attachment

Question 1

what is attachment?

Answer 1

• A two way emotional bond between two people (a caregiver and an infant) in which each an individual sees the other as essential for their own emotional security and development
• An attachment in humans takes a few months to develop

Question 2

what leads to different styles of attachment?

Answer 2

It is the responsiveness of
the caregiver to the infants signals and needs that
leads to different styles of attachment

Question 3

what does attachment begin with?

Answer 3

• interactions between babies and their caregivers

- also has important functions for the child’s development

Question 4

what are two types of caregiver-infant interactions?

Answer 4

• reciprocity

- interactional synchrony

Question 5

what is reciprocity?

Answer 5

• caregiver and infant interaction is a two-way process, each party responds to the other’s signals to sustain interaction (turn-taking)
• The behaviour of each party elicits a response from the other. i.e. when smiling at a baby, the baby will then smile back
• alert phases - feldman + edelman

Question 6

what are alert phases? which study relates to this? when do interactions tend to be increasingly frequent?

Answer 6

• Babies have periods of ‘alert phases’ and signal to their mother that they are ready for interaction
• Feldman and Edelman (2007) found that mothers typically pick up on this signal and respond two-thirds of the time
• From around three months the interactions tend to be increasingly frequent and involves close attention to each other’s verbal signals and facial expressions

Question 7

what is interactional synchrony?

Answer 7

• Mother and infant reflect both the actions and emotions of the other and do this in a co-ordinated synchronised way
• Their actions and emotions mirror one another perfectly in time

Question 8

who observed the beginning of interactional synchrony in babies?

Answer 8

Meltzoff and Moore

Question 9

what is the aim and procedure of meltzoff and moore?

Answer 9

• to investigate interactional synchrony between infants + caregivers
• controlled observation using 6 babies (12-27) + 12 babies (16-21)
• exposed to 4 diff stimuli - facial gestures + manual
• babies response recorded
• an independent observer (no knowledge of what infant seen) - asked to note instances of tongue protrusion + head movements using number of behaviour categories
• each observer scored tapes twice

Question 10

what is are the findings + conclusions of meltzoff and moore?

Answer 10

• results indicated babies aged 12-27 days old could imitate both facial expressions + manual gestures
• concluded ability to imitate serves as important building block for later social + cognitive development - believed ability important for developing attachments

Question 11

what is the importance of interactional synchrony? who showed this?

Answer 11

• believed that interactional synchrony is important for the development of mother-infant attachment
• Isabella et al. (1989) observed 30 mothers and infants together and assessed their degree of synchrony. They also assessed quality of attachment
• High levels of synchrony were associated with better quality mother -infant attachment

Question 12

what are the different ways we can see attachment?

Answer 12

• Proximity – people try to stay physically close to those whom they are attached too
• Separation distress
• Secure base – even when we are independent of our attachment figure we tend to make regular contact with them (ex infants reg return to attachment figure when playing)
• Reunion behaviour – for a baby, they are happy to see their primary care giver again if they are separated

Question 13

how do evans + porter support isabella et al when it comes to interactional synchrony?

Answer 13

• It has been suggested that interactional synchrony and reciprocity are important in developing

Question 14

how do evans + porter support isabella et al when it comes to interactional synchrony?

Answer 14

• It has been suggested that interactional synchrony and reciprocity are important in developing
• studied reciprocity, interactional synchrony + attachment quality in 101 infants + mothers for first year of birth
• invited on 3 occasions (6,9,12) + babies in pairs played in observation room + videoed extent of reciprocity + degree of IR assessed
• 12 months quality of mother-infant attachment assessed using standard test ‘strange situation’ - those judged to be securely attached tended to be those who had most recip + IR

Question 15

how is ethnocentric a limitation of evans and porter?

Answer 15

• all were recruited from American suburb - can be assumed to be predominantly white
• not very diverse sample size - can limit the application of research findings

Question 16

what is the strength of filmed observations when it comes to attachment?

Answer 16

• can be recorded + analysed later - unlikely researchers will miss seeing key behaviors
• means observer can record data + establish inter-rater reliability of observations
• therefore data collected in research should have good reliability + validity

Question 17

how is developmental importance a limitation of attachment?

Answer 17

• Feldman points out ideas like synchrony simply give names to patterns of observable caregiver + baby behaviors
• can be reliably observed but still may not be particularly useful in understanding child development - does not tell
  purpose of these behaviors
• therefore cannot be certain from observational research that recip + synchrony important for a child’s development

Question 18

what did Schaffer + Emerson find about secondary attachments? what about fathers?

Answer 18

• found the majority of babies become attached to their mothers first (around 7 months)
• then create secondary attachments a few weeks/months later to other family members
• 75% of infants developed secondary attachments to their father by the age of 18 months
• was determined as the infants protested when their father walked away – a sign of attachment

Question 19

who showed there to be a distinctive role of fathers in child development?

Answer 19

• grossmann et al
• conducted longitudinal study looking at both parents’ behavior + its relationship to their children’s attachment up until the children were in their teens
• quality of baby’s attachment with mothers but not fathers related to attachments in adolescence
• suggests attachment to fathers less important than mothers
• but also found quality of fathers play related to quality of adolescent attachments - suggests different role from mothers - more play stimulation - less emotional development

Question 20

what is primary attachment?

Answer 20

• first
• has special emotional significance
• baby’s relationship with their primary attachment figure forms basis of all later close emotional relationships

Question 21

who conducted research into fathers as primary attachment figures? what was the procedure + findings + conlcusions?

Answer 21

• field
• filmed 4-month old babies in face-to-face interactions with primary care giver mothers, primary care giver fathers, and secondary care giver fathers
• primary caregiver fathers, like PC mothers - spent more time smiling, imitating + holdings babies than secondary caregiver fathers
• these actions all part of recip + interact - part of process for attachment formation
• fathers potential to be more emotion-focused primary attachment figure

Question 22

how is conflicting evidence a limitation of research into the role of fathers?

Answer 22

• findings may vary according to the methodology used
• grossmann - longitudinal - suggested fathers as secondary attachment figures important + distinct role - play + stimulation
• but if fathers distinctive + important role - children in single-mother/ lesbian families to turn out different to hetero families
• MacCallum and Golombok found this was untrue - whether fathers have distinctive role unanswered