally and therefore not have biased findings.
Sample bias – it is also possible that the adopted and resorted groups were different because the children first selected for adoption might have been less troubled children. Parents select which child they want to adopt and so are likely to select an easier one to deal with. This could explain why the adopted children got on better at home but doesn’t explain why they had more difficulties with peers. According to the temperament hypothesis easier children should have easier relationships with everyone. This means that the Hodges and Tizard findings do support the view that privation has a negative long-term effect.
Alternative exploitation for findings – Hodges and Tizard suggest that the findings at age 16 might be explained in other ways. For example, it could be that the adopted children suffered from poor self-esteem stemming from being adopted, which would explain the problems outside the home. Another explanation could be that the ex-institutional children lag behind their peers in emotional development as this would explain their poor peer relationships – they are simply not yet ready to cope.
c) ‘Bowlby believed that the basis for attachment behaviour was instinctive while other psychologists suggest that attachment to parents is learned’.
Outline and evaluate one or more psychological explanation(s) of attachment (18 marks)
Explanation 1: The behaviourist approach: Learning theory
Behaviourists suggest that attachment is learned either through classical or operant conditioning.
Classical conditioning involves learning through association. Food (an unconditioned stimulus) produces a sense of pleasure (an unconditioned response). The person who feeds (a conditioned stimulus) the infant becomes associated with the food. The ‘feeder’ eventually produces the conditioned response – pleasure. This association between and individual and a sense of pleasure is the attachment bond.
Dollard and Millet 1950 offered a more complex explanation, based on operant conditioning. They suggested that a hungry infant feels uncomfortable and this creates a drive to reduce the discomfort. When the infant is fed, the drive is reduced and this produces a sense of pleasure (a reward). Food is therefore a primary reinforce because it ‘stamps in’ (reinforces) the behaviour in order to avoid discomfort. The person who supplies the food is associated with avoiding discomfort and becomes secondary reinforcer, and a source of reward in his/her own right. This ‘rewardingness’ is attachment
This approach has been called the cupboard love theory of attachment because it suggests that the infant becomes attached because he/she is fed, and that the infant becomes attached to the person who feeds him/her.
Criticisms
Explanation 2 : The psychoanalytic approach: Freud’s theory
Freud developed a theory of personality – an explanation of how each individual’s personality develops. This theory can be used to explain many aspects of behaviour, including attachment.
Freud proposed that attachment grows out of the feeding relationship. In essence Freud claimed that infants are born with innate drive to seek pleasure. He called this the pleasure principle, and suggested that one ‘structure of the personality’ (the id) was motivated by this principle. The id is the primitive, instinctive part of our personality that demands oral satisfaction. The person providing this satisfaction becomes the love object, and an attachment is formed.