Attachment Flashcards
Describe caregiver-infant interactions
Reciprocity
- when each person responds to the other and elicits a response from them
- for example, the mother waves and the baby smiles back
- alert phases are when they signal that they are ready for a spell of interaction, they become increasingly frequent at 3 months
- Brazelton described this interaction as a couples dance where each person responds to the others moves
Interactional synchrony
- the temporal co-ordination of micro-level social behavior
- Meltzoff and Moore observed interactional synchrony in babies as young as two weeks old by having an adult display one of three faces to the baby
- the found that the face was mirrored more often than chance, so significant
- isabella observed 30 babies and 30 mothers and baby’s together and assess the degree of synchrony
- they found that high levels of synchrony were associated with better quality mother-baby attachment
Evaluation of caregiver-infant interactions
Limitations
Difficulty observing babies
- the movements being observed are very small hand movements or facial expressions, and therefore could be mistaken for other things, such as passing gas
- as a result, we don’t know if the behavior presented is due to something the caregiver did or if the origin is different
- we make inferences about the behavior
Developmental importance
- Feldman points out that interactional synchrony and reciprocity are just names for observed patterns of behavior, but don’t actually tell us the purpose of the behavior or help to understand child development
- however, the research by isabella does suggest that caregiver interactions are important
Strengths
Filmed observations
- observations can be recorded and analyzed later
- in a lab so the baby can’t be distracted by other factors such as noise level
- therefore, key behaviors won’t be missed and the inter-rater reliability of the research can be tested with multiple researches analyzing the recording
- leads to good reliability and validity
Describe research into the stages of attachment
schaffer and emerson
- 60 babies from Glasgow in working class families
- visited the mothers at their house every month for a year and then once at 18 months to measure stranger anxiety
- had mothers keep a journal where they assessed separation anxiety and stranger anxiety and the behaviors of their baby
- they found four stages of attachment
1. asocial stage - the first two months and the baby shows no preference for human or inanimate object
2. indisciminate attachment - two to seven months where the baby does show preference for humans, but not for a specific human. Also, no signs of separation anxiety or stranger anxiety
3. specific attachment - 7 months to two years and the baby shows signs of attachment to one person as well as stranger anxiety and separation anxiety
4. multiple attachments - two years and forward, the baby is able to form attachments with other people
Evaluation of schaffer and emersons stages of attachment
Strengths
Real-world application
- parents are able to know when the best time to put a child in daycare as during the asocial and indiscriminate stages, the baby has no preference for a person, so anyone will do
- however, it would not be wise to start daycare during the specific stage, as they show stranger anxiety and separation anxiety
good external validity
- the observations were made by parents during normal activities in the natural environment. if they had been made by the experimenter, the baby may have been distracted or more anxious
- however, it is unlikely that the mothers were objective observers, as they may have been biased in what they noticed or reported.
- they may have excluded if their baby was showing signs of anxiety or misremembered it, so even if the baby was behaving naturally, it may not have been accurately recorded
Limitations
Poor evidence for asocial stage
- young babies have poor co-ordination, so if a baby felt anxiety, it will have been shown in subtle ways, making it difficult for mothers to report signs of anxiety and attachment in this age group
- therefore, the baby may have been very social, however, because of flawed methods, appeared asocial
Describe the role of the father
moms backup
- schaffer and emerson
- they found that only 3% of babies had their primary attachment to the father
- therefore, the father is simply there in case the mother for some reason is not availible
responsible for play
- Grossman
- carried out a longitudinal study on babies attachments and the parents relationship to the child on to the quality of later attachments
- they found that the quality of fathers play with babies was related to the quality of adolescent attachments
- therefore, the father has a different role from mom and is more to do with play and stimulation than emotional development
an equal to mom
- Field
- filmed four month old babies in face to face interaction with primary caregiver mothers and fathers, as well as secondary caregiver fathers. found that primary fathers and mothers spent more time smiling, imitating, and holding babies than the secondary caregiver father
- therefore, fathers have the ability to be a more emotion focused primary attachment figure, but maybe only when given the role of primary caregiver
Evaluation of the role of the father
Limitations
confusion over research question
- some researcher want to understand the father as a secondary attachment figure, whereas others are concerned about them being a primary caregiver
- the first tend to see the father as having a different role from the mother
- the second says that the father can take on a maternal role
- therefore the role of the father depends on which role is being discussed
Conflicting evidence
- Grossman suggests that the father plays a distinctive role and that it cannot be replaced. with this theory, single mother and lesbian families would turn out different, however, this seems to not be the case, as they develop in the same way
- however, it could be that the fathers take on a role in a heterosexual families, but in other types of families, they adapt to accommodate the role
- when the father is there, great, if not, the family can adapt
Describe Lorenz’s research
- randomly divided a clutch goose, with one hatched with the mother in their natural environment, and the other half hatched in an incubator where the first moving object they saw was Lorenz
- he found that the incubator geese followed him around and the control group followed the mother
- he called this imprinting, where bird species attach to a follow the first moving object seen when born
- he also identified a critical period, where imprinting must occur, otherwise the chicks did not attach themselves to a mother figure
- sexual imprinting also occurred, as the chicks who imprinted on Lorenz later displayed courtship behavior towards humans
- a case study of a peacock who had been raised in the reptile of a house imprinted onto giant tortoises, then later only showed courtship behavior towards tortoises
Evaluation of Lorenz’s research
Research support
- Regolin and Vallortigara exposed chicks to a simple shape combination that moved
- a range of shape combinations were then moved in front of them and they followed the original most closely
- therefore animals are born with an innate mechanism to imprint on a moving object in the critical window
Generalizability to humans
- the mammalian attachment system is much different and more complex than in birds, as in humans, attachment is a two way process, with not just the baby’s attached to the mother, but the mother shows emotional attachment to their young
- therefore difficult to generalize
Describe Harlow’s research into attchment
- reared 16 rhesus baby monkeys with two wire model mothers
- in one condition, milk was given from the plain wire mother, and in the other condition milk was dispensed by the cloth covered mother
- they found that the monkeys cuddled with the cloth covered mother in preference to the wire one and sought comfort from the cloth one when frightened regardless of which one produced milk
- therefore contact comfort was more important than food to the monkeys when it came to attachment behavior
maternally deprived monkeys as adults - the deprived monkeys were more aggressive and less sociable than other monkeys and bred less often than typical, being unskilled at mating
- when they became mothers, they neglected their young and attacked their children, and even killing them in some cases
- a mother had to be introduced to a young monkey within 90 days for an attachment to form
Evaluation of Harlow’s research
Real World Value
- has helped social workers and clinical psychologists understand that a lack of bonding experience may be a risk factor in child development allowing them to intervene to prevent poor outcomes
- we also now understand the importance of attachment figures for baby monkeys in zoos and breeding programs
- therefore not just theoretical, but also practical
Generalizability to humans
- more similar to humans than birds, however the brain and behavior of humans are still more complex than that of monkeys
- therefore not appropriate to generalize to humans
Describe learning theory as an explanation of attachment
classical conditioning
- the unconditioned stimulus (US) is food
- the unconditioned response (UR) is pleasure
- the neutral stimulus (NS) is the mother
- when the NS is paired with the US to produce the UR, over time the mother, now the conditioned stimulus (CS) produces the conditioned response (CR) of pleasure in the baby without the food needed
operant conditioning
- when the baby cries, food is given, positive reinforcement to cry whenever it wants food towards the caregiver who comforts with the social suppressor behavior
- the caregiver receives negative reinforcement, as the crying of the baby stops when they give it food
drive reduction suggests we eat to reduce the hunger drive, a primary drive, and in response the caregiver becomes generalized in this and becomes a secondary drive
who proposed that caregiver infant interactions can be explained by learning theory?
Dollard and Miller
Evaluation of learning theory as an explanation of attachment
Strength
Some conditioning may be involved
- while unlikely that food plays a central role, conditioning may play a role
- a baby may associate feeling warm and comfortable with an adult, influencing the baby’s choice of their main attachment figure
- however, classical and operant conditioning have the baby playing a very passive role in the attachment process, whereas other research has shown that the baby actually plays a very active role
- therefore, this is not an adequate explanation of any attachment
Limitations
Counter-evidence from animal studies
- Lorenz’s geese imprinted on the first object regardless of food
- furthermore, harlows monkeys chose comfort over food when given the option, showing that factors other than food are more important in the attachment bond
Counter-evidence from studies on humans
- Schaffer and emerson found that the babies tended to form their main attachment to their mother regardless of whether she was the one who normally fed them
- Isabella also found that high levels of interactional synchrony predicted the quality of attachment, which isn’t related to feeding at all
Describe Bowlby’s monotropic theory as an explanation of attachment
adaptive -
Social releasers - babies are born with cute behaviors which encourage attention from adults, called social releasers, as they activate adult social interaction and make an adult attach to the baby
critical period - the first two years of a baby’s life, if an attachment is not formed in this time, the child will find it much harder to form one later
internal working model - a mental representation of their relationship to their primary attachment figure, which serves as a model for what relationships are like
- if a child experiences a loving relationship to a caregiver, then they bring these qualities to later relationships
- if a child has had a poor treatment in the attachment, then they will form these type of attachments and expect this treatment from others
- the model also acts as a template for when the person becomes a parent, which is why functional families tend to stay functional
monotropic - attachment is to one particular caregiver, and this bond is different and more important than others
- the law of continuity states that the more constant and predictable a child’s care, the better quality of the attachment
- the law of accumulated separation stated that the effects of every separation from the mother add up and the safest dose is therefore zero
Evaluate Bowlby’s Monotropic theory as an explanation of attachment
Strengths
Support for social releasers
- Brazelton observed babies trigger interactions with adults using social triggers. the researchers then instructed the babies’ primary attachment figure to ignore their babies’ social releasers
- babies who had been responsive became increasingly distressed and some eventually curled up and lay motionless
- this illustrates the role of social releasers in emotional development
support for the internal working model
- Bailey assessed attachment relationships in 99 mothers and their 1 year old babies. the researchers assessed the mothers attachment to their parents and then their attachment quality to their own baby
- they found mothers with poor attachment to their own mothers were more likely to have poorly attached babies
- however, there are probably other important influences on emotional development, including genetic differences in anxiety and sociability. these could also impact their parenting ability
- therefore bowlby may have overstated the importance of the internal working model in social behavior and parenting at the expense of other factors
Limitation
Validity of monotropy challenged
- Schaffer and emerson found that while most babies attached to one person, a significant minority, 27%, attached to both the mother and father at the same
- while the first attachment does appear to have a strong influence on later behavior, it may just be stronger rather than different to the other attachments
- therefore bowlby may have been incorrect that there is a unique quality and importance to the childs primary attachment
