Attachment notes
Animal studies
A01
Lorenz:
Lorenz investigated sexual imprinting.
He divided at random a large clutch of goose eggs. Half of the eggs
hatched with the mother goose in their natural environment and the
other half in an incubator where the first moving object that they saw
was Lorenz.
The incubator group followed Lorenz, whereas the control group
followed their mother once they hatched.
When the two groups where mixed the incubator group still continued
to follow Lorenz and the control group still continued to follow their
mother.
This is called imprinting – whereby bird species that are mobile at birth
attach to the first moving object that they see.
Lorenz investigated a identified a critical period in which imprinting
needs to take place – depending on the species this can be as brief as a
few hours after birth.
If imprinting does not occur within that time, then Lorenz found that the
birds would not attach to a mother like figure.
Harlow:
Harlow tested the idea that a soft object serves some of the functions of
a mother.
In one experiment he reared 16 baby monkeys with two wire model
‘mothers.’
In one condition milk was dispersed by the plain wire mother and in
another experiment the milk was dispersed by a ‘cloth-covered’ mother.
The babies cuddled the cloth-covered mother in preference to the plain
wired mother and sought comfort from the cloth-covered one when
frightened by a noisy mechanical teddy bear, regardless of which one of
the mothers was dispensing milk at the time.
Showed that contact comfort was of more of an importance to the
babies than food.
, Harlow also followed monkeys who had been deprived of a ‘real’ mother
into adulthood to see if early maternal deprivation had a permanent
effect. Monkeys reared with plain-wire mothers were the most
dysfunctional and even cloth-covered did not develop social behaviours.
Deprived were more aggressive, less sociable than normal monkeys,
bred less, unskilled at mating and even some attacked their own
children.
Critical period – before 90 days after birth a mother figure must be
introduced for an attachment to form otherwise the damage is
irreversible.
A03
Harlow – real life applications – helped psychologists and social workers
understand that a lack of bonding may be a risk for child development,
allowing them to intervene to prevent these poor outcomes. We now also
understand the importance of attachment figures for baby monkeys in zoos
and breeding programmes in the wild.
Lack of ability to generalise and to draw conclusions to humans – rhesus
monkeys are much more like humans than Lorenz’s birds, all mammals share
common attachment behaviours, but the human brain and human behaviour is
much more complex than that of monkeys.
Some of Lorenz’s ideas have been questioned – e.g., the idea that imprinting
has a permanent effect on mating behaviour. Guiton et al found chickens who
imprinted on yellow washing up gloves would try and mate with them as
adults, but later they preferred to mate with chickens. Suggests imprinting is
not as permanent as Lorenz suggested
Harlow – effect on understanding of human mother-infant interactions.
Attachment is not a result of being fed by a mother figure but because of
contact comfort. Suggests attachment is not just to aid survival but to aid social
development as Harlow showed us the importance of early relationships for
later social development i.e., relationships and parenting.
Learning theory explanation of attachment
A01
Suggests that we are born ‘Tabula Rasa’ (blank slate).
, Theory suggests that attachment is no more than a set of learned
behaviours rather than an inborn tendency.
Main assumption behind the theory is that children learn to become
attached to their caregiver as they give them food. (Cupboard love
theory)
Dollard and miller propose that attachment is learnt through classical
conditioning and operant conditioning.
Classical conditioning – the infant associate’s mother (neutral stimulus)
with food (unconditioned stimulus) through the process of conditioning.
Before conditioning the carer is a neutral stimulus producing no
response, however when she is paired with food continuously, she
becomes slowly associated with food until eventually alone the mother
can produce pleasure. Mother will then become CS and the pleasure she
brings is the CR.
Operant conditioning – learning via consequences
Behaviour which produces a pleasant response is likely to be repeated
(positive reinforcement).
Animal studies
A01
Lorenz:
Lorenz investigated sexual imprinting.
He divided at random a large clutch of goose eggs. Half of the eggs
hatched with the mother goose in their natural environment and the
other half in an incubator where the first moving object that they saw
was Lorenz.
The incubator group followed Lorenz, whereas the control group
followed their mother once they hatched.
When the two groups where mixed the incubator group still continued
to follow Lorenz and the control group still continued to follow their
mother.
This is called imprinting – whereby bird species that are mobile at birth
attach to the first moving object that they see.
Lorenz investigated a identified a critical period in which imprinting
needs to take place – depending on the species this can be as brief as a
few hours after birth.
If imprinting does not occur within that time, then Lorenz found that the
birds would not attach to a mother like figure.
Harlow:
Harlow tested the idea that a soft object serves some of the functions of
a mother.
In one experiment he reared 16 baby monkeys with two wire model
‘mothers.’
In one condition milk was dispersed by the plain wire mother and in
another experiment the milk was dispersed by a ‘cloth-covered’ mother.
The babies cuddled the cloth-covered mother in preference to the plain
wired mother and sought comfort from the cloth-covered one when
frightened by a noisy mechanical teddy bear, regardless of which one of
the mothers was dispensing milk at the time.
Showed that contact comfort was of more of an importance to the
babies than food.
, Harlow also followed monkeys who had been deprived of a ‘real’ mother
into adulthood to see if early maternal deprivation had a permanent
effect. Monkeys reared with plain-wire mothers were the most
dysfunctional and even cloth-covered did not develop social behaviours.
Deprived were more aggressive, less sociable than normal monkeys,
bred less, unskilled at mating and even some attacked their own
children.
Critical period – before 90 days after birth a mother figure must be
introduced for an attachment to form otherwise the damage is
irreversible.
A03
Harlow – real life applications – helped psychologists and social workers
understand that a lack of bonding may be a risk for child development,
allowing them to intervene to prevent these poor outcomes. We now also
understand the importance of attachment figures for baby monkeys in zoos
and breeding programmes in the wild.
Lack of ability to generalise and to draw conclusions to humans – rhesus
monkeys are much more like humans than Lorenz’s birds, all mammals share
common attachment behaviours, but the human brain and human behaviour is
much more complex than that of monkeys.
Some of Lorenz’s ideas have been questioned – e.g., the idea that imprinting
has a permanent effect on mating behaviour. Guiton et al found chickens who
imprinted on yellow washing up gloves would try and mate with them as
adults, but later they preferred to mate with chickens. Suggests imprinting is
not as permanent as Lorenz suggested
Harlow – effect on understanding of human mother-infant interactions.
Attachment is not a result of being fed by a mother figure but because of
contact comfort. Suggests attachment is not just to aid survival but to aid social
development as Harlow showed us the importance of early relationships for
later social development i.e., relationships and parenting.
Learning theory explanation of attachment
A01
Suggests that we are born ‘Tabula Rasa’ (blank slate).
, Theory suggests that attachment is no more than a set of learned
behaviours rather than an inborn tendency.
Main assumption behind the theory is that children learn to become
attached to their caregiver as they give them food. (Cupboard love
theory)
Dollard and miller propose that attachment is learnt through classical
conditioning and operant conditioning.
Classical conditioning – the infant associate’s mother (neutral stimulus)
with food (unconditioned stimulus) through the process of conditioning.
Before conditioning the carer is a neutral stimulus producing no
response, however when she is paired with food continuously, she
becomes slowly associated with food until eventually alone the mother
can produce pleasure. Mother will then become CS and the pleasure she
brings is the CR.
Operant conditioning – learning via consequences
Behaviour which produces a pleasant response is likely to be repeated
(positive reinforcement).
