Social learning theory
Bandura
- Children and adults learn behaviour through observation and imitation
Hay & Vespo
- Parents act as a role model for how to understand and carry out relationships
- Role modelling – show
- Direct instructions – teach
- Social facilitation – watch and help
Evaluation
- Importance of role models
- Hay& Vespo don’t deny importance of innate influences but draws attention to the development
- Do not explain why attachments are emotionally intense for both people
Evolutionary explanations –
Bowlby
- Innate drive to form attachments
- Internal working model – base for future relationships
- Critical period
- Social releases
- Monotrophy – single attachment
- Survival
Continuity hypothesis – internal working model
Hazan & Shaver
Love quiz – 620 replies
Securely attached
- Believe in love
- Mutual trust
- Less likely to be divorced
Insecurely attached
- True love is rare – fall out of love easily
- Relationship less easy
- More likely to be divorced
Secure adults
- Positive relationships
- Trust
- Positive image of mother being caring
Resistant adults
- Preoccupied by love
- Fall in love easily
- Conflicting memories of mother
Avoidant adults
- Fearful of closeness
- Love is not durable
- Mother being rejecting
Mary Aiensworth
Strange situations - 100 middle class American infants and their mums
- Mother and child in a room
- Stranger enters the room, talks with mother
- Stranger approaches child
- Mother leaves the room
- Mother enters, strangers exit
- Mother leaves
- Stranger enters
- Mother returns, stranger exit
Identified 3 types
Type B – Secure
- Separation anxiety
- Stranger anxiety
- Settled n reunion
- 70%
Type A – Avoidant
- Separation anxiety
- Stranger anxiety
- Did not seek comfort on return
- 15%
Type C – Ambivalent
- Separation anxiety
- No stranger anxiety
- Angry at mother on return
- 15%
Conclusion
Attachment differs on the sensitivity of the mother
Sensitive mothers – securely attached
Less sensitive – insecurely attached
- Reliable – lab, high control
- Useful – lots of information in a short time
- Scroufe et al – secure attachment - socially and emotionally competent
- Hazen & Shaver – secure – grew up to be more trusting
- Interrater reliability – interpret things differently
- Lacks ecological validity – lab but it represents playgroup
- Ethical issues – stress upon children
- Low internal validity – one relationship –cannot base on whole attachments
- Cannot generalise – class, small sample
- Not all fit within the 3 types – main and Solomon – type D (disorganised)
- Population validity
Cultural differences
Individualistic – encouraged to be independent
Collectivist – reliant on other
Van Ijzendoorn & kroonenberg – cultural differences
- Meta-analysis – lots of information – 32 studies, 8 countries
- Strange situation
- 2000 babies (large sample)
Type B – most common in all cultures
- Lowest in china
- Greatest in Britain and Sweden (50%)
- 70% mothers worked
Type A – most common in Germany and other western countries
- Working mothers are rare – encouraged independence
- Rare in Israel and japan
Type C – most common in Israel
- Children brought up in kibbuteim (closed communities – don’t see strangers)
- High in china and japan
- Lowest in Scandinavian countries
Evaluation
- Large sample – generalise to the whole population
- No direct ethical issues – didn’t do the research themselves
- Half of the studies in the USA – 27 in individualistic cultures only 5 in collectivist
- Strange situation developed in USA – not suitable to test in other cultures
Deprivation – attachment made then separated
PDD –
Protest
- Angry when parent leaves
- Clinging
Despair
- Anger subsides, appear
- Withdrawn – reject others comfort
Detachment
- Child engages with others – worry
- Reject care giver on return
Supported by Roberson & Roberson
- John went into care when mother when into hospital
- He tried to get attached to nurse but they didn’t know his needs
- No routine, no protection
- Became distress
- Rejected mother on her return
Long term separation
Extreme separation – anxiety
Extreme clinginess – anticipation of separation
Detachment – refuse comfort and become very demanding
Factors affect separation
Age – short term separation strongest at 12-18 months Schaffer and Calleder’s studied showed children younger than 7 months showed less upset than 12-18 months
Type of attachment – a securely attached child is likely to cope better for short term separation whereas ambivalent wouldn’t
Gender – boys respond more strongly to separation
Who they are left with and the quality of care – if they are left with a family member they are going to cope better
Experience of past separation’s – positive experiences will cope better
Privation – no attachment made
Koluchova – Czech twin boys
- Two twin boys, starved, beaten – in care from 18m-7yrs
- No speech, malnourished
- Adopted by two sisters who cared for them
- Average intelligence, happy, emotional bonds
- Damage was totally repaired
- Against Bowlby – they did have each other to form that attachment
- Cannot generalise
- Small sample
- Unique data and lots of it
Skuze – two sisters, Louise and Mary
- Privation by mother
- Kept in a small room- tied to the bed
- Prevented talking
- Put into care
- No speech, little evidence of play
- Louise – normal language, primary school (5)
- Mary – autistic school
- Louise was older and could have formed the attachment before Mary was born
- Cannot generalise
Institutions
Tizard & Hodges
- 65 children placed in institutions before 4m
- No attachments – had 24 carers by the age of 2
- 25 returned to original family
- 33 adopted
- 7 stayed in care
- Follow up at 8 and 16yrs
- Age of 4&8 - adopted children did better – attachments formed
- Age of 16 – adopted had close attachments and good family relationships
- Restored children – less likely to be close to their family – rejecting
- Both groups had problems outside the home
- Against Bowlby – recovery is possible
- Adopted – more socially skilled – easy to form attachments
- Adopted family – they want the child Restored – same issues
- Lack of control –individual differences
- Participants dropped out – biased
- Shows recovery is possible
Rutter et al – Romanian orphans (longitudinal)
- Romanian orphans in the institutions at 1 or 2 weeks
- Care was poor
- Adopted in the UK before 6 months compared to UK children
- 58 babies adopted early (6m)
- 59 adopted between (6-24m)
- 48 adopted late (2-4y)
- All showed malnourishment
-
Marked disinhibition – likely in children who spent longer in the institutions
- Late adopted – most common marked disinhibition 26%
- Rare in the UK children who were late adopted 3.8%
- If at 6 they showed MD it wold persist in half the children till age 6
- Supports Bowlby –missed critical period
- Lots of ways to measure MD
- Difficult to obtain good quality data
- Drop outs
Marked disinhibition
- Attention seeking towards adults
- Inappropriate physical contact
- Lack of checking back to parent
Recovery
Quality of care in institution – (Dontas) important for institutions to form the attachment
Age of child when removed from privation – when removed young they develop better – age important for language development, less likely to develop language at 11\12yr (Romanian)
Quality of care after – do best when placed in a supporting and caring environment – can form the attachment
Follow on experiences in later life – Quinton/ Rutter – two groups of women ½ in car, care group more likely to have relationship breakdowns, criminal records and difficulties parenting their children. It’s not early experiences, its early adulthood which influence later development
