Attachment Flashcards
What is a bond
A set of feelings that tie one person to another
For example, parents often fell very strongly ‘bonded’ with their new born babies.
What is an attachment
It is different to bond as it involves both the baby and their parent, who have an emotional link between each other which ties them together.
It also takes longer to develop than a bond. We can see this when we observe behaviours.
What are the 4 Maccoby characteristics of attachment
- seeking proximity
- Distress on separation
- Joy on reunion
- Orientation of behaviour
What is Reciprocity
The behaviour of each party elicits a response from the other. Each party responds to the action of another’s signal to sustain interaction (Turn taking).
The responses are not necessarily similar as interaction synchronicity.
Smiling is an example of reciprocity - when a smile occurs in one person it elicits. Response in the other
Name the 4 psychologists who carried out studies supporting reciprocity
Feldman
- from birth babies move in rhythm with adults.
- at three months interaction becomes increasingly frequent
Brazelton
- basic rhythm is a precursor for later communication
Trevathan
- taking turn in infant interaction is important for the development of social and language skills
Tronick
- mothers interacted with the baby and to stopped, babies would then try to tempt mother into interaction
What is synchrony
When two people interact in a mirror pattern in terms of their emotional and facial and body
What are the two psychologists that have supporting studies for synchrony
Meltzoff and Moore
- observed synchrony as young as two weeks
- child’s response to facial expressions was filmed and independently observed. A correlation was observed in both two weeks and three day olds
Isabella
- found high levels of synchrony were associated with better quality mother infant attachment
- Suggests that strong emotional attachments are associated with high levels of synchrony
Attachment
An emotional bond that develops early in an infants life that develops a communication between the infant and its caregiver
The infant will show distress when taken away from the caregiver
International synchrony
From a. Early as 2 weeks adults and babies respond in time to sustain communication, for example when a mother makes a soothing noise the bay moves gently in response. Emotional responses reflect each other.
Reciprocity/turn taking
Interaction is continuous and flows both ways between adult and infant. Both res[ond to each others actions and can initaiate communication
What are the types of interactions
Interaction also synchrony Reciprocity/ turn taking Imitation Sensitive responsiveness Cargiverese Body contact
Imitation
Infant mimics/copies the adults behaviour exactly
Sensitive responsiveness
Adult pays careful attention to infants communication and responds in an appropriate manner e.g. feeding or changing
Cargiver ease
Adult modulates their voice, slowing it down, raising the pitch and making a song like tone
Bodily contact
Physical contact, often skin to skin is seen as important in bonding especially in the first few hours of life
Positive Evaluative research on caregiver- infant interactions
Melzoff and Moore - imitation of facial and manual gestures by human neonates
- the baby’s responded to gestures such as sticking tongue out, matched the experimenter that was being imitated
- imitation happens early on in infants between 12 and 21 days
Papusek- cross cultural research on caregivereese
- showed that a tendency to produce a special high pitched baby talk is common across America, china and German mothers
Suggests some care giver interactions are not culturally bias
Positive Evaluation on care giver- infant interaction
- modern studies use multiple observers + cameras. Therfore can slow down footage and analyse it more effectively
Negative Evaluation on care giver- infant interaction
- infants are unable to communicate their thoughts or emotions, findings depend on inferences about internal mental states based on observation
- very difficult to claim intentionality that the baby deliberately copied the caregiver and it was not just an accidental reaction
- social sensitivity, mothers may feel criticised and judged. This criticises those who go back to work early and do not have as strong of an attachment. Guilt ma be felt
Schaffers stages of attachment
- identified by Schaffer and Emerson from a longitudinal observation study
4 phases of attachment
- Asocial
- Indiscriminate
- Specific
- multiple
An infant sucks mum
Asocial stage
Schaffers stages of attachment
Asocial (or pre attachment stage) 0-6 weeks:
For the fist few weeks they respond t humans in the same way as they do to object
indiscriminate stage
Schaffers stages of attachment
Indiscriminate (or disuse attachment stage) 6 weeks- 7 month
Can be handled by strangers and without distress, however discriminates between familiar and unfamiliar individuals, with a preference for familiar adults
No separation or stranger anxiety
Specific attachment
Schaffers stages of attachment
Specific (or discriminate attachment stage) 7+ months
Separation and strangers anxiety develops. Demonstrates preference to primary care givers such as mum
Multiple attachment stage
Schaffers stages of attachment
Multiple attachment stage 9+ months
Attachment is observed towards a number of individuals, such as brothers, sisters and grandparents. Fear of strangers decreases
Evaluative research for schaffers stages of development
Schafer and Emerson Glaswegian babies study
Data collected over a year in monthly obersavtion
Observed 60, Glaswegian babies for 18 months, mostly fro kills working class families.
Researchers asked parents t o observe their children in different circumstances, keep a diary of their observations and report back to researchers. For example separation anxiety ano stranger anxiety. Circumstances included left alone in a room Left with a stranger Left alone in their cot
Found separation anxiety in the majority of babies by 25 -32 weeks with stranger distress colouring in most babies approximately one month later.
In the 18 month follow up 87% had developed multiple attachments.
Strongest attachment to primary care givers
Suggests ther might be a biological stages
Evaluation of Schaffer and Emerson Glaswegian baby study of the stages of attachment
- sample group was working class mothers in 1960s Glasgow
- lacked temporal validity as parenting techniques have changed dramatically in the last 50 years
- culture is not representative of the Uk or the rest of the world - external validity
+ high levels of mundain validity ecological validity, wa sin theor own homes and used self report
. Process called triangulation
Role of the father according to Schaffer
Primary attachment figure
- Found that most children’s primary attachment figure was mum 65%
- 30% mum and another person (often dad)
- 3% primary attachment figure was dad
Changing cultural roles
- could be argues that in western society the role of the mother and father has changes
- mothers are more likel to go pout to work
- will have an impact of attachment patterns
Importance of Play
- Fathers are seen to be more consistently engaged in baby’s play activities than mothers
- mothers tend to take a more comforting style
Primary care givers
- evidence suggests that if the men take the role of primary care givers their interaction also style changes to be more like mothers with sensitive responses
Evidential research t5hat highlights fathers roles in the development in children
Verissimo et al (2011)
- observed pre school children’s relationships with mothers an fathers
- compared with follow up interactions at nursery
- a strong attachment with the father was a strong predictor of the ability to make friends in school, suggesting an important role for fathers in the socialisation process
Further evaluation of the role of the father
+ research on the importance of the father in social development, and finding that males can effectively take on a more maternal role could provide confidence to fathers taking on the role of primary care givers and single gender families becoming more common in modern societies
- infants can’t communicate their thoughts and emotions
- Schaffer and Emerson is based on inferences from observation
- only used one observer at a time on home visits in Glasgow
- social sensitivity some people may find that their life choices may be criticised in some way.
Imprinting
When an animal (such a s birds) will strongly attach to the first object (usually the mother) they encounter The infant animal will then follow the object
L
What was the Lorenz (1935) reasearch
Researching Imprinting in Greylag Geese
Procedure
- half of the greylag geese were taken and hatched by Lorenz using an incubator
- the other half were hatched normally by the mother
Findings
- goslings hatched by Lorenz followed him wherever he went rather than the mother goose
- the goslings that hatched natura;Lou, imprinted on the mother and followed her
- even if they were placed together they followed the person they sa first
Suggests
Suggests that imprinting is a strong biological feature via sight rather than another cue such as smell/sound
Critical period
- around 32 hours
- goslings must see a large moving object to why will not imprint on anything
What did Harlow’s (1958) study sate
Contact comfort
- geese evolutionarily very different to humans compared to monkeys, Harlow tested ‘cupboard love’ - babies love mothers because they feed them
Procedure
- attachment behaviour studied in 16 new born monkeys
- removed from bio0logical mothers and place in cages with surrogate mothers.
- range of different conditions used included wire or cloth mothers and mothers that provided milk or did not
Findings
- monkeys that had access to a cloth mother, proffered to stay. With them Evan if the wire mother provided the milk
- showed more confidence in new situations
- only the ones with a wire mother showed later stress
Suggesting
- that we will attach to comfort and not just the providing of food
- bodily contact is needed for attachment
Maternal deprivation
- monkeys that had deprivation had long term emotional and social problems
- when mating had issues raining offspring occasionally spilling them
Evaluation of Harlow’s study of attachment
- conditions of the experiment when the monkey was stressed, this caused the primate to suffer and bec caused stress
- not ethical
- helped to change ethical research
- although monkeys are similar they are still to different, both biologically, socially and societally
+ has been applied to areas of early childhood
+ contact time in birth in hospitals has been given higher priority
{+ shown in long term neglect, influenced other research of Bowlby and Ainsworth
+ long term benefits may be in part by Harlow’s research
Cupboard live theory
Diolland and Miller (1950)
The reason children become attached to their care giver they learn the caregivers provide food and meets their physical needs
Through classical conditioning and operant conditioning
Primary and secondary drives
Primary drives are instinctive, such a as eating for hunger, sleep for tiredness are based on a biological need.
Secondary drives such as attachment develop due to a learnt process, in which they are associated with the satisfaction of a primary drive (food)
E.g. money, does not satisfy any biological need but can help to satisfy needs such as hunger
Evaluation points for cupboard love theory
Dolland and Miller (1950)
+ learning theory is a clear and believable explanation for attachment, backed up by research. Makes sense that babies would cry more if they learnt it gained them attention
- too simplistic - learning theory that is applied to human feelings of attachment is seen as environmentally reductionist. Too simplistic to describe a whole relationship in terms of S-R links and patterns of reinforcement
- a lot of other theories provide evidence against cupboard love - Harlows experiments on moneys shows that the babies attached to the cloth mother rather than the mother that provides milk
-
Bowlines monotropic theory
- an evolutionary explanation - babies have an innate attachment drive because they want to survive, if the attachment is secure they are more likely to stay close to one care giver
Monotrophy
Unique strong attachment to a single care giver, the mothe r
Bowlby’s monotropic theory - critical/ sensitive period
- attachment must happen within 2/3 years of birth for it to be strong
- if this does not happen then it will result in long lasting neagative social consequences
Bowlby based this on Lorenz’s work
Bowlby’s monotropic theory - internal working model
- first strong attachment the child has with its mother provides a blueprint fo future relationships
- based on both Freud and Harlows work
Bowlby’s monotropic theory - safe bias behaviour
- infants with good attachments will use mum as a base to explore their environment.
- but will show distress is mum disappears to is a stranger approaches
What are the 6 points of Bowlby’s monotropic theory
1 evolutionary explanation
2 critical / sensitive period
3 Internal working model
4 strength of attachment
5 safe base behaviour
6 social releasers
Bowlby’s monotropic theory - strength of attachment
Bowlby suggests stronger attachment s will form if care is consistent and weaker attachments will form with frequent/ long periods of separation
Social releases
- babies instinctively use signals to attract caregivers attention
-
Evaluation of Bowlby’s monotropic theory of attachment
+ based on work by Lorenz’s imprinting studies
- may not be able to be generalised to humans
- beta bias, gender bias, suggest that the role of the father is not important and therfore lacks temporal (time) validity
- socially sensitive as this may offend working mothers in the m0dern day
- ther are alternate explanations for attachment, vocal argue that it is based on patterns of reinforcements
+ very deterministic
-+ continuity hypothesis + the internal working model
