Attachment Flashcards
Define attachment ?
A close two way bond between two individuals.
Define reciprocity ?
Infant responds to the action of another person / where actions of one partner elicits a response of another.
Define interactional synchrony ?
Infant mirrors the actions of another person.
Define sensitive responsiveness ?
The caregivers ability to recognise and respond appropriately to the infants actions.
Explain Tronicks still face paradigm ?
- baby and mother are in a room together.
- they are interacting with each other (talking, playing,smiling)
- the mothers face goes still no reaction to the baby.
- the baby notices something is wrong and starts to point, scream,cry,move and try get attention
- the mother goes back to interacting with the baby
Evaluation points ?
Strengths-
Babies or unaware of observation - natural behaviour
Observations are often recorded - inter - rater reliability
Controlled conditions - increases internal validity and reliability
Weakness-
Doesn’t tell us the development purpose of the behaviour
Ethical implications - studying children
Some study’s fail to replicate findings
What was the aim of Schaffer and Emerson’s research ?
Investigate the formation of early attachments - focusing on the age these attachments develop emotional intensities.
What behaviours were measured in the study ?
Stranger anxiety - assessed by observing how infants respond to unfamiliar people
Separation anxiety - assessed by asking mothers about how the infants responded when separated from them.
What were the findings ?
Asocial stage (0-6 weeks) - observable behaviour towards humans and inanimate objects
Indiscriminate attachment (6 weeks - 7 months) - recognise and prefer company of familiar people
Specific attachment (7-9 months) - classic signs of attachment towards one particular person
Multiple attachment (9+ months) - attachment towards people the regularly spend time with
Identify contradictory research ?
Bowlby - children have one prime attachment (monotropy) and any other attachments after were of minor significance
Define primary caregiver ?
The person who spends most time with a baby caring for its needs
What is the distinctive role that fathers play in a child’s attachment ?
Associated with providing stimulating, playful interactions, fostering exploration and risk taking behaviours.
Research for fathers as attachment figures ?
Lamb - fathers who become main care providers seem able to quickly develop more sensitivity to needs.
Lucassen et al - meta analysis of studies involving observations and strange situation technique
Impact on the economy (pros and cons) ?
Pros -
Encourage policies like shared parental leave.
Higher educational attainment and economic productivity later in life.
Cons -
Paid maternal leave may initially increase for government and businesses
Encouraging fathers could be challenging in cultures or industries with rigid gender roles
Define imprinting ?
Where the youngest follow and form an attachment to the first large moving object that they meet
Explain Lorenz procedure ?
Lorenz randomly divided a large clutch of goose eggs into two batches
- one half were hatched with the mother goose in natural environment
- one half were hatched in an incubator where the first moving object seen was Lorenz
What’s the findings ?
The incubator group followed Lorenz everywhere he went whereas the control group followed the mother
This is called imprinting:
Attach and follow the first moving object that they see
Takes place in the critical period
If it didn’t occur in that time then chicks didn’t attach themselves onto a mother figure
Explain Harlow procedure ?
16 monkeys
Two wire mother ( one with cloth)
Wire mother had milk dispenser
Loud noise played to see how they responded under stress
What are the findings ?
The baby’s would comfort the cloth mother over the wire mother regardless of the milk
When frightened they sought comfort from the cloth mother
This shows that contact comfort is more important to them than food
Evaluation points ?
Strengths -
Practical applications - social workers and clinical psychologists
Findings have influenced practices in zoos
Weakness -
Ethical issues (consent, withdrawal, scaring them)
Contradictory research
Define monotropy ?
The idea that a child forms one special strong attachment which is more important than any others
Define internal working model ?
Mental framework that a child develops based on their early attachments
Supporting research for IWM ?
Hazan and Shavers
Love quiz - early attachment experiences influence on future romantic relationships (link)
Define social releasers ?
Behaviours that babies are born with (crying,smiling)
