The observers recorded the following behaviours: * Exploration - how willingly the infant explored the room using the mother as a safe base. * Stranger anxiety - how distressed the infant became toward the stranger, both with the mother present and when alone. * Separation distress - how distressed the infant became when the mother left the room. * Reunion behaviour - how the mother was greeted by the infant on her return to the room. Types of attachment The original strange situation study (Ainsworth & Bell, 1970) revealed 3 main attachment types: * Securely attached (Type B).
A person characteristically forms an attachment to their primary caregiver, in one of three ways that will affect their love relations. Secure attachment, as children the parents would be warm and responsive and secure children feel safe and comfortable, and are able to discover and build up new skills with minimum anxiety or concern (Bolt, 2004). A person with a secure style of attachment will have more pleasing and longer lasting relationships. Secure individuals are comfortable being close to their partners (Attachment Styles, or Comfort with Intimacy, Influence How People Behave, 2004). They are more accepting to depend on them, and they are comfortable being dependent on another individual.
With this information, Bowlby realized that the current explanation from Freud that infants love their mother because of oral gratification was wrong. His new theory stated that infants are social from a very young age, 6 months to less than two years old. The infants become focused on a particular individual or a few individuals. Bowlby proposed that “patterns of relating acquired in the early parent-child relationship are internalized and form the basis for how an individual enters and subsequently maintains other close relationships” (Bretherton). Bowlby's aim was to discover the consequences of difficulties in forming attachments in childhood, and the effects this would have on an infant's later development.
Describe and evaluate Ainsworth's work on attachment (12 marks) In 1978 Ainsworth et al studied the reactions of young children to brief separations from their mother in order to determine the nature of attachment behaviours and types of attachments Ainsworth’s procedure is known as the strange situation. In the study she conducted she use controlled observation infants were exposed to a sequence of 3 minute-episodes. The total observation period lasted for approximately 25 minutes. First the infant and mother were introduced to the observation room by the researcher, then the researcher left the room. After a while a stranger entered and had a brief conversation with the mother.
They believe that securely attached infants would become autonomous adults; these know the importance of their past relationships and can recall positive and negative experiences. Those that had insecure attachments would fall into the dismissing or preoccupied category. They would see their childhood experiences as either unimportant and dismiss them or as important but cannot resolve issues. Using the AAI, Hamilton (1994) studied 30 adolescents and found a strong correlation between infant attachment type and adult attachment type. Similarly Steinberg (1990) found that securely attached adolescents were more likely to maintain healthy relationships with their parents than those classified as dismissive or preoccupied.
Approximately 22% of infants were ‘insecure-avoidant’. This is when they ignored their mother and didn’t mind if she left the room as they were comfortable with the stranger comforting them. 66% were ‘securely attached’ which meant that they were happy with their mother being there, upset when she left and excited when she returned. Securely attached children also tried to avoid strangers. The final 12% were ‘insecure-resistant’.
Ainsworth et al devised an assessment technique called the strange situation in order to investigate how attachments might vary between children. She carried out an observational lab study and developed an experimental procedure to observe the variety of attachment forms exhibited between mothers and infants. Ainsworth’s ‘strange situation’ was conducted by observing the behaviour of the infant in a series of 3-minute episodes as follows 1.) Parent and infant alone in the room 2.) Stranger joins parent and infant 3.)
I would enhance this experiment by specifically testing for cue salience to determine the role and affect it may have on prospective memory performance. In one of the studies that asked children to relay a message to a research assistant as soon as they entered the room, they were not able to find age-related effects on prospective memory in 7- to 11-year olds Although prospective memory performance was high, it may have been affected by the salient and socially relevant cues of the task. In what ways does manipulating factors relevant to cue event detection impact prospective memory performance in young children? How could such a test be
While approximately 60-65 percent of children develop a secure attachment, 35-40 percent of children develop an insecure attachment (Psychological Science, Michael Gazzaniga, 2016). Securely attached children look to their caregiver for comfort in times of distress, while insecurely attached children avoid their caregiver completely (avoidant), or are inconsolable in the presence of their caregiver (ambivalent) (Ainsworth et al. 1978). The importance of the kind of attachment developed in early life stems from the fact that attachment is both a social and emotional bond, as stated earlier (Martin et al. 2010).
Throughout history, people have quickly commented “good job” to their children thinking that this is encouraging good behavior, but is this effective? Alfie Kohn, Phillip S. Strain, and Gail E. Joseph are three of the popular scholars who have thoroughly researched the effects of giving praise to children. Kohn believes that praising children for their achievements will negatively affect them in their lives and make then dependent on their elders approval. Alternatively, Strain and Joseph believe that positive reinforcement actually helps kids differentiate between acceptable and unacceptable behavior. Although an overabundance of praise to a child can have harmful effects, I believe that adequate amounts of praise strengthens children’s behavior, thus I supports Strain and Joseph.