THE STRANGE SITUATION – Ainsworth and Bell (1970)   This study was a controlled observation – consisting of 100 middle classed American infants and their mothers – where the quality of the child’s attachment was assessed through a set of pre-determined activities. Observed Separation anxiety – the unease an infant shows when they are left […]

THE ROLE OF THE FATHER Many researchers see the father as a ‘play mate’ for the child – often more physical, unpredictable and exciting than mothers   Mothers are seen as nurturing   Senisitve responsiveness – recognising and responding appropriately to infants’ needs – mothers have traditionally been seen to show more sensitive responsiveness   […]

EXPLANATIONS OF ATTACHMENT Learning theory – the belief that attachments develop through conditioning processes (classical conditioning & operant conditioning)   Classical conditioning – occurs when a response produced naturally by a certain stimulus becomes associated with another stimulus that is not normally associated with that particular response   Operant conditioning – learning occurring via reinforcement […]

CULTURAL VARIATIONS – Van Ijzendoom The idea that there are differences in child-rearing practices and attachment types between different cultural groupings   Study Summary Aim: – to assess whether within separate sample types, there was a pattern in the distribution of different attachment types – to assess the extent of inter (between) and intra (within) […]

CAREGIVER-INFANT INTERACTIONS IN HUMANS   Multiple Attachments Bowlby – believes that children have one primary attachment, and the others have minor importance Rutter – saw all attachments of equal importance, all combined to help form a child’s internal working model. Each attachment is formed for different purposes Schaffer & Emerson (1964) Social Attachment Aim: – […]

BOWLBY’S EVOLUTIONARY THEORY OF ATTACHMENT   Bowlby suggested that attachment is an innate process that serves an important evolutionary function: – it is the change in the inherited characteristics of an organism over time – characteristics that are adaptive will be passed onto the next generation   How does this explain attachment? Attachment between infant […]

ANIMAL STUDIES OF ATTACHMENT Lorenz Imprinting Aim: to investigate the mechanisms of imprinting where youngsters follow and form and attachment to the first large moving object that they meet.   Method: 1. Split a large clutch of greylag goose eggs into 2 batches – one which hatched naturally by the mother, and one which was […]

IMPROVING EYE WITNESS TESTIMONY   KEY TERM DEFINITION Standard Police Interview A procedure for police interviews of witnesses to facilitate accurate and detailed recall Enhanced Cognitive Interview The established method of questioning witnesses that overcomes problems caused by inappropriate sequencing of questions Modified Cognitive Interview An amended form of the Cognitive Interview Encoding Specificity Theory […]

False Memory Syndrome: The memory of an event which never happened Loftus (1993) – planted memories of a lost child in a supermarket Lack of consolidation: Due to trauma, concussion, alcohol, drugs, short term memory fails to be processed into long term memory, and is hence forgotten Theory Description Evidence Evaluation Interference (mainly LTM) Proactive […]

EYEWITNESS TESTIMONY   Leading Questions – Loftus Parmer study Aim: to test the effect of leading questions on a person’s recall   Method: – split participants into 3 groups – ppts watched a short film of a traffic accident – they were then asked questions about the film – all questions were same except the one […]