Attachment Flashcards
Definition of attachment
An infants desire to keep close proximity to a particular individual, most likely their primary care giver, and y the expression of distress if the infant is separated from that person. The person gives the infant a sense of security and is usually the child’s mother
What is interactional synchrony
When infants move their body in tune with the rhythm of the care givers spoken language to create a kind of turn taking, like a two way vocal convo
What is reciprocity
Interactions between carers and infants result in mutual behaviour, with both parties able to produce responses
What is caregiverese
Adults who interact with infants use a modified form of vocal language that is high pitched, song like in nature, slow and repetitive
What is proximity
When people try to stay physically close to the people they attach to
What is secure base behaviour
Even if we are independent without our attachment figures, we still rely to make regular contact with them.
Infants show this by regularly returning to their attachment figure while playing
What was tronicks still face experiment
Initially, the mother and baby were playing and expressing positive emotions with one another, interacting with each other, however when the mother then put on a straight/still face, the baby got confused and started to look around, wave their hands in the mothers face and still when the mother wouldn’t interact, they began to cry as their actions werent being reciprocated
What is separation distress/anxiety
People are distressed when the attachment figure leaves their presence
What did Feldman and eidelman 2007 say about reciprocity
They said that babies have alert phases and signal that they are ready for interaction, mothers pick up on this 2/3 of the time and respond
What did Feldman 2007 say alone
That from 3 months, the interaction between babies and mothers tend to be increasingly frequent and involves paying attention to verbal signals and facial expressions
What did brazelton et al say in 1975
That when infants and mothers interact with each other, he described the process to be like a dance
What did Woolf 1969 say about interactional synchrony
Said that babies have 3 distinct cries, a hunger cry, angry cry and pain cry, so parents would show interactional synchrony when responding to these cries, with different behaviours such as feeding or playing
What did meltzoff and Moore find in 1977 about interactional synchrony
Observed beginnings of interactional synchrony in infants as young as 2 weeks. Adults displayed one of three facial expressions or one of three distinct gestures. The child’s response was filmed and identified by independent observers and an assosciation was found between the adults actions and the babies actions
What did Isabella et al say in 1989
Interactional synchrony is important for the development of mother infant attachments . 30 moths and babies were observed together and researchers assessed the degree of synchrony . They found that high levels of synchrony leads to better quality of attachments
What is the evaluation of interactional synchrony by le vine eat al in 1994
The fact that interactional synchrony is not found in all cultures, therefore weakens support for the idea that it is necessary for attachment formation. This is because he reported that Kenyan mothers have little physical contact or interactions with their infants, but the infants still have a high proportion of secure attachments
Evaluation of caregiver and infant interactions: negative
There is an issue when observing infants- issue of intentionality
Gratier 2003 said that we cannot know if the behaviours between mothers and babies have a special meaning because we cannot be certain of the babies pov
Evaluation of caregiver and infant interactions: positive
There is a high level of controlled observations which capture fine detail therefore increases the level of validity the conclusions made have. The observations between mother and baby are well controlled and filmed from many angles, providing details that are recorded and further analysed
