Attachment Flashcards
Attachment definition by Schaffer.
A close emotional relationship between 2 people characterised by mutual affection and a desire to maintain proximity.
4 primary behaviours that shows attachment in infancy and early childhood by Maccoby (1980).
Seeking to be near the other person.
Showing distress in separation from that person.
Showing relief or joy on reunion.
An orientation to the person.
Reciprocity definition.
A form of interaction between infant and caregiver involving mutual responsiveness with both the infant and the caregiver responding to each others signals.
Meaning of reciprocity by Brazelton et al (1975).
Interaction between both infant and caregiver flows back and forth.
Brazelton et al describes this as a dance.
This is because they respond to each others movements like a couple dancing.
Alert phases (reciprocity).
Babies signal that they are ready for interaction (example: eye contact). These increase in frequency from around 3 months old.
Parents typically respond to their children’s alertness 2/3 of the time, 67%
Still face study - Tronick, 1975 (reciprocity).
Studying children around 1.
Mother interacts, smiles and plays with her baby and the baby replicates this behaviour.
The mother is then instructed to have a still face for 2 minutes and not interact or play with the baby. The baby then starts to scream and get upset.
Shows that babies are active agents, they are deliberately trying to elicit a response from the caregiver.
Interactional synchrony definition.
When 2 people interact and mirror what the other is doing in terms of their facial and body movements. (present in infants as young as 2 weeks old)
Interactional synchrony study.
A baby starts with a dummy in their mouth to prevent a facial response.
The baby then watches an adult model display a facial expression or hand movement.
Then the dummy was removed from the baby’s mouth and the expressions were filmed.
An association was found between the expression or gesture the adult had made and the actions of the baby.
This suggests that this behaviour is not learnt and is innate.
Meltzoff and Moore (1983) later found the same responses in 3 day old babies.
Strengths of caregiver infant interactions.
Most of the research is filmed and are controlled observations.
This means that other distractions for the baby can be controlled, key behaviours are less likely to be missed, more than one observer can record data (interobserver reliability - consistency) and babies don’t know when they are being observed, so they wont change their behaviour.
This makes it more reliable and valid.
Research evidence shows that reciprocity and interactional synchrony are important for a child’s development. Found that at 3 and 9 month old high levels of synchrony were associated with better and more secure attachment.
Creates expectations for future life.
Practical applications.
Limitation of caregiver infant interactions.
It is hard to interpret a baby’s behaviour.
Possibly due to lack of coordination, unsure whether actions are voluntary or not. We must assume behaviour because there is no way to ask the baby.
Some behaviour may have occurred by chance.
Observing a behaviour does not tell us its developmental importance.
Descriptive not explanatory. Ideas such as interactional synchrony and reciprocity simply give us names of observable behaviours.
We cannot be certain from observational research alone that reciprocity and interactional reciprocity are important for a child’s development.
Glasgow Babies (1964) method.
Observational study on 60 infants (31 male and 29 female) from working class families in Glasgow.
Longitudinal study.
The researchers visited the babies in their homes every month for the first 12 months and once again at 18 months.
Researchers interviewed mothers and observed the children in relation to separation anxiety and stranger anxiety in a range of activities.
Naturalistic.
Overt.
Participant.
Glasgow Babies (1964) key findings.
At 6-8 months 50% of the babies showed separation anxiety, measured through crying and vocalisations.
By 10 months 80% of the children had a specific attachment and 30% had multiple attachments.
Stage 1 of attachment.
Asocial stage.
Age : birth - 2 months.
Both objects and people produce a favourable reaction, towards the end of this stage they display a preference for faces.
Attention seeking behaviour is not directed at anyone in particular showing that an attachment could be made with anyone.
Stage 2 of attachment.
Indiscriminate attachment.
Age : 2-6 months.
Infant shows preference for human company over non-human company. They can distinguish between faces, but are comforted indiscriminately (by anyone).
They get upset when people fail to interact with them. From 3 months infants smile more at familiar faces.
Stage 3 of attachment.
Specific attachment.
Age : 7-12 months.
Infant shows preference for one caregiver, infant looks for a particular person for security and protection, infant shows joy upon reunion, stranger and separation anxiety showing.
50% show their first specific attachment at 6-8 months. Primary caregiver is the person who offers the most interaction, 65% of cases this is the mother.
Stage 4 of attachment.
Multiple attachments.
Age : 12 months onwards.
Attachment behaviour displayed to many other people (secondary attachments). Dependant on the people the infant is exposed to.
29% formed a secondary attachment within a month after specific attachments. By 1 year old majority of babies have multiple attachments. By 18 months old, only 13% were attached to 1 person.
Strengths of The Glasgow Babies research.
Natural environment, no manipulation, good external validity,
longitudinal, interview and observe, clearly shows stages babies progress through. Practical applications - identifying normal progression.
Limitations on The Glasgow Babies research.
Less control over extraneous variables, naturalistic, social desirability bias from the mother
lacks population validity, relatively small sample all from working class background.
Attachment to fathers.
Compared to mothers, fathers are much less likely to become a baby’s first attachment.
Schaffer and Emerson’s fidings into attachment to fathers.
3% of cases the father was the main attachment. In 75% of the infants studied an attachment was formed with the father by the age of 18 months , this was determined by the fact that infants protested when their fathers walked away.
Study into role of the father.
Gottesman
Longitudinal study.
Looked at how attachment with the parents affected an infants quality of life in the future.
Quality of attachment with mothers was related to attachments later on in life, but not with fathers. This suggests that the attachment with the father is less important.
He also found that fathers have a different role in attachment, one to do with play and stimulation and less to do with emotional development.
Why fathers are less likely to be the primary attachment figure
One study found Men seem to lack the emotional sensitivity to infant cues which women offer spontaneously. This may be due to biological factors (hormones - oestrogen associated with caring behaviour)
Why fathers could be primary attachment figures.
One study found Men also become hormonally adapted to parenthood - men’s testosterone levels drop to help a man respond more sensitively to his children’s needs.
Another study found that when fathers take on the role of being the primary caregiver, they adopt behaviours more typical of mothers.
Field filmed 4 month old babies in face to face interactions with primary caregiver mothers and fathers and secondary caregiver fathers.
Primary caregiver fathers spent more time interacting with their baby than secondary caregiver fathers.
Shows that fathers can provide the responsiveness needed for a close emotional attachment, but perhaps only when they are given the role of the primary caregiver.
Strengths of studies into the role of the father.
Practical applications (giving advice to parents in different types of families).
Both roles are important - one study found that secure attachment with both parents is needed. One is not more important than the other.
Limitations of studies into the role of the father.
Not important - fathers might not have distinct roles, one study found that children growing up in single parent families or same sex parents did not develop differently from those in a nuclear family.
Complex - Difficult to make generalisations as there can be so many factors involved: amount of time father spends away from home, culture, age.
Implications on the economy - women feel more pressured to stay at home.
Reasons for using animal studies.
Easier from a consent point of view.
Seen as having fewer consent issues.
Practical - more participants more quickly.
Lorenz’s research.
Studying imprinting.
Randomly divide clutch of goose eggs, half hatched in an incubator and the first thing the chicks saw was Lorenz, half hatched in natural environment with their mother. Once hatched the two groups were mixed up and Lorenz observed who they followed. He varied the time between birth and seeing a moving object to measure the critical period.
Eggs placed in an incubator.
Ducklings of different ages were exposed to different items to see if they would form an attachment.
10 hour old ducks formed an attachment with the first moving thing they see (animatronic dog, duck and train and a balloon.
30 hour old ducks do not form an attachment.
The window for ducks to form an attachment is between 3 and 30 hours, peaking at 16.
What is imprinting?
Any species which can move quickly after birth (example, birds) will attach to the first moving thing they see - innate.
What is the critical period?
The time in which imprinting must occur. This can be brief.
This can be explained by evolution because the aim is to survive and reproduce, any behaviour that helps us do this is an adaptive behaviour. For example, chicks following their mother as soon as they have hatched helps them to survive.
Sexual imprinting.
Lorenz described a case study of a peacock that was reared in the reptile house , where the first moving thing a peacock saw was giant tortoises. As an adult, the peacock would only direct behaviour towards giant tortoises - the peacock had undergone sexual imprinting.
Strengths of Lorenz’s research.
Additional research supporting this. Guiton and chicks with a yellow glove
Limitations of Lorenz’s research.
Question around whether we can generalise findings and conclusions from birds to humans.
Harlow’s research.
Studying effects of maternal deprivation.
New born monkeys were separated from their mothers and put into cages with a ‘surrogate’ mother. One was made out of wire and provided the monkey with food and the other was made out of cloth, but didn’t provide food.
The monkeys were frightened by a noisy mechanical toy and sought comfort with the cloth mother. This led Harlow to conclude that monkeys have an unlearnt need for contact and comfort.
Monkeys spent more time with the cloth mother overall and only went to the wire mother when hungry.
When placed in a different room alone, the monkey was frightened.
When placed in a different room with a wire mother, the monkey ran to a blanket for comfort.
When placed in a different room with a soft mother, the monkey immediately ran to it.
Consequences of Harlow’s research.
Harlow followed the monkeys to adulthood to see if the early maternal deprivation had a permanent effect.
Severe consequences were found and the monkeys were more aggressive, less social and less skilled at mating than other monkeys. Some of the deprived monkeys even neglected their own children, attacking then and even killing them.
The monkeys raised with a plain wire monkey were the most dysfunctional.
Conclusions of Harlow’s research.
There was a critical period for attachment formation, a mother had to be introduced to the monkey within 90 days for an attachment to form, after this time attachment was impossible and the damage caused would be irreversible.
Strengths of Harlow’s research.
Practical applications - emphasises the importance of emotional care in hospitals, children’s home and day care. Longitudinal - long term effects
Inter-rater reliability as it was filmed.
Limitations of Harlow’s research.
Short and long term harm for the monkeys.
Ethical issues (however 1950s had different rules concerning the use of animals for testing).
Cofounding variable of living in a cage.
Unable to generalise between monkeys and humans.
Dollard and Miller (1950) learning theory.
Proposed the idea that children learn to love whoever feeds them. ‘cupboard love’ theory.
