1) Attachment upto Schaffer and Emerson's stage theory of attachment Flashcards
What are 3 ways attachment can be recognised by people displaying certain behaviours?
SPS - Safety Pined Skirt (the skirt is attached by the safety pin)
S(safety)
Separation distress- people are distressed when an attachment figure leaves their presence.
A secure child will stop when primary caregiver comes back and will forget about being left.
P(pined)
Proximity- people try to stay physically close to those to who they are attached to.
S (Skirt)
Secure-base behaviour- even when we are independent of our attachment figure we tend to make regular contact with them. Infants display secure-based behaviour when they regularly return to their attachment figure while playing.
A secure child is happy to explore but comes back to check in.
What are two caregiver-infant interactions?
(Infant response) IR
Interactional synchrony
Reciprocity
What is reciprocity ?
When each person responds to the other and elicits a response from the them.
Babies have “alert phases” and signal they are ready for interaction.
Feldman et al found that 2/3 of the time a mother picks up on their infants alertness and respond.
At 3+ months this interaction becomes increasingly frequent and involves close attention to verbal signals and facial expressions.
What is interactional synchrony ?
It can be defined as “the temporal co-ordination of micro-level social behaviour” (Feldman 2007).
It takes place when mother and infant interact in such a way that their actions and emotions mirror the other.
Meltzoff and Moore (1977) observed the beginnings of interactional synchrony in infants as young as 2 weeks old.
An adult displayed one of three facial expressions or one of three gestures. The child’s response was filmed and identified by independent observers.
An association was found between the expression of gesture the adult had displayed and the actions of the babies.
It is believed thy interactional synchrony is important for the development of mother-infant attachment.
Isabella et al (1989) observed 30 mothers and infants together and assessed the degree of synchrony. The researchers also assessed the quality of mother-infant attachment.
They found high levels of synchrony were associated with better quality mother-infant attachment.
Explain Schaffer and Emerson’s stage theory of attachment
In 1964 they conducted a study in the development of attachments.
60 infants from mainly working class homes in Glasgow were studied. At the start of the investigation the infants ranged from 5-23 weeks of age. They were studied until the age of 1 year and visited at 18 months.
The mothers were visited every four weeks. At each visit each mother reported their infants response to separation in seven everyday situations ( such as being left alone in a room when put in their cot at night, or with other people such as babysitters). This is called separation anxiety.
The mother was also asked to describe the intensity of any protest ( for instance a full cry, or a whimper) which was rated on a four point scale. Finally the mother was asked to say to whom the protest was directed.
Schaffer and Emerson used a variety of methods to collect their data, including observation of the babies and interviewing their mothers.
During each visit they would approach the baby to see if they cried or whimpered, or showed signs of distress at a strange face. This is known as stranger anxiety.
What is an attachment?
It can be defined as a close two way emotional bond between two individuals (primary caregiver and infant) in which each individual sees the other as essential for their own emotional security.
Attachments in humans takes a few months to develop.
What did Schaffer and Emerson find during their study of stage theory of attachment?
Schaffer and Emerson found that attachment behaviours developed in stages that were loosely linked to age.
Most babies started to show separation anxiety from their attachment figure at around 25-32 weeks, indicating that an attachment has been formed.
Fear of strangers tended to follow about a month later.
In 65% of babies, the first attachments was to the mother.
Only 3% attachments were to the fathers but in around 30% of babies, attachments were found simultaneously to two people- most often their mother and father.
After the first attachment was formed, most babies went on to form multiple attachments with a variety of people they saw regularly, such as grandparents and siblings.
What type of study was the Schaffer and Emerson?
Longitudinal study.
What were the several distinct stages that common patterns in the development of infants’ attachment could be divided into?
Asocial - non-social (0-6 weeks)
Very young infants are asocial in that many kinds of stimuli, both social and non-social, produce a favourable reaction, such as a smile.
Indiscriminate attachment phase - not distinguishing - (6 weeks- 7 months)
Infants indirectly enjoy human company and most babes respond equally to any caregiver. They get upset when an individual ceases to interact with them.
From 3 months infants smile at familiar faces and can be easily comforted by a regular caregiver.
Specific attachment phase (7-9 months)-
Special preferences for a single attachment figure. The baby looks to particular people for security, comfort and protection.
It shows fear of strangers (stranger fear) and unhappiness when separated from a special person (separation anxiety). Some babies show stranger fear and separation anxiety much more frequently and intensely than others, but nevertheless they are seen as evidence that the baby has formed an attachment.
This has usually developed by one year of age.
Multiple attachments stage (10 months onwards)-
The baby becomes increasingly independent and forms several attachments. By 18 months the majority of infants have formed multiple attachments.
What are the evaluation points for Schaffer and Emerson’s stage theory of attachments?
Triangulation: Schaffer and Emerson used a combination of methods of data collection. These include interview and observation. These methods provide data that is very rich in detail, and the use of different measurements make the study high in ecological validity, as the infant’s behaviour was seen in the natural environment of he home. The use of different methods to study the same issue is known as “triangulation”.
Temporal validity: Schaffer and Emerson’s findings reflected child-rearing practices of the 1960s, when most of the childcare was carried out by mothers who were less likely to work outside of the home.
Today, fathers tend to take a much more active role in their children’s lives and are more likely to be the first attachment figure than they were in the 1960s.
Research shows that the number of fathers who choose to stay at home and care for their children and families has quadrupled over the past 25 years (Cohn et al, 2014)
Examples of things that have changed in child-care practice since the 60s are that mothers juggle working and child rearing so father’s may spend equivalent amounts of time with the child as the mother.
Mothers reports: Some of the data collected may be unreliable because it was based on the mother’s reports of their infants.
Some mothers might have been less sensitive to their infant’s protests and therefore were less likely to report them. This wold create a systematic bias which would challenge the validity of the data.
Some mothers may have been concerned about what the investigators would think of them and changed their responses to be more as they thought they ought to be.
This is called social desirability (don’t want to look bad for themselves not the researcher).
Biased sample: The sample was biased because it was from a working class population thus the findings may only apply to that social group and not to others.
Financial problems, baby sitting, no/lack of nanny, wider family support- these may have been some of the differences expected from other social classes.
Are multiple attachments equivalent? One of the central discussions relating to multiple attachment is whether all the attachments are equivalent or whether one or two have some special significance.
Bowlby’s view was that an infant forms one special emotional relationship (montrophy).
Subsidiary to this many other secondary attachments which are important as an emotional safety net, and also important for other needs.
For example, fathers may offer a special kind of care and relationships with siblings are also important in learning how to negotiate with peers. By contrast Rutter (1995) has argued that all attachment figures are equivalent.
He believes that all attachments are integrated to produce an infant’s attachment type.
