attachment Flashcards
reciprocity
-The word reciprocal means two-way, or something mutual. The infant and caregiver are both active contributors in the interaction and are responding to each other.
-Reciprocity is a form of interaction between infant and caregiver involving mutual responsiveness, with both infant and mother responding to each other’s signals, and each elicits a response from the other
interactional synchrony
when two people interact and they tend to mirror what the other is doing in terms of their facial expressions and body movements. this includes imitating emotions as well as behaviours.
Tronick et al - reciprocity
• Asked mothers enjoying exchanges with their babies to stop moving and maintain a static unsmiling expression on their faces.
• Babies would try to tempt the mother into interactions by smiling themselves; they would become distressed when their smile did not provoke the usual response.
• Thus babies expect and anticipate concordant responses to their smiles.
Meltzoff and Moore(1977) – interactions synchrony
Procedure:
This was a lab experiment using infants who were 2-3 weeks old as the sample
The study was conducted using an adult model who displayed one of three facial expressions or hand movements where the fingers moved in a sequence.
A dummy was placed in the infant’s mouth during the initial display to prevent any response
Following the display, the dummy was removed and the child’s expression was filmed
Findings:
They found that there was an association between the infant behaviour and that of the adult model.
Conclusion:
Therefore, it can be concluded that interactional synchrony does exist.
Schaffer and Emerson(1964)
procedure:
•Infants aged 5-23 weeks, mainly working class homes in Glasgow. Studied until one year old, visited every 4 weeks and again at 18 months
•Every visit mothers reported their infant’s response to separation. 7 every-day situations such as being left alone in a room/with another and left in his/her pram outside the house/shops.
•Mother was also asked to rate the level of protest on a 4 point scale and state who it was directed at.
•Stranger anxiety was assessed by the infant’s response to the researcher each visit.
Findings:
• Within one month of first becoming attached 29% of infants had multiple attachments.
• Within 6 months this had risen to 78% of infants having multiple attachments.
Conclusions:
Responsiveness appeared to be the key to attachment
•Intensely attached infants had mothers who responded quickly to their demands and, interacted with their child
• Infants who were weakly attached had mothers who failed to interact
Schaffers stages of attachment
1) asocial stage
2) indiscriminate stage
3) specific stage
4) multiple attachments
1) asocial stage
•Birth – 2 months
•infants produce similar responses to all objects
•towards the end of this period they are beginning to show a preference for people.
• reciprocity and interactional synchrony play a role in establishing the infants relationship with others
2) indiscriminate stage
•At the age of 4 months
•prefer human company to inanimate objects and can distinguish between familiar and unfamiliar people. however, they still relatively easily comforted by anyone. and do not yet show anxiety with strangers
•the distinctive feature of this stage is their sociability - enjoyment of being round people
3) specific stage
•By 7 months infants show a distinct form of protest when one particular person puts them down (separation anxiety) and joy on reunion.
•they have formed their specific attachment to one person – their primary attachment figure.
•They begin to display stranger anxiety.
4) multiple attachments
•Very soon after the main attachment is formed the infant also develops a wider circle of multiple attachments.
•Within one month of becoming attached 29% had secondary attachments – At one year the majority of infants had developed multiple attachments e.g. father, grandparents and siblings.
the role of the father - Schaffer and Emerson (1964)
-found fathers are less likely to be primary attachment figures because they spend far less time with the infant than the mother.
-65% first specific attachment was to the mother, 29% joint with mum and dad.
explaining respective roles
•Biological factors – hormonal differences may mean men are not psychologically equipped to form an intense attachment because they lack emotional sensitivity. Oestrogen and oxytocin promote caring and empathy behaviours whereas testosterone promotes aggression.
•social factors - thought of as “feminine” to be sensitive towards the needs of others.
role differences
•Mothers typically adopt a caregiver role
• Fathers adopt a playmate role = more physically active, playful and provide more challenging situations which help develop problem solving skills.
•Most infants prefer contact with their fathers when they are in appositive emotional state and wanting to play. (paquette)
•In contrast most infants prefer contact with their mother when they are in distress and need comforting. (Lamb1997)
lorenz (1935) - imprinting & critical period
Procedure:
• Lorenz split a large clutch of greylag goose eggs into two batches. One batch hatched naturally with the mother, the other batch hatched in an incubator with Lorenz making sure that he was the first moving object the goslings encountered.
• He placed all the goslings under and upturned box. The box was then removed and the gosling’s behaviour was recorded.
Findings:
• After birth, the naturally hatched baby goslings followed their mother about whilst the incubator hatched goslings followed Lorenz around.
• When released from the upturned box, the naturally hatched goslings went straight to their mother whereas the incubator hatched goslings went straight to Lorenz (showing no bond to their natural mother).
• Lorenz noticed how the process of imprinting occurred only a short period of time after birth (between 4 and 25 hours - critical period).
Conclusion:
• Lorenz found that certain animals had an innate tendency to respond immediately to specific forms of stimuli.
• Imprinting is a form of attachment whereby close contact is kept with the first large moving object encountered.
• These bonds proved to be irreversible (the naturally hatched goslings would only follow their mother; the incubator hatched goslings would only follow Lorenz).
features of imprinting
• Lorenz showed that this process of imprinting is restricted to a definite time frame - a ‘critical period’. Exposure to a persistently moving object within 4 and 25 hours or fail to imprint.
• the process was irreversible.
• Imprinting had an effect on later mate preferences – ‘sexual imprinting’. Animals will choose to mate with the same kind of object upon which they were imprinted.
Harry Harlow (1959) - rhesus monkeys
procedure:
•Harlow constructed two surrogate mothers: one harsh ‘wire mother’ and a second soft ‘cloth mother’
•A sample of sixteen baby rhesus monkeys were used across the four caged condition
•The amount of time the baby rhesus monkey spent with each mother was recorded and how long they spent feeding.
•To test for mother preference during periods of stress, the monkeys were startled with a loud noise and their responses recorded.
•A larger cage was used in order to observe the degree of exploration by the baby rhesus monkeys.
findings:
even though the monkeys received food from the wire mother, they still spent more time cuddling the cloth mother showing the bond is not purely physiological.
conclusion:
monkeys have an innate, unlearned need for contact comfort, suggesting that attachment concerns emotional security more than food.
learning theory
Learning theory proposes that all behaviour is learned rather than innate. Behaviour is learned either through classical or operant conditioning.
