Attachment Attachment is an emotional bond between two individuals characterised by mutual affection and desire to maintain proximity

Transcription

1 Attachment Attachment is an emotional bond between two individuals characterised by mutual affection and desire to maintain proximity Key characteristics of attachment Proximity seeking Separation anxiety and pleasure on reunion Orienting attention towards caregiver Endures over time Theories of attachment 1) Cupboard Love Theory - Psychoanalytic perspective: the infant becomes attached to its caregiver (usually the mother) because of his/her ability to satisfy its instinctual needs e.g. hunger, libidinal drives - Freud believed that healthy attachments are formed when feeding practices satisfy the infant s needs for food, security and oral sexual gratification - Unhealthy attachments occur when infants are deprived of food and oral pleasure or are indulged - Behaviourist perspective: infants becomes attaches to the individual that satisfies its physiological needs - Little/no reference to predetermined biological factor in the infant or the adult Attachment behaviour seen as regressive Separation and deprivation studies in monkeys: Harlow (1959) - Aim: to determine whether food or close comfort of blanket is more important - Harlow placed infant rhesus monkeys in cages with 2 surrogate (substitute) mothers - One experiment, one of the surrogate mothers was made from wire and had a baby bottle attached to her - The other surrogate mother was made from soft and cuddly cloth but didn t have a bottle attached - Result: the infants spent most time clinging to the cloth mother, even though no nourishment was provided - Another test, put rhesus monkey in pit of despair which is a dark box with no stimuli isolation up to 24 months! - When took monkey out, found that deprivation and isolation causes behavioural abnormalities Early deprivation studies in human - Goldfarb (1943): lower IQ in institutionalised children

2 - Spitz (1945): Children in orphanages suffer from anaclitic depression and apathy - Spitz & Wolf (1946): institutionalised children rarely recover after prolonged deprivation: hospitalism not optimal environment 2) Bowlby s attachment theory Emergence of attachment theory (1951) - Departure from psychoanalytic tradition - Maternal Deprivation Hypothesis: the emotional and intellectual development of the infant will be impaired without the mother-infant attachment Influence of ethology - Imprinting: a form of learning in which a very young animal fixes its attention on the first visual, auditory, or tactile stimulus which results in the animal following that object/stimulus all the time - Most cases a young animal learns the characteristics of its parent (filial imprinting) - Critical period critical to have caregiver in that period e.g. ducks hours after hatching Bowlby s attachment theory Critical period in humans (0-24 months for most children) Monotropy: infants have a strong innate tendency to become attached to one person in particular - Bond between infant and attachment figure (mother) is qualitatively different form other bonds - Monotropy and deprivation (deprive child of monotrophic bond) leads to the maternal deprivation hypothesis - Long term consequences of deprivation: affectionless, psychopathy, reduced IQ, anti-social behaviour Internal working model a cognitive framework comprising mental representations for understanding the world, self and others. - A person s interaction with others is guided by memories and expectations from their internal model which influence and help evaluate their contact with others - The child s attachment relationship with their primary caregiver leads to the development of an internal working model - Primary caregiver acts as a prototype for further relationships via the internal working model carried into new relationships later in life and affect the way we relate to others - Remain stable but can be updated or modified to some extent; in young children such changes rely on actual interaction but this is not necessary in older children and adults

3 Stages of distress following maternal separation (PDD): - Short term separation from an attachment figure leads to 3 progressive stages of distress: - Protest: initial, immediate reaction crying, screaming, kicking and clinging to the mother to prevent her from leaving - Despair: the protest eventually gives way to calmer behaviour; the child appears apathetic and barely reacts to others offers of comfort - Detachment: if separation continues, the child begins to respond to people again but treats everyone alike and in a cold manner Separation and Delinquency: 44 Thieves study (Bowlby, 1946) - Aim: investigate the long-term effects of maternal deprivation on people in order to see whether delinquents have suffered deprivation - Method: Bowlby interview 44 adolescents referred to child protection program due to stealing (thieves) and selected another group of 44 children as controls (individuals referred to clinic because of emotional problems but not committed any crimes) - He interviews the parents from both groups to state whether their children had experienced separation during the critical period and for how long - Result: - More than half 44 young thieves had been separated from their mothers for longer than 6 months during their first 5 years - 32% of young thieves showed affectionless psychopathy (not able to care about or feel affection for others) - None of control groups were affectionless psychopathy - 86% experienced prolonged separation as children (irreversible effects of Criticisms of Bowlby s theory - Theory focused on his belief in monotropy (single attachment), in his case the mother but Schaffer & Emmerson (1964) noted specific attachments started about 8 months but after found that by 18 months 13% of infants were attached to only one person; some had five or more attachments - Michael Rutter (1972) suggest Bowlby oversimplified concept of maternal deprivation, in which he uses to refer to separation from an attached figure, loss of an attached figure and failure to develop an attachment to any figure whereas these each have different effects - Michael Rutter argues that if a child fails to develop an emotional bond this is privation, whereas deprivation refers to the loss of or damage to an attachment - Rutter (1972) several indicators of attachment (protest, distress when attached person leaves) have been shown for a variety of attachment figures fathers, siblings, peers and even inanimate objects disturbed/absent attachment) Neurobiological evidence: Benetti et al. (2010) - Find links between attachment style affective loss and brain volume

4 - Method: assessment of attachment style: ECR (experience in close relationship questionnaire), anxious, avoidant - Assessment of affective loss: List of threatening experience questions - Conclusion: high attachment-related anxiety associated with Gray Matter change in the brain: Decrease in anterior temporal pole, increase GM in lateral orbital gyrus - Cerebellum involved in mediating the moderating effect of affective losses by attachment-related avoidance - Early attachment experience may contribute to structural brain differences - Measurable brain changes attachment style may mediate individual differences in responses to affective loss Evidence from animal studies - HPA studies in rodents - Stressful stimuli activate the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis - Release of glucocorticoid hormones by the adrenal gland - Hormones regulate metabolism, muscle tone, cardiovascular function - Early maternal separation enhances HPA response to stressful events throughout life - Postnatal handling (15mins separation) reduces HPA and behavioural stress response 3) Ainsworth s attachment theory Uganda study (Ainsworth 1967) - 28 unweaned babies, biweekly visits with an interpreter over 9 months at local villages - Found that there is evidence of attachment types and mother are a secure base Attachment types: deprived from Strange Situation a) Secure attachment (70%) - Exploratory behaviour greater when mother is present, and distress is caused by mother s departure, not by being alone b) Anxious-Avoidant (15%) - Play is not affected by mother s absence or presence, distress is caused by being left alone, rather than being left by mother. Can be comforted easily by the stranger (both adults treated in a very similar way) c) Anxious-Resistant (15%) - Very little exploration irrespective of mother s presence, infants ambivalent to mother, resistant to stranger - Baby is fussy and wary while mother is present but distressed when she leaves, seeks contact with her on her return but simultaneously shows anger and resists contact. Actively resists stranger s efforts to make contact Ainsworth s Strange Situation - Aim: universality of attachment patterns - Ainsworth & Wittig (1969)

5 - Method: Persons present: 1) Mother, baby, observer. 2) Mother, baby. 3) Stranger, mother, baby. 4) Stranger, baby. 5) Mother, baby. 6) Baby. 7) Stranger, baby. 8) Mother, baby Criticisms of Ainsworth s Strange Situation - Tend to focus attention on security/insecurity to the exclusion of other aspects of attachment - Have to consider each baby s history for example. A baby with regular day care, when the mother leaves or stranger comes to interact will not be distress, as it s their regular routine and this would be seem as normal What affects attachment? - Sensitivity: mother accurately interprets infants signals - Accessibility: availability vs ignorance - Cooperation: with the infant to satisfy its need vs imposing schedule - Acceptance: vs rejection Fourth attachment type? - Main and Solomon (1991): Insecure-Disorganized - Similar to avoidant and ambivalent, no organisation or consistent behavioural pattern - Associated with early trauma in mothers (fear and anxiety transmitted to infant)

6 Role of father - home assessments of infants (7-13 months) - No preference for m/f in terms of comfort seeking and other attachment measures - When both present, infants selected mother (might be because more time spent with mother) - Main et al (1981): addressed quality of attachment to mother vs father - No different - Attachment can be none, single parent or both (not monotrophic theory) Effects of early attachment on adult romantic relationships Hazan & Shaver (1987): are adult romantic relationships dependent on the nature of early attachment? Method: Recall of Parenting i) Readily available, attentive, responsive ii) Unresponsive, rejecting, inattentive iii) Anxious, out of step with infant needs Result: correlation between attachment style and type of parenting in adult respondents Romantic attachment style i) Secure attachment type of parenting was readily available, attentive, responsive ii) Anxious-avoidant unresponsive, rejecting, inattentive iii) Anxious-ambivalent anxious, fussy, out of step with child s needs; only available/responsive some of the time Conclusion: correlation suggests that as we go further into adulthood, continuity with our childhood experiences decreases. An average person participates in several important friendships and love relationships which provide opportunities for revising our internal working model Roisman et al. (2005): longitudinal study: does early attachment influence adult romantic relationship? Method: - From Hazan & Shaver s experiment recall may be inaccurate and current relationships can influence the individuals perspective - Strange Situation (SS, months) look at attachment - Current Relationship Interview (20-21 years)

7 - Conflict and collaborations tasks (20-21 years) Results: SS at months predicts quality of adult romantic relationships at years Fonagy et al. (1991): Mother s score on Adult Attachment Interview correlates with results of Strange Situation Mother s attachment to her own parents Child s Attachment to its Dismissing Secure Preoccupied mother Anxious-avoidant Secure Anxious-resistant Cross-cultural studies Van Ijzendoorn & Kroonenberg (1988) Conclusion: - Major review of 32 studies involving 8 countires and over 2000 infants of early attachment - Secure attachment is most common type of attachment across different cultures - Anxious-avoidant more common in West Europe - Anxious-resistant more common in Japan and Israel Differences may be due to social structure