Attachment Flashcards
What is reciprocity?
A description of how 2 people interact. Caregiver infant interaction both responds to each others signals.
- elicits a response from one another
What is interactional synchrony?
Caregiver and baby reflect both the actions and emotions of the other and do this in a synchronised way.
What is the babies ‘alert phase’?
When babies make eye contact that they’re ready for some interaction.
Research shows mothers typically pick up on and respond to this 2/3 of the time.
This varies depending on external factors and the skill of the mother.
From 3 months this interaction becomes increasingly frequent.
What is ‘active involvement’ ?
Caregiver and baby take an active role- they initiate interactions and appear to take turns in doing so. (Brazelton)
Meltzoff and Moore…
Beginning of interactions synchrony in babies as young as 2 weeks old.
The adult displayed 1of 3 facial expressions or 1 of 3 distinctive gestures.
Babies response was filmed and labelled by observers.
The Baird response was more likely to mirror this of the adults more than chance would predict.
The importance of attachment…
Isabella et al…
Believe interactional synchrony is important in the development of caregiver infant attachment.
Observed 30 mothers and babies together and assessed degree of synchrony. (Also assessed quality of mother-baby attachment).
Found high quality levels of attachment were associated with better quality mother-baby attachment.
Evaluation points of the studies…
+
- filmed in a lab (other activity that may distract the baby can be controlled, observations can be recorded and analysed, babies don’t know they’re being observed therefore their reactions do not change.
-
- hard to interpret babies behaviour, lacks coordination and most of body is immobile (observed are small hand movements and expression change), cannot see if hand movements is a reaction or random.
- observing behaviour does not tell us it’s developmental importance, FELDMAN.
Schaffer and Emerson- what did they study?
Studied the attachment behaviours of babies.
Their findings led them to develop an account of how attachment behaviours change as a baby gets older.
Implied there were 4 stages of attachment.
What are the 4 stages in attachment?
1) Asocial stage
2) indiscriminate attachment
3) specific attachment
4) multiple attachments
Outline the asocial stage…
In baby’s first few weeks of life their behaviour towards humans and objects is fairly similar.
However Schaffer and Emerson didn’t fully believe that was the entire asocial stage as it was clear that Basie’s preferred humans due to their behaviour.
AT THIS STAGE THE BABY IS FORMING BONDS WITH CERTAIN PEOPLE AND THESE FORM THE BASIS OF LATER ATTACHMENTS
Outline the indiscriminate stage…
2-7 months start to show clear preference for humans and recognise company of familiar people. At this stage babies accept cuddles from anyone.
Don’t usually show separation anxiety or stranger anxiety.
Outline the specific attachment stage…
7 months babies have signs of attachment to 1 person. Signs include: anxiety towards strangers, anxiety when separated from their attachment figure.
At this stage baby has formed a primary attachment figure- not necessarily who baby spends most time it’s but one who shows most interaction to baby’s signal (babies mother in 65% of cases)
Outline multiple attachment phase…
Shortly after babies start to show attachment behaviour towards one person, they usually extend this behaviour to multiple attachments with others who the regularly spend time with. These are called secondary attachments. Schaffer and Emerson observed that 29% of children formed secondary attachments within a month of forming primary attachments.
Outline Schaffer and Emerson study…
Studied 60 babies from Glasgow - 31 male and 29 female - working class.
Babies and mothers were busted at their home every month for the first year and again at 18 months.
Mothers were asked questions about the kind of protest their babies showed in 7 everyday situations e.g. presence of a stranger.
Evaluation points…
They had a good sample size
Lacks external validity- lacks population validity
High school ecological validity - but a natural environment not a controlled environment
Hugh mundane realism
Mothers could be bias- give socially desirable answers.
Defintion of father…
In attachment research the father is anyone who takes on the road of the main male caregiver.
Defintion of father…
In attachment research the father is anyone who takes on the road of the main male caregiver.
Attachment to fathers…
Fathers are less likely to become the babies first attachment figure.
Schaffer and Emerson found babies became attached to mothers around 7 months.
I’m only 3% of cases the father was sole attachment figure.
In27% the father was joint first attachment figure with mother.
However most fathers go on to become important attachment figures- 75% of babies formed attachment with father by 18 months.
Distinctive role of fathers…
Who experimented it?
Klaus Grossman et al 2002
What is grossman study?
Longitudinal study - babies attachment were studied until teens
Researchers looks at both parents relationship with baby and how it affected the babies later attachments.
Quality of relationship with mothers but not fathers was related to attachment sin adolescence - suggests attachments to fathers are less important.
What was Grossman argument of how fathers attachment was important?
Quality of fathers play with baby related to quality of adolescence attachments.
Suggests father have different roles to mothers - more to do with play/stimulation less to do with emotional development.
Fathers as primary attachment figures…
Who experimented it?
- Tiffany field (1978) filmed 4 month babies face to face interaction with primary caregiver mothers, secondary caregiver fathers and primary caregiver fathers.
- Primary fathers like primary mothers spent more time smiling and holding the babies than secondary fathers.
- Smiling and intimacy with babies are all part of reciprocity and interactional synchrony.
- fathers have the potential to be emotional
Evaluation points on the role of the father…
Real world application - research can be used to offer advice to parents such as: don’t stress over who takes primary caregiver role, mothers don’t need to feel pressured to stay at home because of this equally fathers don’t have to feel pressured to focus on work.
Findings vary depending on methodology used - Grossman implied that fathers as secondary attachment figures have important role in child’s development however this means we would expect children growing up in single mother lesbian households this would affect development, but studies show that these children do not development differently, mean importance of father role still remains questioned.
Outline Lorenz study…
He divided a clutch of goose eggs, half eggs were hatched with the mother in their natural environment, other half hatched in an incubator where the first moving object they saw was Lorenz.
What did Lorenz find?
Incubator group followed Lorenz everywhere whereas the control group hatched in the presence of their mother, followed her. When the 2 groups were mixed up the control group continued to follow the mother and the experimental group continued to follows Lorenz.
What is imprinting and how does it relate to Lorenz study?
When animals attach to the first moving object they see, in this case it was the mother or Lorenz.
Lorenz identified a critical period in which imprinting needed to take place.
Depending on species this could be a few hours after hatching, if imprinting doesn’t occur within that time Lorenz finds chicks did not attach themselves to a mother figure at all.
Sexual imprinting and how does it relate to Lorenz study?
He investigated the relationship between imprinting and the adult male preferences, he observed imprinting on a human would often later display courtship behaviour towards them. Lorenz described a peacock that has been let out and first object it attached to we’re giant tortoises as an adult peacock would only direct courtship behaviour towards the giant tortoises.
What are advantages of Lorenz study?
He used an even sample size- 3 with Lorenz 3 with the mother, no inequality.
He had a control group - good for comparison with his experimental group
Research support - regolin and vallortigora supported Lorenz idea, chicks shown shape combinations and followed first one they saw, when mixed the chicks followed their shape.
What are disadvantages of Lorenz study?
Ethical issues - animals cannot consent
Issues of extrapolation - cannot generalise to humans, mammalian system is more complex than that in birds.
Sexual imprinting isn’t as permanent as he suggests - can teach peacock to mate with other peacocks instead of giant tortoises.
Outline Harry Harlows study…
The importance of contact comfort- Harlow tested idea that soft object offers some functions of a mother.
He experimented 16 monkeys with 2 wire modelled mothers: 1 condition milk was dispensed by plain wire mother and 2 condition the milk was dispensed by cloth covered mother.
What did harry harlow find?
Baby monkeys cuddled cloth mother in preference and sought comfort from them when frightened regardless of which mother dispensed milk, showed that contact comfort was more important to monkeys than food when it came to attachment behaviour.
What is monotropic?
Term used to describe bowlbys Theory
Mono=one tropic=leaning towards
Suggest one attachment is different from others and a central importance to child’s development
What’s a critical period?
Time within which an attachment must form if it is to form at all.
Internal working model, what is it?
Mental representations of the work e.g. representation we have of our relationship to our primary attachment figure.
Affects our future relationships as it carries our perception as to what relationships are like.
What is a conditioned stimulus?
A new stimuli that has been paired with an unconditioned stimulus so that animal/human associates the 2 together.
What’s an unconditioned stimulus?
A stimulus which causes an unlearnt response.
E.g. hunger to salivation.
What is an unconditioned response?
An I learnt behaviour/action which is caused by a stimulus
What is a neutral stimulus?
This has become the conditioned stimulus once conditioning has occurred.
What is a conditioned response?
A learnt response to a previously neutral stimulus.
Who proposed classical conditioning?
Pavlov, after observing the behaviour of dogs.
