Attachment Flashcards
Attachment
A close two-way emotional bond between two individuals in which each individual sees the other as essential for their own emotional security
Attachment: Proximity
People try to stay physically close to those which they are attached
Attachment: Separation distress
People are distressed when their attachment figure leaves their presence
Attachment: Secure base behaviour
Even when we are independent of our attachment figures, we make regular contact with them
Caregiver Infant Interaction: Reciprocity
A description of how two people interact
- Mother infant interaction is reciprocal in that both infant and mother respond to each other’s signals and each elicits a response from the other
Conder and Sander’s study into reciprocity
- They analysed frame-by-frame recordings of infants’ movements whilst an adult was talking
- They found that the infants coordinated their actions in sequences with the adult’s speech to form a turn-taking conversation
Caregiver Infant Interaction: Interactional Synchrony
Where the mother and infant reflect both the actions and emotions of the other and do this in a coordinated way
Meltzoff and Moore’s study into interactional synchrony
- Observed beginnings of IS in infants as young as 2 weeks old
- An adult displayed on of 3 facial expressions or distinctive gestures and the child’s response was filmed and identified by an independent observer
- Association was found between the expression/gesture the adult displayed and the actions of the baby
Isabella’s study into interactional synchrony
- Wanted to investigate interactional synchrony in infants
- Observed 30 mothers and infants together and assessed the degree of synchrony and the quality of mother-infant attachment
- Found high levels of synchrony were associated with better quality mother-infant attachment
Caregiver-Infant Interaction Evaluation
- Hard to know what is happening when observing infants
- Studies are highly reliable and well controlled
- Research into caregiver-infant interactions has good validity
Father
Anyone who takes on the role of the main male caregiver
What are the 3 roles of the father?
- Secondary caregiver
- Father as a playmate
- Father as a primary caregiver
The father as the secondary attachment (S&E)
- Schaffer and Emerson: most babies attach to their mothers at 7 months
- 3% of cases: father was the first object of attachment
- 27%: Father was joint first object of attachment with the mother
- 75%: Attachment formed with father in 18 months (determined when infants protested when father walked away)
The role of the father as a playmate (G)
- Grossman: Looked at both parents behaviours and relationship to the quality of children’s attachment in their teens
- Quality of infant attachment with mothers was related to attachments in adolescence (father attachment was less important)
- Quality of father’s play with infants was related to the quality of adolescence attachments // Play and stimulation and less with nurturing and emotional development
The father as the primary caregiver (F)
- Field: Filmed 4 month old babies in face to face interaction with primary caregiver mothers, secondary father caregivers and primary caregiver fathers
- Primary caregiver fathers spent more time smiling, imitating and holding infants than secondary caregiver fathers
- Fathers have the potential to be the more emotion focused attachment figure if required
- Key to attachment is the level of responsiveness, not the gender of the parent
