ATTACHMENT Flashcards
What is attachment?
An emotional bond between two people. A two-way process that endures over time. It leads to certain behaviours such as clinging and proximity-seeking
What is reciprocity?
Reciprocity is achieved when an infant and caregiver respond to and produce responses from each other (two way process).
e.g. a caregiver responds to a baby’s smile by saying something, and then the baby responds by making some sounds of pleasure
What is interactional synchrony?
Meltzoff and Moore (1977)
When a caregiver and infant mirror both the actions and emotions of the other and do this in a co-ordinated (synchronised) way
Outline one study of infant-caregiver interactions
Meltzoff and Moore (1977) conducted a study of interactional synchrony and found that infants as young as two to three weeks old imitated specific facial and hand gestures
Isabella et al. (1989) observed 30 month old (and over) infants to assess degree of synchrony
^— increased synchrony = increased quality of mother-infant attachment
Define multiple attachment
Having more than one attachment figure. In Schaffer and Emerson’s (1964) stages of attachment, this happens from the age of 1 year old and over
What is separation anxiety?
The distress shown by an infant when separated from their caregiver. This is not necessarily the child’s biological mother
What is stranger anxiety?
The distress shown by an infant when approached or picked up by someone who is unfamiliar
Describe one study that investigated the development of attachments.
- Schaffer and Emerson (1964) conducted a study on the development of attachments
- Participants were 60 infants from mainly working-class homes in Glasgow
- These infants were studied until the age of one year old
- The mothers were visited every four weeks and reported on their infant’s response to separation and strangers
- From this, Schaffer and Emerson discovered four stages of attachment: Asocial stage, Indiscriminate attachment, Specific attachment, Multiple attachments
Explain the asocial stage of attachment.
Birth - 2 months
Infants produce a similar response to all objects - inanimate or animate
Explain the indiscriminate attachment stage of attachment
2 months - 7 months
Infants begin to prefer human company to inanimate objects. No strong preferences for people (maybe those who are familiar)
Explain the specific attachment stage of attachment
7 months - 1 year
Infants begin to show separation anxiety and stranger anxiety
They show special joy at the presence of a particular person, their primary attachment figure (doesn’t have to be biological mother)
Explain the multiple attachments stage of attachment
1 year+
Infants begin to form a wider circle of multiple attachments
Schaffer: “within the first month of being attached, 29% of infants had formed multiple attachments with someone else”
Explain Schaffer and Emerson’s (1964) findings about the role of the father
- Found most babies became attached to mother at 7 months
- In 3% of cases, father was first attachment figure
- 18 months, 75% of babies were attached to father + showed separation anxiety
Explain Grossman’s (2002) experiment about the role of the father
- Carried out longitudinal study on both parents’ behaviours + relationship to quality of children’s attach,ent in teens
- Quality of infant attachment w/ mother but NOT father related to attachment in adolescence - suggests father not important
- HOWEVER quality of father’s play with infants related to quality of adolescent attachments
Explain Field’s (1978) experiment about the role of the father
- Filmed 4 month old babies in face-to-face interactions w/ primary caregiver mothers, secondary caregiver fathers, and primary caregiver fathers
- Fathers played more and held baby less
- Primary caregiver fathers and mothers engaged in more smiling and imitative grimaces than secondary caregiver fathers
Outline Lorenz’s study of attachment
- Lorenz (1935) took a clutch of greylag gosling eggs and divided them into two groups: one was left with their natural mother while the other was placed in an incubator
- When incubator eggs hatched, the first living (moving) thing they saw was Lorenz + they soon started following him around
- They had imprinted on him. To test this, he marked the two groups and placed them together. Both Lorenz and their natural mother were present
- He found that the gosling divided themselves up, one group following their natural mother and the other following Lorenz (Lorenz’s brood showed no recognition of their natural mother
- Lorenz noted that imprinting is restricted to a very definite period of the young animal’s life (critical period)
^— if young animal not exposed to moving object during this period, the animal will not imprint - observed imprinting to humans doesn’t occur in some animals