Attachements 1 Flashcards
When is infancy
First year or two of a child’s life, before speech begins
What type of communication establishes an infant caregiver relationship in infancy
Non-verbal
What are the two main types of caregiver-infant interactions
1) Reciprocity
2) Interactional Synchrony
What are alert phases
Signals from an infant that they are ready for interaction
How often do mothers respond to infant alert phases
2/3 of the time, Feldman and Eidelman (2007)
What is reciprocity
When each person responds to the other
Brazelton et al
- Infants take turns in ‘communication’ with their caregiver
- Important precursor to later communication
- suggested that sensitivity to infant behaviour lays foundation for later attachment
Interactional Synchrony
When both people carry out the same action simultaneously, reflecting what the other is doing
Meltzoff and Moore procedure
- Adult model
- Making facial expressions and gestures to an infant
- Recorded reactions of babies on video
- Observers see video (only infant can be seen) and note down in four behavioural categories
1) Mouth opening
2) Termination of mouth opening
3) Tongue protrusion
4) Termination of tongue protrusion - Inter/Intra observer reliability was greater than 0.92
Meltzoff and Moore findings
- Imitation was seen in infants as young as 2-3 weeks old
- Even in 3 day old infants, so interactional synchrony is likely innate
Murray and Trevarthen
- 2 month olds interacted via video monitor in real time with mother
- Video monitor displays a tape of their mother so responses are not synchronised
- Infants showed acute distress
- Were actively seeking a response from their caregiver
- Supports Meltzoff and Moore
Reciprocity and Interactional Synchrony Evaluation
+ Supporting studies
+ Abravenal and DeYoung to test if behaviour was merely imitation showed an object that simulated
tongue movement and mouth opening and closing movements. Infants made little response, so it is only directed at humans.
+ Valuable research, allows us to theorise how relationships are formed and thus how to conduct them
- Hard to reliably test infant behaviour (in constant motion)
- Failure to replicate Meltzoff and Moores findings (Koepke et al)
- Hard to tell if the behaviour is intentional or imitative (link to Abravenal and DeYoung)
- Individual differences between infants can play a role, there is more imitation with a stronger attachment
Schaffer and Emmerson procedure
- 60 babies
- 5-23 weeks of age
- Visited in their homes every 4 weeks for a year, then once more at 18 months
- Mix of observation and interview
- Report the infant response to different everyday situations:
1) Left alone in a room
2) Left with other people
3) Left in pram outside house
4) Left in pram outside shops
5) Put down after another adults holds them
6) Passed by while sitting on the cot/chair - Describe protest intensity on a scale of 1-4
- Therefore separation anxiety and stranger anxiety can be measured
Schaffer and Emmerson findings
- 65% had mother as primary attachment
- 30% had joint attachment to mother and some other figure
- 3% had father as primary attachment
- 27% were jointly attached to mother and father
- At 18 months, 75% had an attachment to their father
- More attached infants had mothers who responded quickly to their signals and interacted the most
- 40% of cases, primary carer was not primary attachment
Schaffer and Emmerson stages of development in attachments
1) Pre-Attachment phase: From 0-6 weeks babies act similarly to humans and inanimate objects. From six weeks to 3 months, infants prefer humans (smiling at faces). They prefer familiar to unfamiliar faces.
2) Indiscriminate Attachments: 3-7 months: Start to recognise familiar adults, accept comfort from any adult, doesn’t show too much preference.
3) Discriminate Attachments: 7-8 months: Showing more protest when one specific person puts them down, and show joy at reunion with them. Stranger anxiety forms at this stage
4) Multiple Attachments: 9+ months: Multiple attachments are formed depending on the amount of relationships the baby has. 30% of infants formed more attachments within 1 month of the first. Within 6 months, this was 78%
Primary and Secondary attachments importance
- Not much agreement on importace
- Bowllby suggests it is hierarchal, Rutter suggests they are all of equal importance and cover different aspects of the child’s life
Schaffer and Emmerson evaluation
+ Good external validity: carried out in the families’ own homes. Demand characteristics are less likely.
+ Mundane realism
+ Longitudinal design: the same babies were observed over time, so higher internal validity and less confounding variables
- Mothers can show social desirability bias (pretending they are better than they are)
- Biased sample of working class population, may not apply to middle-class. Also from the 1960s, and childcare has changed a lot since
- More fathers choose the stay at home to care for children now
- Hard to tell difference between attachment and playmate, babies still show distress if a playmate leaves the room
- The stage theory is inflexible, and may not apply to other cultures
How was attachment to the father determined (Schaffer and Emmerson)
Separation protest, which was seen in 75% of babies after 18 months
Grossman et al procedure
- Longitudinal study of babies till they were teens
- Assess attachment to both parents
Grossman et al findings
- Quality of attachment to father was not as important in adolescent attachments
- Quality of play with father was more important in adolescent attachments
When do most babies form a primary attachment by
7 months
Field (1978)
Primary caregiver fathers spent more time smiling, imitating, and holding their babies than secondary caregiver fathers, so men can be a primary attachment too
Role of father evaluation
+ Mothers may be pressured to stay home
+ Fathers may feel the need to focus on work over parenting
- MacCallum and Golombok found that children reared by single mothers do not develop any differently
- Hormones such as Oestrogen might be why women want to be more nurturing and this become the primary attachment
Imprinting
Baby animal/human attaches to first living thing seen after birth
Lorenz (ethologist, NOT psychologist)
- Split a large clutch of greylag goose eggs
- One batch was hatched by mother
- Other was hatched in incubator, and Lorenz was the first living thing the goslings saw
- Naturally hatched goslings followed mother, incubated followed Lorenz
- Imprinting had to have occurred within 4-25 hours or it will never occur
Sexual Imprinting
Imprinting affects adult mating preferences, those who imprinted on humans will show courtship behaviour to humans
Guiton (1966)
- Leghorn chicks will imprint on yellow rubber gloves, and even show mating behaviour later
- This can be reversed by spending time with own species
Lorenz research negatives
- Was done on birds, can this apply to humans?
- Mammalian mothers show more emotional attachment
- Mammals may be able to form attachments at any time, there isn’t necessarily a critical period (debatable)
Harlow procedure
- Newborn rhesus monkeys separated from mothers
- 4 conditions
1) Wire mother producing milk, towelling mother producing no milk
2) Wire mother producing no milk, towelling mother producing milk
3) Wire mother producing no milk
4) Towelling mother producing no milk - Record time spent with each mother
Harlow goals
- Is producing food what causes an attachment?
- Compare attachment between wire mother producing milk, and towelling mother producing no milk
Harlow findings
- Monkeys preferred contact with towelling mother
- Whether the wire mother produced milk or not, towelling was preferred
- When frightened by a loud noise, they clung to the towelling mother
Harlow conclusions
- Monkeys have an innate need for contact comfort
- Attachment is based more on emotional security than food
- Monkeys who had this contact comfort had lower stress and were more willing to explore when in a larger room
Harlow isolation study
- Isolate newborn monkeys from any living thing for 3,6,12 or 24 months
- Showed psychological disturbance, hugging themselves and rocking
- Attacked other monkeys
- Selfharm
- Female monkeys from isolation were raped
- Ended up as terrible parents, killed their children
- Shows social interaction is necessary for social and emotional development
Harlow and Suomi
- Isolated male monkeys for 6 months from birth
- Interacted with a 3 month old female monkeys for for 2 hours 3 times a week
- Gradually increase contact time
- Recovered mostly by 12 months
- Isolation effects are therefore reversible
Harlow Positives
- Has theoretical value: Shows that feeding isn’t what created attachment, shows importance of quality early relationships
- Practical value: helps social workers understand risk factors in child abuse
- Important for taking care of captive monkeys in zoos
- Benefits may outweigh the costs?
Harlow Negatives
- Ethical issues
- Long lasting emotional harm
- Many monkeys died
- Cannot fully generalise to humans
- Humans can make conscious decisions, cannot tell if animals do so
Learning theory
- Behaviour is learned rather than inborn
- All behaviour is learnt through conditioning
- Therefore attachment is solely due to the provision of food
Classical conditioning
Learning through association
How is attachment formed (classical conditioning)
- Milk relives baby from hunger, giving pleasure
- Milk is UCS, pleasure is UCR
- Mother is NS, and is associated with UCS
- Mother becomes CS, so pleasure is felt by being with mother
Operant conditioning
- Learning through rewards (positive or negative reinforcement)
Crying explanation (operant conditioning)
- Crying leads to response from caregiver (positive)
- So the crying is directed at caregiver as it relives them
Caregiver response to crying explanation (operant conditioning)
- Caring for the baby stops the crying (negative)
- So caring for the baby is encouraged
Drive Reduction explanation
- Hunger is a primary drive
- Caregiver relives hunger
- Therefore caregiver is a secondary drive, as they can fulfil the primary drive
- As the caregiver is a drive by themselves now, they can bring pleasure alone
Learning theory negatives
- Based on animal studies (studies done by Pavlov or Skinner)
- Attachments are a more complex behaviour
- Attachment behaviour may be innate and necessary for survival
- Lorenz study (he didnt feed the goslings)
- Harlow towelling mother did not feed the monkeys
- Schaffer and Emmerson: 40% of babies did not have primary attachment with their physical carer
- Studies show that best quality attachments are with sensitive carers
- Ignores interactional synchrony and reciprocity as factors, focused too much on food
Learning theory strengths
- Explains at least one reason why attachments happen
- Babies usually do form attachments with whoever feeds more (breastfeeding mothers)
Bowlby’s Monotropic Theory
- Attachments are innate
- Evolved as they aided survival
- Infants that stuck to their mothers survived
Bowlby observations (as a psychiatrist)
- Treating emotionally disturbed children
- Many of these children had early separation from family
- Children deprived of good relationship with mother might be permanently damaged
Monotropy
- One attachment has the most significant importance
- Usually the mother
- Whoever responds most sensitively to the infant’s needs
- Becomes the main foundation for emotional development
- Attachments are hierarchal with one at the top
Monotropy explaination
- Law of continuity: More constant and predictable relationship —> better attachment
- Law of accumulated separation: Every separation adds up, “The best dose is a zero dose”
Monotropy explaination
- Law of continuity: More constant and predictable relationship —> better attachment
- Law of accumulated separation: Every separation adds up, “The best dose is a zero dose”
Social releasers
- Babies has innate behaviours that draw attention (‘cute’ behaviour)
- Encourages adult attention
- Elicits a caregiving response
- Therefore mother and baby have an innate predisposition to attach
Critical period
- Limited window for attachment to develop
- First 2 years of a child’s life (Bowlby)
- After this, it is very difficult to form new attachments
Internal working model
- Relationship with primary caregiver is a template for future relationships
- Gives the child insight into the caregiver’s behaviour
Secure base
- Primary attachment is used as a ‘secure base’
- Important for protection
- Allows the child to explore the world and return when threatened
- Helps to foster independence
Continuity hypothesis
- Secure attachment in infancy will allow for child to continue social and emotional competence
- Improves later relationships
Monotropy research support
- Tronick et al
- African tribe in Zaire
- Babies are looked after and breastfed by many women other than mother
- Slept with mother at night
- Still showed primary attachment to mother
- Shows that attachment is innate
Social releasers supporting research
- Brazelton et al
- When babies were ignored, some curled up and lay motionless
- Social releasers therefore elicit caregiving
Internal working model supporting research
- Bailey et al
- 99 mothers with babies interviewed
- Baby to mother attachment assessed
- Mothers with poor attachment to their own parents had babies with lower attachment
Critical period supporting research
- Lorenz
- Unable to imprint later if not done within a critical period
- Bowlby
- Harder for humans to form attachments if not formed in critical period
Bowlby’s theory of attachment weaknesses
- Too much emphasis on primary attachment
- Different attachments may play different roles (Schaffer and Emmerson)
- Example: siblings help with peer relationships
- It IS possible to form attachments after of critical period
- Hodges and Tizard: orphans adopted after 4 years, 21/22 formed a secure attachment
- Role of father is ignored
- Fathers now play more of a role in caregiving
- Outdated research
