Attachment Flashcards
Define attachment
A strong emotional bond between an infant and a primary care giver
Define interactional synchrony
When the infant and care giver reflect both the actions and emotions of the other. The infant is imitating in terms of their facial expressions and body movements, at the same time.
Define multiple attachments
Attachments to two or more people with whom infants regularly spend time with.
- developed after forming one strong bond with their primary caregiver.
Define Bowlby’s monotropic theory
infants form one main attachment to a caregiver. This is unique to any other and of central importance to a child’s development.
Define reciprocity
When the infant and care giver elicit a response from each other, taking turns like a conversation. This is two-way and mutual. (Brazelton et al described this interaction as a ‘dance’ because each partner responds to the other’s moves).
Outline the stages of attachment as identified by schaffer
ASOCIAL - little discrimination, eliciting a similar response to all objects and people, may respond more to faces and eyes.
INDISCRIMINANTE - develops more responses to human company, although they recognise and prefer familiar adults, they don’t show separation or stranger anxiety.
SPECIFIC - begin to prefer one particular carergiver who is primary attachment figure, show separation and stranger anxiety
MULTIPLE - seeks security, comfort and protection in multiple people, whom they’re familiar with. These are secondary attachments. The mother is usually the strongest bond.
Outline a limitation of the stages of attachment (asocial stage)
POINT -The asocial stage can’t be studied objectively.
EVIDENCE - Infants as young as 6 weeks lack basic moto co-ordination skills, this means that we can’t establish whether their responses, such as ‘seperation anxiety’, are deliberate.
EXPLAIN - Bremner drew the distinction between behavioural response and understanding. Just because an infant appears to have a bond with their primary caregiver, doesn’t mean that such a bond exists or that the infant understands the significance of it.
LINK - Therefore it’s important not to draw causal conclusions.
Outline a limitation of the stages of attachment (self-report method)
POINT - Lacks internal validity
EVIDENCE - Uses the self-report method as the parents kept a daily diary.
EXPLAIN - Social desirability bias: full details may not be included. Skewing results by intentionally not reporting any negative experiences
- demand characteristics; tailor reports to fit study
LINK - Therefore accuracy of data collection may not be the best, caution should be taken when placing confidence in conclusions drawn
Outline a strength of research into caregiver-infant interactions
POINT - Many use well-controlled procedures with both the infant and care giver being filmed.
EVIDENCE - Specifically Brazelton et al filmed the interactions from different angles.
EXPLAIN -This ensures that very find details of behaviour can be recorded and later analysed. Furthermore, babies don’t know that they’re being observed, so their behaviour doesn’t change in response to controlled observations.
LINK - Therefore, the research has been carried out reliably.
Outline a strength of the learning theory as an explanation of attachment
POINTS - Elements of conditioning could be involved in some aspects of attachment.
EVIDENCE - Rather than food playing a central role in attachment, a baby may associate feeling warm n comfortable with the presence of a particular adult.
EXPLAIN - This may influence the baby’s choice of their main attachment figure.
LINK - Therefore, the learning theory may still be useful in understanding the initial development of attachments.
Outline a strength of research into care-giver infant interactions
POINT - Research support
EVIDENCE
- Meltzoff and Moore conducted the first systematic study of interactional synchrony.
- This is when the infant and care giver reflect the both actions and emotions of each other.
- The study was conducted using an adult model who displayed facial expressions or hand movements, while the child had a dummy in its mouth to prevent any response.
- The dummy was then removed and they found that there was associate between the infants behaviour and that of the adult model.
Outline a strength of the stages of attachment
P - There’s research evidence to support Schaffer’s findings.
E - From the carpenter study, it was concluded that 2 week babies could recognise their mother’s face and voice and became distressed if the voice didn’t match their face.
E - This means that stranger anxiety is a credible feature of attachment behaviours.
L - Therefore the study has external validity.
Outline classical conditioning as an explanation of attachment (4)
US - Food
UR - gives infant instant pleasure
NS - caregiver
CS - caregiver continuously provides food they become associated with it until eventually they alone can produce pleasure.
CR - an attachment is formed and the caregiver becomes an attachment figure.
Outline the role of the father
- Traditionally mothers and fathers play different roles
GROSSMAN ET AL - QUALITATIVELY DIFFERENT ROLE
mothers - typically seen as occupying the caregiving and nurturing role to the infant
- prefer when they’re upset and want comforting
fathers - seen as a playmate who provides more physical and exciting play than the mother.
- prefer when they are feeling happy and positive and want to play
- maternity leave for mothers and lack of paternity leave for fathers could be as to why fathers are less likely to form a primary attachment
Outline schaffer and Emerson’s research into the role of the father
SCHAFFER AND EMERSON
- found that 75% of the infants in their study formed a secondary attachment to their father by the age of 18 months. This was determined by the fact that the infants protested when their father walked away; a sign of attachment.
TIFFANY FIELD
- found that primary caregiver fathers spent more time smiling, imitating and holding babies. This suggests that fathers have the potential to be the more emotion focused primary caregiver.
