Attachment

Question 1

What is an attachment?

Answer 1

A strong reciprocal emotional bond between two people(specifically here infant and primary care giver)

Question 2

What are the five ways you can tell an attachment has been made?

Answer 2

The presence of:
Bodily contact 
Reciprocity
Interactional synchrony
mimicking
Caregivers

Question 3

What is bodily contact in as a form of attachment?

Answer 3

The presence of physical interactions between the infant and the primary care giver

Question 4

What is mimicking as the evidence of an attachment?

Answer 4

The innate behaviour of infants to mimic facial expressions from their primary caregiver, (to perhaps develop an attachment)

Question 5

What is reciprocity as an evidence of attachment?

Answer 5

When a caregiver and infant interact with a certain rhythm that is continuous and in turns. Responding to one and other’s action to even start a communication or stimulate a response.

Question 6

What is caregiverese as an evidence of attachment?

Answer 6

When a caregiver modulates their voice to a high pitch, slower and song like tone. Or in other words when a caregivers switches to baby talk to interact with the infant

Question 7

What is interactional synchrony as an evidence of attachment?

Answer 7

Interactional synchrony is when the caregiver interacts with the infant and the infant responds similarly to sustain the communication. Is more like mimicking in synch

Question 8

Reciprocy happens…

Answer 8

In a turn taking way.

Question 9

Melzoff and More(1977) research

Answer 9

Infants between 12 and 21 days had experimenters display various facial gestures such as sticking out your tongue, open your mouth wide and also manual features such as opening or closing your family. The infants responses were recorded and evaluated by observers and researches

Question 10

Melzoff and Moore (1977) research finding

Answer 10

Infants seemed to mimick or imitate the behaviour of the experimenter. Which suggest that the ability to observe and then imitate is actually very active in early infants. Potentially as a way to develop attachments

Question 11

Shaffer and Emerson(1964) study aim

Answer 11

Investigate early attachment and find out who emotional intensity is direct to at a particular early agec

Question 12

Shaffer and Emerson (1964) study sample

Answer 12

It consisted of 60 babies. 31 males and 29 females all form working class families. Age between 5 and 23 weeks.

Question 13

Shaffer and Emerson (1964) study procedure

Answer 13

They conducted a naturalistic longitudinal observation, following 60 babies from Glasgow. From newborn age to 18 moths.Researchers visited babies mothers and families every month till 18 months. The researches also interviewed the mothers and the babies families about how the babies reacted to, when the caregiver left the room(separation anxiety) and when the babies was left in care of unfamiliar strangerssstranger (stranger anxiety)

Question 14

Findings

Answer 14

Firstly the results of Shaffer and Emerson study were used to create the 4 stages theory as they supported the existence of the 4 attachment stages. The results showed that it is common for babies to form multiple attachments. that 80% of infants actually displayed multiple attachments and 30% even displayed up to 5 multiple attachments.

Question 15

What are the four stages of attachment?

Answer 15

Asocial stage(few weeks)
Indiscriminate attachment stage (2-7 months)
Discriminate attachment stage (7-9)
Multiple attachment (1+ year )

Question 16

What is the asocial stage of attachment?

Answer 16

The asocial stage of attachment is the stage from 0 to 2 months, in which the infants hasn’t formed any attachment yet and are asocial as they respond in a similar way to people and objects.

Question 17

What is the indiscriminate (stage 2) of attachment?

Answer 17

The indiscriminate stage of attachment is the stage between 2 to 7 moths, in which infants start to enjoy human interactions and company more. However they don’t particularly enjoy a person more than someone, they get upset when an individual ceases to interact with them, and can be comforted by their regular caregiver. They also don’t show any stranger anxiety.

Question 18

What is the discriminate/specific attachment stage (STAGE 3)?

Answer 18

The discriminate stage of attachment is the stage between 7-9 months, in which the child now shows preference towards the primary attachment figure, the child now also shows anxiety and is clearly in distress when separated from that particular caregiver. The child also shows signs of stranger anxiety when in close proximity to strangers. This person can also interact properly with the child and therefore can respond to the baby’s signal . Most of the times it is the mother

Question 19

What is the multiple attachment stage of attachment (stage 4)?

Answer 19

The multiple attachments stage of attachment is the stage 10 moths onwards in which the child now begins to attach with several people. The babies now also show stranger anxiety and separation anxiety towards one person although this behaviour can also be exited to the other attachment figures.

Question 20

One strength of Shaffer and Emerson (1964) study

Answer 20

One strength of Shaffer and Emerson (1964) study is that it has high ecological validity. This is because in this study Shaffer and Emerson used naturalistic observations and many of the observations were made by the parents during everyday activities