Attachment Flashcards
Define altricial and precocial.
-Altricial = born at an early stage of development, needs help in order to survive (humans)
-Precocial = born at an advanced stage of development (animals)
Define reciprocity.
A mutual turn-taking form of interaction, both infant and caregiver contribute to interaction by responding to the others signals.
Define interactional synchronicity.
A simultaneous interaction between infant and caregiver who appear to be acting rhythmically with matching behaviour.
Define attachment.
Attachment is a close, 2-way emotional bond between 2 individuals where they see eachother as essential for their emotional security.
Describe Tronick’s study on reciprocity.
-1979, aim to investigate whether infants are active in social interaction rather than passive to their caregivers
-3 periods =
1 mother engages with child as usual to create baseline interaction
2.mother takes short break then returns with a still face
3.second break is taken and the mother resumes normal interaction
-found all infants tried to tempt mother into interaction + became distressed when they didn’t provoke usual interaction
Describe Meltzoff and Moore’s study on interactional synchrony.
-1977
-adult model displayed 3 facial expressions
-dummy placed in infant during 1st display to prevent response
-dummy removed and child’s expression was filmed
-found an association between infant behaviour and that of the adult model
Describe Isabella Et Al’s study on interactional synchrony.
-1989
-found securely attached M-I pairs showed more instances of interactional synchrony in 1st year of life
Describe Le Vine Et Al’s study on caregiver-infant interactions on Kenyan mothers.
-1994
-found Kenyan mothers have little physical interactions or physical contact with their infants
-but these infants have secure attachments
-therefore, research on C-I interactions may be ethnocentric
What did Schaffer and Emerson find when studying the role of the father?
-1954
-showed PAF more likely to be mother, fathers are SAF
-found babies attached to mothers around 7months
-75% of infants studied, attachment formed with father at 18months and showed separation anxiety when he left.
Describe Tiffany Field’s study on ROTF.
-1978, filmed 4 month olds in face-to-face interactions with PCG mothers, SCG fathers and PCG fathers
-found SCG fathers engaged more in game-playing, HOWEVER PCG fathers engaged more which was comparable to PCGM behaviour, suggesting whoever is most sensitive to babies have the better relationship
Why don’t fathers generally become primary attachment figures?
-Traditional gender roles: women are expected to be more nurturing and caring then men therefore, fathers don’t feel they need to be like that.
-Female hormones: oestrogen maybe create higher levels of nurturing therefore women are biologically predetermined to be the PAF
Describe Schaffer and Emerson’s study on stages of attachment.
-1964, longitudinal study, 60W/C babies, from Glasgow
-found separation anxiety occurred in babies by 25-32 weeks, stranger anxiety starting one month later. In 18month follow up, 87% had multiple attachments + strongest attachment was to mothers who gave constant C-I interactions.
What are the stages of attachment identified by Schaffer and Emerson (1964)?
- ASOCIAL = birth-2months = same response to humans and objects
- INDISCRIMINATE ATTACHMENT = 2-7 months = preference for familiar people, no stranger/separation anxiety
- SPECIFIC ATTACHMENT = 7 months = stranger + separation anxiety in regard to PAF (65% mother)
- MULTIPLE ATTACHMENT = 1 month after SA = attachment towards others (aka SAF)
Describe Lorenz’s study on imprinting.
-1935, aim to investigate whether goslings will imprint on humans if its the first thing they see
-divided a clutch of eggs in half, 1/2 hatched with mother(control group), 1/2 hatched in an incubator with Lorenz(experimental group)
-found goslings imprinted on him, placed all in a box + when released they continued to follow him, found goslings have a critical period of 32h
His research suggests imprinting is an evolutionary/biological feature of attachment
What is sexual imprinting, describe this with a study example.
Sexual imprinting is the idea that we form a blueprint of our ideal mate from our PCG. Example: Lorenz 1952 placed a peacock in a reptile house so the first moving object was a tortoise. As an adult the peacock directed courtship behaviour towards tortoises.