Disruption of attachment is where an attachment has been formed between an infant and their primary care giver, but some kind of physical or emotional separation has occurred to disrupt its development during the sensitive period. Research investigating the effects of disruption to attachment has showed psychologists that infants forming attachments with a primary caregiver is essential for healthy social, physical and cognitive development.
Such disruption could occur as a result of the infant being separated from their primary caregiver, mental illness in the family, stress, hospitalisation, adoption, the arrival of another sibling, divorce work, day-care and death. In many cases, disruption of attachment is unavoidable as infants must spend time in hospital, in day-care or with a babysitter. Psychologists Robertson and Robertson conducted a naturalistic study on John, a 16 month old baby, who was placed in residential care whilst his mother was in hospital.A physical bond was existent as his father visited regularly however after two days of normal behaviour John fought for attention but this became difficult as the nurses were always busy and the other children were more assertive. When he could no longer fight for attention, john sought comfort in an oversized teddy bear.
He soon stopped playing and cried constantly. The fact the nurses changed shifts regularly made it difficult for john to attach to one nurse.In the first week he greeted his father enthusiastically however by the second he meekly sat there and did not say anything upon visits. Observations state that for long periods of time he lay with his thumb in his mouth, cuddling his teddy bear. On the 9th day when his mother finally came home, John screamed and struggled to get away from her.
For many months afterwards john continued to have outbursts of anger towards his mother. The study is ecologically valid as if was carried out in a natural environment. It also has real life applications.This study has helped form a suitable care regime in day care centres, nurseries and residential care givers.
However, the study cannot be generalised and could be considered unethical because nobody intervened when John was deeply distressed. In an experiment conducted by Skeels and Dye, two 13 month and 16 month old babies and were transferred from an orphanage to a women’s ward in a home for the mentally retarded. When the babies first arrived, they were emotionally distressed, underweight and inactive and spent the majority of the time rocking.At the time of their transfer, the two children had IQs estimated between 35 and 46, which classified them in the moderate to severe range of mental retardation. After living with the older women for six months, the girls’ IQs were measured at 77 and 87, and a few months later, both had IQs in the mid-90s. The children had received large amounts of attention.
The idea from this experiment inspired Skeels and Skodak’s second experiment which involved thirteen 1- to 2-year-old children. All but two were classified as mentally retarded.The children in this experimental group were removed from the orphanage and placed in the one-to-one care of teenage girls with mental retardation who lived at the institution. Each adolescent “mother” was taught how to provide basic care and attention for her baby. The children also attended a half-morning kindergarten program at the institution. A group of 12 children, also under 3 years of age, remained in the orphanage, acting as a control group.
These children received adequate medical and health services but no individual attention.One and a half years later, they found that the IQs of the control group had dropped while the IQs of the transferred group had risen. Skodak and Skeels concluded that attachments can be reversed with good emotional care. This research indicated that, although disruption of attachment can have negative effects, they can be reversed with emotional care. This study was longitudinal which enabled the researchers to record a large amount of information on the participants as they developed. Moreover, this research has high ecological validity as it is a naturalistic study.
However, the results of this experiment cannot be generalised. As shown in Bifulco’s study, the effects of disruption of attachment may surface later on in life if there are triggers. Bifulco studied 249 women whose mothers had died when they were below the age of 17. This group was twice as more likely to suffer from anxiety or depressive disorders when they became adults. This suggests that early disruptions to attachment can make individuals mentally unstable, which can lead to mental disorders triggered by stressful events.This supports the idea that early disruption does have an effect on development and one’s ability to be sociable with peers later on in life.
This research has low population validity because only women were used in the study. The findings do not allow us to determine how the death of a mother may affect a man if she died before he turned 17. However, it is ecologically valid. Not all children are affected by emotional disruption in the same way.
This is presented in Bowlby’s study, where 60 children under the age of four had tuberculosis. Treatment for TB requires patients to spend long periods of time in hospital.The nurses in the hospital could not provide substitute maternal care for the children and they were only visited once a week by relatives therefore the children experienced prolonged early disruption of attachment. When assessed in adolescence, it was found that some children in the TB group were maladjusted compared to the ‘normal’ children. However, there were no significant intellectual differences between them and their ‘normal’ peers.
A problem with this study is that some of those children who coped may have been more securely attached and thus more resilient.
