Attachment Flashcards
What is attachment?
Infants and caregivers develop deep and long lasting emotional bonds. They both seek closeness and feel more secure when close to them.
What is reciprocity?
It is mutual turn taking form of interactions, they both respond to each others signals and cues
What is interactional synchrony?
Simultaneous interactions between the infant and caregiver who appear to be acting rhythmically with matching coordinated behaviour and matching emotional state
What are some strengths of caregiver infant interactions in humans?
Meltzoff & Moore - Experimenter displayed facial gestures such as sticking a tongue out and opening their mouths in shock to 12-21 day olds. They found infants had the ability to observe and reciprocate through imitation
Condon & Sander - Videotaped interactions between adults and neonates focussing on the movement of the neonates in response to adult speech finding evidence of interactional synchrony
What are some limitations of caregiver infant interactions in humans?
Caregiver infant interactions research is dependent on inferences
Social sensitivity in the research of caregiver infant interactions
What is the first stage of attachment identified by Schaffer?
Asocial 0-6 weeks
Babies display innate behaviour that ensure proximity to any potential caregiver
Anyone can comfort them as they do not prefer any caregiver
What is the second stage of attachment as identified by Schaffer?
Indiscriminate attachment 6w-7m
Infants develop the ability to tell the difference between familiar and unfamiliar individuals, smiling more at the people they frequently see
What is stage three of attachment as identified by Schaffer?
Specific attachment 7m-9m
Babies form a strong attachment to a primary caregiver, this is where separation and stranger anxiety begins to develop
What is stage four of attachment as identified by Schaffer?
Multiple attachments 9/10m +
The infant start to form attachments with other regular caregivers and stranger anxiety starts to decrease
What are some strengths of the stages of attachment as identified by Schaffer?
Schaffer and Emerson - conducted a longitudinal observation of 60 W/C babies from glasgow, they found that separation anxiety was found in most babies 25-32 and in the 18 month follow up 87% had developed multiple attachments
What are some limitations of the stages of attachment as identified by Schaffer?
The study may not be generalisable of have temporal validity
Only included a group of W/C mothers in 1966s Glasgow
What is the role of the father as the primary caregiver?
If men take on their role of primary caregiver their interaction style becomes more like mothers which increases their capacity for sensitive responsiveness
What is the role of the father in active play?
Fathers are seen to engage babies in active play activities more than mothers which encourages risk taking behaviour
What did Schaffer find in the role of the father?
Schaffer found at 18 months, 75% of infants had formed an attachment with their fathers showing separation anxiety which suggests fathers play an important role in their infants lives.
What are some strengths of investigating the role of the father?
Field (1978) found fathers focussed more on game-playing and less on holding
Verissimo found a strong attachment to the father was the best predictor of the ability to make friends in school
What are some limitations of investigating the role of the father?
Social sensitivity - theorists argue that the role of the mother cannot be replaced by the father
What was Lorenz procedure?
Tested imprinting on birds forming a strong attachment with and following their mothers after hatching
Greylag goose eggs were randomly divided in half, they were taken to be hatched by Lorenz the other half by the mother
What did Lorenz find?
He found that the goslings he hatched imprinted on him and that they had a critical period of about 32 hours
What is a strength of Lorenz’s study?
Highly influential - Bowlby argued humans also have a critical period of 6-30m
What was Harlow’s procedure?
He tested the cupboard love theory that babies love mothers because they feed them
He placed infant Rhesus Macaque monkeys were placed in cages with two surrogate mothers - one provides milk, one provides comfort
What did Harlow find?
He found that the monkeys spent most of their time with the ‘cloth monkey’ and only went to the food mother when hungry
What is a strength of Harlow’s study?
Highly influential - Bowlby argued similar to the monkeys, infants crve comfort from their mothers in an attempt to form a monotropic relationship
What is a limitation of both Lorenz and Harlows studies?
The generalisation of animal behaviour to human psychology is problematic
What is a limitation of Harlow?
Harlow is criticised on ethical grounds for intentionally causing distress to the monkeys
What is the explanation of attachment according to the learning theory?
Dolland and Miller (1930) theory of cupboard love is based on the theory of learning - it argues infants become attached to their caregiver because they learn the caregiver provides food
The learning theory states attachment is a secondary drive and it will ultimately lead to satisfying a primary drive
What is the explanation of attachment according to Bowlby’s monotropic theory
Bowlby’s argues infants have an innate and instinctual drive to form an attachment to their mother and stay in a close proximity to ensure a child’s survival
Babies use signals called social releasers to attract the caregivers attention - mothers are biologically programmed to find these behaviours cute
Bowlby argues that there is a critical period of 30 months - lack of monotropy results in permenant negative social, intellectual and emotional consequences for infants
Bowlby claims the childs monotropic schema is called the internal working model - frame work for later relationships
What is a strength of bowlby’s monotropic theory?
His idea of monotropic relationships has been adapted and applied to childcare
What are some limitations of bowlbys monotropic theory?
The IWM is highly deterministic
Bowlby’s view lacks temporal validity
Bowlby’s work is based upon Lorenz findings and rather a childhood critical period is sensitive but care can lead to recovery
What is bowlby’s theory of maternal deprivation?
Bowlby believed that the infants and mothers relationships during the first five years of life was critical to socialization
A lack of care from the primary caregiver during the critical period will lead to long lasting damage to the child’s intellectual, social and emotional development
The consequences included :
- Affectionless psychopathology - children are unable to show caring behaviours to others or empathy and guilt
- Low IQ - cognitive abilities are lower than peers
- Social development deliquency - Behaviour is often outside acceptable norms such as petty crimes
What are some strengths of Bowlbys theory of maternal ddeprivation?
Bowlbys 44 thieves study - 44 child thieves and control group ere accessed for affectionless psychopathy and maternal deprivation - they found 14 had AP and 12 had MD
What is a limitation of bowlbys theory of maternal deprivation?
Monotropy provides alpha bias
Bowlbys research is correlational
