Attachment Flashcards
Reciprocity
Interactions between caregiver and infant involving mutual responsiveness. eg mother smiles and baby smiles back
Interactional synchrony
Interactions between caregiver and infant are synchronised so that their responses reflect each other. eg infant moves head in time with mother
Maccoby 1980
- Seeking proximity
- Distress on separation
- Pleasure when reunited
- General orientation of behaviour towards primary attachment figure. - infant and caregiver will direct attention to each other and try to engage each other in activities and interactions
Schaffers 4 stages of attachment
- Preattachment phase - 0-3 months. Attracted to humans and smiling at them
- Indiscriminate attachment phase - 3-7 months. Discriminate between familiar and unfamiliar people. Smile more at familiar but allow strangers to handle them
- Discriminate attachment phase - 7-8 months
Infants begin to develop attachments to particular people and stay close to them. Distressed if seperated and high stranger anxiety - Multiple attachment phase 9months +. Infants form strong emotional ties with other caregivers eg fathers grandparents. Fear of strangers reduce
Schaffer and Emerson 1964 procedure
- Studied group of infants and their mothers in Glasgow
- Longitudinal study with sample of 60 new-born babies and their mothers
- Mothers and babies were studied each month in their own homes once a month for the 1st year of their lives and again when the babies were 18months old
- Researchers interviewed mothers and did observations of baby behaviours. In the interviews, mothers were asked Qs about who their babies smiled at and whom they sought out when they were distressed
- Schaffer and Emerson observed 2 particular behaviours Seperation protest and Stranger anxiety
Schaffer and Emerson 1964 findings
- 6-8 months most infants showed separation protest
- 9 months most infants showed stranger anxiety
- Infants who were strongly attached to their mothers had mothers who responded quickly to their needs and interacted with them a lot and vice versa
- 18 months 87% of infants had at least 2 attachment bonds
- 39% of babies formed their prime attachment bond to someone other than their main carer
Schaffer and Emerson 1964 Conclusions
Formation of attachment bonds is biologically determined
Attachment bonds are more likely to be formed with people who show sensitive responsiveness and correctly interpret and respond to the babies signals about their needs
Multiple attachments are the norm
Evaluation of Schaffer and Emerson 1964
- Data obtained through interviews with mothers may be prone to bias
- Study has mundane realism/ ecological validity
Role of the father
Tend to play the role of the playmate though males can display sensitive responsiveness
Key factors affecting rship between fathers and their children
Type of attachment with their own parents
Marital intimacy
Supportive co-parenting
Geiger (1996) Role of the father
Showed that fathers play interactions are more exciting and pleasurable than mothers, while mothers are more nurturing and affectionate supporting the idea of fathers being playmates rather than caregivers
Lamb (1987) Role of the father
Found that fathers who became the primary caregivers quickly develop more sensitivity to children’s needs which suggests sensitive responsiveness isn’t a biological ability limited to women
HRDY (1999) Role of the father
Suggests fathers are less able than mothers to detect low level of infant distress, suggesting males are less suitable as primary caregivers
Lorenz 1935 Aim
To investigate phenomenon of imprinting
Lorenz 1935 procedure
Split a clutch of greylag goose eggs and left half with the mother to incubate and raise.
Split the other half of the clutch in an incubator and Lorenz offered himself as a model for imprinting
Lorenz findings
- Geese left with mother showed normal behaviour and followed her and grew up to interact and mate with members of their own species
- Geese left with Lorenz followed him as if he were their parent and failed to recognise their biological mother or other members of their own species
- Tended to develop social rships with humans and not geese
Lorenz conclusions
The ability or tendency to respond to first object seen after hatching is innate
Process of imprinting is genetically determined
Evaluations of Lorenz
Heavily influenced Bowlbys idea of critical period
Huge extrapolation issues
Harlow procedure
16 Infant rhesus monkeys seperated from mothers are birth
Each monkey was put in a cage
Each cage contained 2 surrogate mothers
One surrogate was made of wire mesh and provided food.
The other surrogate was made of wire mesh covered in cloth
Harlow findings
- Infants spent more time with cloth mother
- Monkeys with only a wire surrogate mother had diarrhea- a sign of stress
- When frightened monkeys clung to the towelling mother
- Monkeys explored more in the larger cages when with cloth mothers
Harlow conclusions
Rhesus monkeys seek attachment through emotional security rather than food
Contact comfort is associated with lower levels of stress and more exploratory behaviour
Learning theory of attachment
Suggests all children are born as blank slate upon which their experiences with caregivers will slowly dictate their attachments
Classical conditioning (attachment)
Child associates food and mother together.
Mother becomes conditioned stimulus and happiness becomes conditioned response
Operant conditioning (attachment)
Presence of the caregiver is reinforcing for the infant. Infant gains reward as they are being fed.
Behaviour of the infant is reinforcing for the caregiver as the caregiver gains pleasure from smiles. Positive reinforcement
Reciprocal reinforcement process strengthens emotional bond
Negative reinforcement (attachment)
Doing a behaviour to remove a negative behaviour
Caregiver feeds the baby to stop it crying. The absence of loud cries acts as a reinforcer to the parent, who will feed the baby next time it cries
