1. Attachment

2. 2017 Identify schaffer 3 stages ( 3 marks)
Define reciprocity (2 marks)
Evaluate research into caregiver infant interaction (4 marks)
Effects of institutionalisation (5 marks)
Discuss cultural variations in attachment (8 marks)

3. 2018 Two effects of institutionalisation (2 marks)
How Lorenz and Harlow (6 marks)
Discuss the learning theory of attachment and Bowlby’s monotropic theory of attachment. Refer to the conversation above in your answer. (16 marks)

4. Outline the role of the father in attachment (6)

5. Fathers not important?....
Grossmann (2002) provided evidence suggesting the role of dad was less crucial than that of mum.  The attachment with mum was found to be by far the best predictor of later attachment style in teens.   This was supported by MacCallum & Golombok (2004).  Children brought up by a single parent (in this case mum) or by two female parents didn’t develop any differently to children brought up in a more traditional family by a mum and dad. 

6. According to Bowlby, a father is more likely to engage in physically active and novel play than the mother and tends to become his child's preferred play companion.
Field
compared the behaviours of primary caretaker mothers with primary and secondary caretaker fathers.
Face-to-face interactions were analysed with infants at 4 months
Overall, it was observed that fathers engaged more in game playing and held their infants less. However, primary caretaker fathers engaged in significantly more smiling, imitative grimaces, and imitative vocalizations than did secondary caretaker fathers and these were comparable with mothers’ behaviour.
Freeman found that male children are more likely to prefer their father as an attachment figure than female children and in males and females, the father becomes more important in later childhood
Verissimo found that paternal attachment was important for positive peer relationships in later childhood. The researcher found that the quality of this relationship was correlated with the number of friends at preschool.
The research from Brown and Field indicates that the gender of a caregiver is not crucial in predicting attachment types/ quality, rather it is the extent of caregiver involvement.

7. Both important but they have different roles…
Fathers
Mothers
play interactions are more exciting and pleasurable
nurturing and affectionate
preferred when children are in a positive emotional state and want stimulation
preferred when children are distressed and seeking comfort
less able than mothers to detect low levels of infant distress

8. Why different attachments?
Social policies
In the UK, fathers until last year were not given any paternal leave so the responsibility for child care was implicitly given to the mothers. This could change the attachment the children make with their fathers. However this is not the case in every country so the pattern of attachment between father and children might be different.
Biological factors
Men seem to lack the emotional sensitivity to infant cues that women offer spontaneously. This is of course to do (in part) with traditional gender roles but it could be the fact that female hormones create higher levels of empathy which biological pre- dispose women to be the primary attachment figure. Women produce a hormone, oestrogen which increases emotional response to other’s needs. However Frodi et al. (1978) found that men’s physiological response was the same than women’s.

9. Why different attachments?
Age and gender
Freeman et al. (2010) found that male children are more likely to prefer their father as an attachment figure than female children. He also found that children are more likely to be attached to their father during their late childhood to early adolescence. Infants and young adults are less likely to seek attachment to their fathers.
The contradictory research in this field can be used to help develop the quality of attachments within the whole family as it shows that the parents relationships can impact on the father-child relationships. It can also be used to try to validate/increase the role that fathers play in families as it shows how important it is to a child’s development

10. Outline the role of the father in attachment (6)
Research has shown that a father has an important role in play and cognitive development. Fathers tend to be more involved in play and stimulation rather than caretaking behaviours. Freeman found that male children are more likely to prefer their father as an attachment figure than female children and in males and females, the father becomes more important in later childhood. Verissimo found that paternal attachment was important for positive peer relationships in later childhood. The researcher found that the quality of this relationship was correlated with the number of friends at preschool. However, other research has found that the attachment to the father is less crucial to social development than the attachment to the mother. Further research suggests that children raised by a single mother or two mothers do not differ significantly to those raised more traditionally, with a father present. This questions the importance of the role of the father in attachment

11. What does research suggest about multiple attachments (4 marks)
According to Shaffer, by the age of one 78% of children have multiple attachments, Furthermore, by the age of one 33% of the 78% have 5 or more attachments (Schaffer). Research in to the role of the father, show that sathers are one of the key multiple attachments that children form and that this attachment is important for a child’s development. According to Bowlby’s idea of monotropy, babies develop a single attachment to the main carer before they develop multiple attachments. Babies have one key attachment figure. This figure is usually, but does not have to be, the mother. Secondary attachments then follow, such as to the father and siblings. However research has shown that children who live in a collectivist society develop multiple attachments quicker than children bought up in a individualistic culture.

12. Discuss Bowlby’s maternal deprivation theory
Discuss Bowlby’s maternal deprivation theory. Refer to the experience of Joe as part of your discussion. (12 marks)
Joe was taken away from his alcoholic parents at six months old and placed in care. He was adopted when he was seven years old, but has a difficult relationship with his adoptive parents. He is aggressive towards his younger siblings and is often in trouble at school. His last school report said, ‘Joe struggles with classwork and seems to have little regard for the feelings of others.’

13. Modal answer: outline
Bowlby’s maternal deprivation hypothesis states that the individual has to form a single continuous and loving attachment, preferably with the mother (monotropy) before the age of 2 ½ (critical period). This attachment will then act as a framework for the infants future relationships (internal working model). In Joe’s case, Joe was adopted at seven years old, meaning that he is beyond the critical period. This means that he will not have formed a close attachment with a primary caregiver and may find it difficult forming relationships due to a lack of opportunity to develop an internal working model. Bowlby states that If the infant does not form an attachment to an adult or the attachment becomes disrupted before the critical period the infant will experiences a number of cognitive and emotional problems including low IQ, delinquent behaviour and affectionless psychopathy. Joe is already showing signs of these behaviours as a consequence of maternal deprivation as indicated by Joe being ‘in trouble at school’ (delinquency) and struggling at school (indicator of a low IQ)

14. Evaluation Bowlby’s confusion over privation and deprivation
overemphasis on mother and monotropy
sensible focus on importance of childhood experiences
wider implications, eg changes in child hospitalisation
use of evidence to support or refute Bowlby’s work
Schaffer’s multiple attachments;
studies contradicting the critical period and reversibility, eg Rutter’s Romanian orphan research.

15. Psychologists have studied children who have lived in institutions such as orphanages. Outline and evaluate research into the effects of institutionalisation (12 marks)

16. Rutter studied Romanian children who had been placed in institutions before being adopted by UK families. Children who spent longer in the institutions were more likely to show long-term effects.

18. quality of care provided in the institution
The effect such research has had on child care practice.
Evaluation may refer to methodology.
There is lack of control in all of the research as naturally occurring situations are used.
Some children may have been placed in an institution because they had some pre-existing problems.
Longitudinal studies

19. Use your knowledge of psychological theory and evidence to discuss the influence of early attachment on later relationships. (12 marks)
Bowlby’s theory of the internal working model – primary attachment relationship as a template for later relationships (From 44 thieves, 16 were diagnosed with affectionless psychopaths. 86% of the 16 had suffered early and prolonged separation from their mothers.)
Belsky (1999) found that 3-5 year old securely attached children were more curious, resilient, self-confident, got along better with other children and were more likely to form close relationships.
Harlow’s studies we looked at earlier as the motherless monkeys went onto become bad mothers but do human studies find the same thing?
Hazan and Shaver’s types of adult relationships and the links with Ainsworth’s secure, insecure-avoidant, insecure-resistant types (56% secure)

20. Evaluation
Evidence to support/contradict continuity of attachment type from childhood into adulthood and across generations: eg Fonagy, Steele and Steele 1991, Main 1985, Hazan and Shaver 1987
Implications of findings re continuity: eg determinism
Practical implications: eg bullying in childhood, relationship stability in adulthood
Issue of cause and effect – research that shows a link cannot establish causality
 Validity of measures of attachment – where used to discuss influence of early attachments on later relationships
Qualitative differences between early attachments and later relationships: eg unilateral v reciprocal, sex differences