Attachment

Question 1

Briefly outline caregiver infant interactions and state the two main features of it

Answer 1

• babies have meaningful social interactions which have important functions in the child social development
• good quality early social interactions are associated with successful development of attachments
• two main features
  1. RECIPROCITY
  2. INTERACTIONAL SYNCHRONY

Question 2

Describe what’s meant by reciprocity

Answer 2

• babies and caregiver spend lots of time in intense and pleasurable interaction
• reciprocity is when each person responds to each other and elect to response from them
• e.g caregiver might respond to baby smile by saying something
• sometimes called turn taking
• Babies have periodic a lot phases in which they signal that they’re ready for a spell of interaction
• ALERT PHASES
• typically pick up on this 2/3 of the time (FELDMAN and EIDELMAN) although this varies according to skill of the mother and external factors
• From three months, it becomes more frequent and involves mother and baby paying close attention to each other verbal and facial signals (FELDMAN)
• ACTIVE INVOLVEMENT
• babies active not passive
• BRAZELTON= dance, either can initiate a spell of interaction

Question 3

Describe interactional synchrony

Answer 3

• The temporal coordination of microlevel behaviour (FELDMAN)
• When bb and caregiver interact in such a way that their actions and emotions mirror the other
• MELTZOFF and MOORE observed beginnings of interactional synchrony in babies his youngest two weeks:
• PROCEDURE
• An adult displayed one of three facial expressions or one of three distinctive gestures.
• The babies response was filmed and labelled by independent observers
• Babies expression and gestures mirrored each other more than chance would predict, there was significant association
• ISABELLA observed 30 mothers and babies and assessed both the degree of synchrony and quality of mother baby attachment
• FINDINGS= high levels of synchrony were associated with better quality mother baby attachment a.k.a. the emotional intensity of the relationship

Question 4

Evaluate caregiver infant interactions

Answer 4

FILMED OBSERVATIONS
P- one strength of the research is that caregiver infant interactions are usually filmed in a laboratory
E- this means that other activity that might distract a baby can be controlled. Furthermore, having filmed interactions not only means that the observations can be viewed later and played back, but it means the more than one observer can record data and establish the interrater reliability of observations. Finally, babies show no demand characteristics as they don’t know they’re being filmed
E- TMT data collected usually has good validity and reliability

DIFFICULTIES OBSERVING BABIES
P- one limitation of research into caregiver infant interactions is that it is hard to interpret a babies behaviour
E- for example, young babies lack coordination and much of their bodies are immobile. babies also have small features that are hard to observe and many of their movements are simple (e.g. small hand movements). It is also hard to see from the babies perspective- impossible to tell whether the baby has a random hand twitch or is responding to a caregiver
E- TMT we cannot be sad that the behaviour seen in caregiver infant interactions have special meaning

DEVELOPMENTAL IMPORTANCE
P- a further limitation is that observing behaviour does not tell us it’s developmental importance
E- for example FELDMAN argued that synchrony and reciprocity are simply names of observable patterns of behaviour between babies and caregivers. Whilst these interactions can be reliably observed, it may not be useful and understanding child development as we cannot deduce the meanings of these behaviours.
E- TMT we cannot be certain from observational research alone that reciprocity and synchrony are important for child development

RWA
P- another strength of research into early caregiver infant interaction is its real world applications in parenting skill training
E- for example, CROTWELL found that 10 minute parent-child interaction therapy (PCIT) improved interactional synchrony in 20 low income mothers and their preschool children.
E- on the other hand this research could be considered socially sensitive as it may be used to argue that a mother returning to work too soon after having a baby may risk damaging the babies development
E- this means that whilst the research has some great real applications it should be applied appropriately in society

Question 5

Who studies stages of attachment + brief outline

Answer 5

• SCHAFFER and EMERSON
• studied attachment behaviour of babies
• allowed them to develop an idea of how attachment behaviour changes as a baby gets older
• proposes stages of attachment

Question 6

What are SCHAFFERS stages of attachment?

Answer 6

1. ASOCIAL STAGE
   - first few weeks of life
   - observable behaviour towards humans and inanimate objects is fairly similar
   - NOT ENTIRELY ASOCIAL- some minor signs that they prefer to be with other people, and more easily comforted by familiar people
2. INDISCRIMINATE ATTACHMENT
   - 2-7 months
   - Babies display more obvious observable social behaviours
   - Preference with being with people over inanimate objects
   - recognise company of familiar people
   - Except cuddles and comfort from any person
   - show no separation and stranger anxiety
3. SPECIFIC ATTACHMENTS
   - ~7 months
   - majority of babies form a primary attachment figure
   - often the person who offers the most interaction and responds to the baby signals with most skill, not necessarily the person who spends most time with bb
   - Mother in 65% of cases
   - begin showing separation and stranger anxiety towards strangers and when their PAF is absent
4. MULTIPLE ATTACHMENTS
   - Shortly after PAF forms
   - Begin to show attachment behaviour towards other people with whom they regularly spend time (branch out from PAF)
   - Called secondary attachments
   - S & E concluded that 29% of children formed secondary attachments within a month of forming PAF
   - Babies often form secondary attachments within a year

Question 7

Describe SCHAFFER and EMERSONS research

Answer 7

Procedure-
- 60 babies (29 female 31 male)
- All from Glasgow working class families
- research is visited in their homes every month for the first year and again in 18 months
- asked mother’s questions regarding separation in stranger anxiety
- Used to measure babies attachment

Findings-
- the date about attachments was used to identify Schaeffer and Emerson four stages of attachment

Question 8

Evaluate SCHAFFER and EMERSONS stages of attachment

Answer 8

HIGH EXTERNAL VALIDITY
P- one strength of Shaffer and Emerson‘s research is that it has good external validity
E- most of the observations were made by the parents during ordinary activities reported researchers. Furthermore, research took place in the babies own home. The alternative would’ve been a lab study or having the researcher present to make observations, which may have made the babies anxious.
E- TMT the baby is more likely behaved naturally while being observed

COUNTERPOINT
P- however one weakness is problems with asking mothers to be observers
E- for example, mothers may have been subject to social desirability bias and subsequently reported things that were untrue (e.g. that their baby never cries) This means that the mothers are subjective rather than objective observers. furthermore mothers may have missed or miss remembered the babies signs of anxiety, once again, decreasing their credibility is observers
E- TMT Even if babies behaved naturally their behaviour may not have been accurately observed

POOR EVIDENCE FOR ASOCIAL STAGE
P- one limitation of Schaefer and Emerson stages is the validity of the measures they used to assess attachment in the asocial stage
E- example young babies have poor coordination and a fairly immobile. They also have small faces which are hard to observe. This means that if young baby did feel anxiety every day situations they may have displayed this in quite a subtle hard to observe way. this makes it difficult for the mother to observe these signs and report them back to the researcher.
E- this means that babies may actually be quite social but because of flood methods they appear asocial

GENERALISABILITY
P- one weakness of Schaffer for Emerson’s research is that it may not be generalisable to all family situations
E- this is because the sample was rather unrepresentative of the whole population as it has unique features in terms of cultural and historical context. The study was undertaken in 1960s working class Glasgow. This is a rather individualist culture, and a different result may have been seen in a collectivist culture. Furthermore, the study was done in the 1960s, a time when there was very different expectations about women remaining home from work after having a baby. Today it is very different which means the study lacks temporal validity.
E- this means that this research cannot be generalised to all time periods and situations and more modern research may need to be undertaken to make it more generalisable to today’s situation.