Attachment Flashcards
What is a bond?
A set of feelings that tie one person to another
What is ‘Atricial’?
Humans are born with early development, so we need to bond with adults to protect us
What is an attachment?
A close, two way emotional bond between two individuals, where the individuals see each other as essential for their own security
Can attachments be seen?
No
Can bonds be seen?
No
What are the 2 main types of caregiver-infant interactions?
Interactional Synchrony
Reciprocity
What is reciprocity?
A care-giver and baby both respond to each others signals, and elicit a response from the other.
This is also known as turn-taking.
What is an example of reciprocity?
A baby smiles –> the caregiver talks back to the baby –> the baby responds by laughing/gargling etc.
Who are the 4 researchers for reciprocity?
Feldman and Eidelman
Finegood et al
Feldman
Brazelton et al
What did Feldman and Eidelman suggest?
Babies have alert phases, where they signal they are ready for a spell of interaction.
Mothers pick up on these signals 2/3 of the time.
What did Finegood et al find?
Mothers’ abilities to pick up on signals was dependent on her skills and external factors such as stress
What did Feldman suggest?
At around 3 months old, the interactions become frequent and the mother and baby must pay close attention to each others’ verbal signals and facial expressions
What did Brazelton et al suggest?
Babies have active involvement.
The baby and caregiver both initiate interactions and take turns in initiating. The baby has an active role.
Described interactions as a dance
What is Interactional Synchrony?
The temporal co-ordination of micro level social behaviour.
(when two people interact and perform the same action in unison, mirroring what the other is doing)
Who are the two researchers for interactional synchrony?
Meltzoff and Moore
Isabella et al
What did Meltzoff and Moore research?
The beginnings of interactional synchrony
How old were the babies in Meltzoff and Moore’s study?
From 2 weeks old
What procedure did Meltzoff and Moore use?
They filmed babies’ responses to an unfamiliar adult model who displayed 3 facial expressions and 3 distinctive gestures.
What did Meltzoff and Moore find?
Babies mirrored the gestures and facial expressions of the model more times than was expected
What did Isabella et al research?
The importance of interactional synchrony on attachment
What was Isabella et al’s procedure?
Observed 30mothers and babies together to assess interactional synchrony.
Also assessed the quality of the mother and baby’s attachment
What did Isabella et al find?
There was a positive correlation between the amount of interactional synchrony and quality of attachment.
Evaluate caregiver-infant Interactions
(need 3)
Good - High control. Observations for Interactional Synchrony were filmed in controlled conditions. This means it can establish inter-rater reliability as the responses can be re-watched and analysed later by multiple people. This means they are unlikely to miss anything, so there should be good reliability and validity.
Bad - Difficult to interpret babies’ behaviour.
Babies are fairly immobile, so it may be difficult to distinguish between their emotions. We can’t be sure their actions are from the care-givers’ action, and we can’t be certain of meaning.
Bad - These concepts don’t tell us about infants’ development. These ideas are just pointing out patterns in babies, they don’t tell us the relevance to future development or attachments.
HOWEVER
Good - Isabella et al found the more interactional synchrony a baby showed, the stronger the quality of attachment. This suggests that actually these concepts could be linked to the quality of attachment.
Who were the researchers for the role of the father?
Schaffer and Emerson
Grossman et al
Field
What is a ‘father’?
The closest male caregiver to an infant
What did Schaffer and Emerson find? (Role of the Father)
Most babies become attached to their mother at 7 months old
3% of cases fathers were the primary attachment
27% of the time mothers and fathers were joint primary attachments
75% of the babies formed an attachment with their father by 18 months
What percentage of babies had fathers as their primary attachment figures?
3%
What percentage of babies had joint primary attachments with their mothers and fathers?
27%
By what age had most children formed a primary attachment with their mother?
7 months old
What percentage of babies had formed an attachment with their father within the first 18months?
75%
What was Grossman et al’s procedure?
Completed a longitudinal study of babies’ attachments with their mother and father until they were teenagers.
Looked at the parents’ behaviour and the relationship of their behaviour and the quality of their babies’ later attachments.
What did Grossman et al find about the emotional role of the father?
The quality of mothers’ attachments directly related to the quality of the babies’ adolescent attachments and relationships.
The quality of the fathers’ attachments had no influence, suggesting the fathers’ attachment is less important.
What did Grossman et al find about the quality of play?
The fathers’ quality of play with babies directly related to the quality of the babies’ adolescent attachments and relationships.
This suggests fathers have a different role to do with play and stimulation rather than emotional development.
What did Field research?
Fathers as primary attachment figures
What are primary attachments?
Special attachments with emotional significance.
They form the basis of all future emotional relationships.
What was Field’s procedure?
They filmed 4month old babies in face-to-face interactions. There were 3 groups:
Primary caregiver mothers
Primary caregiver fathers
Secondary caregiver fathers
What did Field find?
Primary caregiver mothers and fathers spent more time holding, smiling at and imitating their babies (interacting with them).
What do Field’s findings suggest?
Fathers have the potential to be emotion focused primary caregivers
Evaluate the Role of the Father
Good - Real World Application
- The findings can be used to offer advice to parents
- Stereotypical views may expect mothers to stay at home and adopt primary caregiver roles, but research can offer reassurance that fathers are capable of being primary caregivers
- Can reassure single fathers or gay couples that they can be the primary caregiver and it won’t affect their child’s development
Bad - Inconsistent Findings
- There is conflicting evidence depending on the methodology
- Longitudinal studies see fathers as secondary caregivers (Grossman), but observations say fathers can be primary caregivers
- If fathers do have a distinct role, we would expect single mothers and lesbian parent families to have babies turn out differently, but they don’t.
- If fathers do not have a distinct role, we would expect single fathers and gay parent families to have babies turn out differently, but they don’t.
- This suggests we are unsure of what the role of the father actually is.
Bad - Possible Observer Bias
- Stereotypical gender preconceptions may cause unintentional bias where researchers see what they want to see.
- This may mean findings lack validity and are not representative of the role of the father today, as they may have been based off older schema surrounding gender roles
What are 2 negatives of the role of the father?
Inconsistent Findings
Possible observer bias/reliance on schema
What is 1 positive of the role of the father?
Real World Application to offer advice and reassurance to parents
Who researched the stages of attachment?
Schaffer and Emerson
Why did Schaffer and Emerson study the stages of attachment?
To develop an account of how attachment behaviours change as babies get older.
How many stages of attachment did Schaffer and Emerson identify from their observations?
4
What was Schaffer and Emerson’s sample?
60 Glaswegian babies
What type of study was Schaffer and Emerson’s?
Longitudinal observation
How often did Schaffer and Emerson visit the babies and mothers at home?
Every month for 1 year, and again at 18months old
What was Schaffer and Emerson’s procedure?
- They asked the mothers’ questions about the kind of protest their babies showed in everyday separations to test separation anxiety
- They asked the mothers’ about the babies anxiety response to unfamiliar people to test stranger anxiety
- The mothers’ observed the babies and wrote a diary to tell Schaffer and Emerson
What 2 characteristics did Schaffer and Emerson observe/look for?
Stranger anxiety
Separation anxiety
How did Schaffer and Emerson gather the information on the babies?
The parents observed and recorded their babies’ behaviour in a diary
What are the 4 stages of attachment?
Asocial
Indiscriminate
Specific attachment
Multiple attachment
What age is the Asocial Stage of attachment?
The first few weeks
What age is the indiscriminate Stage of attachment?
2-7 months
What age is the specific stage of attachment?
From 7months onwards
What age is the multiple stage of attachment?
Shortly after the specific attachment is formed (usually around 9months)
What are the key characteristics of babies in the asocial stage?
- similar behaviour towards animate and inanimate objects
- show some signs they prefer to be with people, particularly familiar adults (parents)
- recognises and forms bonds with carers
What are the key characteristics of babies in the indiscriminate stage?
- prefers humans to inanimate objects
- recognises and prefers familiar adults
- displays more obvious and observable social behaviours
- accepts comfort from anyone
- no stranger or separation anxiety
What are the key characteristics of babies in the specific attachment stage?
- display classic signs of attachment to one person
- stranger anxiety is shown (especially when their primary caregiver is absent)
- separation anxiety is shown from their primary caregiver
- a specific attachment is formed with their primary caregiver (someone who responds to signals with the most skill and offers the most interaction)
Who is a primary caregiver?
Someone who responds to signals with the best skill and offers the most interaction
What percentage of primary caregivers are the mother?
65%
What are the key characteristics of babies in the multiple attachment stage?
- babies extend their attachment behaviour to people they spend the most regular time with (they form secondary attachments)
- by 1, most babies have formed multiple attachments
What percentage of children form secondary attachments within a month of their primary attachment?
29%
By what age have most children formed multiple attachments?
1 year old
Evaluate Schaffer and Emerson’s stages of attachment
Good - Real World Application
- Helps with daycare
- Parents can use the time frames of the stages of attachment to see that starting daycare with unfamiliar adults may be problematic until the multiple stage of attachment
Bad - Culture Bias
- Based off of Glaswegian babies and the UK’s child rearing style
- Stages of attachment may be different in collectivist cultures, or even in other parts of the UK
- We should be careful to generalise
Bad - Observer Bias
- The mothers were recording and reporting the findings of their babies
- They may have been biased with what they noticed and recorded due to social desirability or demand characteristics
- They would not want to look like a bad mother
IN ADDITION
- The babies are fairly immobile in the asocial stage, so behaviour would have been difficult to observe or interpret
- Babies may have had stranger and separation anxiety, but just not been able to express it due to their lack of movement
- This may mean babies were wrongfully classed as asocial
What are the 2 animal studies in attachment?
Lorenz’s greylag geese
Harlow’s rhesus monkeys
What are the 2 explanations of attachment?
The learning theory of attachment
Bowlby’s Monotropic Theory
What does the learning theory include?
Classical conditioning
Operant conditioning
What does Bowlby’s monotropic theory include?
Adaptive
Social Releasers
Critical Period
Monotropic Bond
Internal Working Model
Who suggested the Monotropic Theory?
Bowlby
Who are the researchers for the explanations of attachment?
Bowlby (monotropic theory)
Which side of the Nature/Nurture debate is the learning theory of attachment?
Nurture.
It believes attachment is learned through stimulus-response associations from our environment
Which side of the Nature/Nurture debate is Bowlby’s monotropic theory?
Nature.
He believes we are born with the innate drive to form an attachment for our survival
Why did Bowlby refute the learning theory of attachment?
If it were true, a child would love whoever feeds them, and this isn’t true
What is Monotropy?
The emphasis of a child’s attachment to one caregiver - their primary caregiver
What were Bowlby’s 2 principles in his monotropic theory?
1) The law of accumulated separation
2) The law of continuity
What is the law of accumulated separation?
The effects of every separation from the mother adds up.
The best dose is a zero dose.
What is the law of continuity?
The more constant and predictable a child’s care is, the better the attachment will be.
What are Social Releasers?
Innate ‘cute’ features a baby is born with that encourage social interaction from adults so they attach.
Attachment is a reciprocal process (works both ways), so the babies must encourage the parent to attach
What is the critical period?
A suggested period of time (from 6 months to 2 years) in which an attachment should be formed.
If attachments are not formed during this period, it will be harder to form one in later life and there may be detrimental effects to the child’s later attachments
What is an Internal Working Model?
Mental representations of the world (attachments), that acts as a template for future life.
A child forms a mental representation of their relationship with their primary attachment figure which acts as a template for future relationships, as well as influences their own parenting style.
Evaluate Bowlby’s Monotropic Theory
Bad - Social Sensitivity.
- It could have a negative impact on working mothers by suggesting their lack of presence will have a detrimental impact on their child’s later relationships.
- This could also have negative implications for the economy by discouraging mothers from going back to work until the critical period is over or a primary attachment has been formed.
Good - Research Support for Social Releasers
Brazelton et al: Active Involvement
- Found babies trigger and initiate interactions with social releasers
- When parents were told to ignore these social releasers, the babies became distressed and some lay motionless
- This suggests social releasers are important and are designed to help form an attachment
Bad - Could lack validity
- Schaffer and Emerson found 27% of children attached to both their mother and their father primarily
- This suggests some elements may be affected by factors other than biological factors as the bond is not always monotropic
- This matters because it may mean some areas of his theory ignore other factors
What is Classical Conditioning?
Learning through associations