3. Attachment

Question 1

What is an attachment?

Answer 1

A strong, emotional and reciprocated relationship between an infant and their primary caregiver

Question 2

What is a caregiver?

Answer 2

Any person who is providing care for a child

Question 3

There are 3 behaviours babies display when they have a strong attachment to their caregiver. What are they?

Answer 3

1. Safe base
2. Separation anxiety
3. Stranger anxiety

Question 4

Who posed the idea that there are 3 behaviours babies display when they have a strong attachment with their caregiver?

Answer 4

Maccoby, (1980)

Question 5

What is meant by the term safe base?

Answer 5

Safe base behaviour refers to how children treat their primary caregiver as someone they can quickly return to whenever they are scared or anxious

Question 6

How can we tell that a child treats the caregiver as a safe base?

Answer 6

We can tell when a child is treating a caregiver as a safe base, as it means the child is willing to go off and explore and interact with their surroundings when the caregiver is nearby

Question 7

What is meant by the term separation anxiety?

Answer 7

The distress shown by an infant when seperated from their attachment figure

Question 8

What is meant by the term stranger anxiety?

Answer 8

The distress and anxiety displayed by an infant when in the presence of someone who is unfamiliar

Question 9

Who identified the stages involved in attachment formations?

Answer 9

Schaffer

Question 10

How many stages in attachment formation are there?

Answer 10

4

Question 11

What are the names of the 4 stages of attachment formation?

Answer 11

1. Pre-attachment phase
2. Indiscriminate phase
3. Discriminate phase
4. Multiple attachments phase

Question 12

The first stage of attachment formation is known as the pre-attachment phase. However, it is commonly called something else. What is it often called?

Answer 12

Asocial phase

Question 13

What is the duration of the pre-attachment phase?

Answer 13

0-3 months

(3 months in total)

Question 14

What happens during the pre-attachment phase?

Answer 14

• Baby begins to separate people from inanimate objects
• But doesn’t show a preference as to who cares for them

Question 15

What is the duration of the indiscriminate phase?

Answer 15

3-7 months

(4 months in total)

Question 16

What happens during the indiscriminate phase?

Answer 16

• The infant starts to distinguish and recognise different people
• This is evident by the fact they begin smiling more at people they know, than at strangers –> (They prefer familiar people to unfamiliar people)
• Still no strong preferences, as to who looks after them

Question 17

What is the duration of the discriminate phase?

Answer 17

7-9 months

(2 months in total)

Question 18

What happens during the discriminate phase?

Answer 18

• Infant is now able to form strong attachments with an individual
• This is shown by the way the infant becomes more content when this attachment figure is around and becomes distressed when they leave

–> Showing signs of separation and stranger anxiety + Safe base behaviour

Question 19

What is the duration of the multiple-attachment phase?

Answer 19

From about 9 months onwards

Question 20

What happens during the multiple-attachment phase?

Answer 20

• Infants can now form attachments with multiple people
• Some attachments may be stronger than others, and they may have different functions, (Ex: Play or comfort)
• Schaffer found that by the age of 18 months, 32% of babies had 5 or more attachments

Question 21

What kind of behaviours may strenghten the infant-caregiver attachment?

Answer 21

• Reciprocity
• Interactional synchrony

Question 22

What is reciprocity, in reference to infant-caregiver interactions?

Answer 22

• Reciprocity is when the infant and caregiver both take turns in an interaction
• So they respond to each other’s actions

Question 23

What is interactional synchrony?

Answer 23

This is when the infant and caregiver perform similar actions at the same time as each other

Question 24

What study provide evidence to support the claim; reciprocity and interactional synchrony strengthen attachments?

Answer 24

Isabella et al (1989)

Question 25

Explain Isabella et al, (1989).

Answer 25

• Used frame by frame analysis of infant-caregiver interactions
• In order to see the movements made by babies and mothers
• They also measured the strength and the bond of the mother and babies involved in the study –> They measured separation anxiety

Question 26

What was the conclusion made by Isabella et al?

Answer 26

This longitudinal study concluded that interactional synchrony and reciprocity had a positive correlation with attachment strength

Question 27

Make one positive and one negative evaluation point for Isabella et al’s study.

Answer 27

+ Frame by frame analysis was used, which means the observations would have been highly detailed and reliable

• The observations may have suffered from observation bias - The gestures and movements made by the babies may have been over-interpreted by the researcher

Question 28

What is classical conditioning?

Pavlov (1927)

Answer 28

• At first, food is an unconditioned stimulus, and their caregiver is a neutral stimulus
• Over the repeated experience of being fed by their caregiver, babies start to associate their caregiver with food
• As a result, the caregiver becomes a conditioned stimulus which leads to babies developing a conditioned response towards their caregiver

Question 29

What is operant conditioning?

(Dollard and Miller 1950)

Answer 29

• Dollard and Miller, (1950), claimed that babies feel discomfort when they are hungry and they also have a desire to get food in order to remove the discomfort
• If they cry, then the mother will come and feed them, (negative reinforcement)
• The mother is therefore accosiated with food and the baby will want to be near the mother, (meaning they will show signs of attachment behaviour: Seperation anxiety)

Question 30

What is positive reinforcement?

Answer 30

When we learn to repeat a behaviour, in order to receive a positive outcome

Question 31

What is negative reinforcement?

Answer 31

When we learn to repeat a behaviour, in order to avoid a negative outcome

Question 32

What is the learning theory also called?

Answer 32

Cupboard love theory

Question 33

Who created the learning theory and when?

Answer 33

Dollard and Miller, (1949)

Question 34

AO1 Learning Theory

Answer 34

• Learning theory was proposed in 1949 by Dollard and Miller
• The fundamental basis of this theory, is that attachment is learned, not biological
• The theory combines both classical and operant conditioning
• Classical conditioning refers to the fact that when a child is born, they have an unconditioned stimulus for food and a mutual stimulus for their caregiver
• However, over the repeated experience of the caregiver feeding the infant, they start to associate their caregiver with food
• This leads to the caregiver becoming a conditioned stimulus, which leads to babies forming a conditioned response when fed
• Operant conditioning was posed by Dollard and Miller, (1950)
• Dollard and Miller claim that babies feel discomfort when they are hungry, and they have a desire to get food
• Because of this, babies cry in order to catch the attention of the caregiver, so that the caregiver will come and feed them
• The caregiver is then once again associated with food, meaning that the baby will want to be near the caregiver in order to avoid the discomfort felt when being hungry
• This means that the infant will show signs of attachment, as they will express separation anxiety, as when they are not with their caregiver, they will feel like they aren’t getting fed

Question 35

AO3 Learning Theory

Question 36

What is reciprocity, in the context of infant-caregiver interaction?

Answer 36

A two way process, where each party responds to each others signals in turns. The behaviour from each party, causes the other party to respond

Question 37

What are the features of type A attachment?

***Insecure avoidant

Question 38

What are the features of type B attachment?

***Secure attachment