Attachment Flashcards
What does a baby show which shows they have developed an attachment?
Separation distress
Proximity seeking
Stranger anxiety
Reciprocity
When babies and carers mutually respond to each other’s behaviours. They are responsive and sensitive to each other.
Interaction all synchrony
The detailed mimicry and mirroring between cared and baby which forms the early basis of communication.
Meltzoff and Moore
Asked adult models to display one of 3 facial expressions to a baby in controlled conditions and videoed the baby’s face.
The baby’s expressions were then coded by an independent observer who didn’t know what expression the baby had seen (reduces investigator bias)
It was found that infants as young as 3 days old can imitate facial expressions.
This suggests that interactional synchrony may be partly innate as the babies were too young to have learned to imitate.
A strength of this study was that the baby’s facial expressions were rated using a precisely operationalised behavioural coding system. This is important as it increases the accuracy and objectivity of the ratings.
Isabella
1989
Observed 30 mothers and children and measured the amount of interactional synchrony. In the sample, 10 babies were securely attached, 10 showed insecure avoidant and 10 showed insecure resistant.
She found that mothers and infants who were very responsive to each other at 1 month old were more likely to be securely attached at 9 months
Schaffer and Emerson
1964
Conducted a longitudinal study over the first 2 years of life of 60 babies from working class families in Glasgow. Each child was observed every 4 weeks until they were 1 year old and then again at 18 months old. They assessed whether the child was attached to an adult. The child was said to be attached if they protested when separated from their career and showed stranger anxiety. Data was collected by direct observation and by records kept by mothers. The children were observed in their natural surroundings
In 39% of children, the person who usually fed, bathed and changed the baby was not their
primary attachment figure
Pre attachment
0-2 months
Baby initially shows little difference in their response to humans compared to objects.
During this stage they start to show a preference for humans
Indiscriminate attachment
2 to 7 months
The baby shows little difference in their response to a stranger compared to a familiar career.
Gradually the baby starts to show a preference for familiar people
Discriminate attachment
7 to 9 months
The baby is showing a clear attachment to 1 or 2 t cries if they are separated.
Multiple attachments
9 months upwards
The baby begins to show attachments to other people such as grandparents
Strengths of Schaffer and Emerson
This is an important study as its findings had implications for out theories of attachment. The learning theory argues that babies become attached to whoever feeds them however this study contradicts this as 39% of children weren’t attached to the person who usually fed them.
Longitudinal
Observed infants in their natural surroundings
What are the advantages of using a longitudinal study?
It allows the researchers to track changes in attachment in the same babies as they grow up. This gives greater internal validity.
Cross sectional study
Where babies of different ages are assessed . This is quicker than a longitudinal study but the researcher can’t be sure that differences in attachments may be due to differences in those babies personalities rather being due to their ages.
Limitations of Schaffer and Emerson
The study was conducted over 40 years ago and the structure of families has changed in that time. Women are more likely to be working and children often arsenic nursery from a young age, therefore, the study may have limited temporal validity. This means we can’t be sure that the results are relevant to today’s children,
Geiger
1996
Found that fathers tend to engage in more exciting, physical games with their children than movers . There is also some evidence that fathers are less able to detect low levels of infant distress compared to mothers.
Some have argued that this may be due to biological differences
Ainsworth and bell
100 middle class American infants
66% secure
22% avoidant
12% resistant
Issues of strange situation
Ethical issues- infant is put under moderate stress. However it lasts a short amount of time and if the infant appeared excessively distressed, the procedure is stopped.
Ethical issues are raised by categorising children as secure or insecure. The caregiver may feel worried that they were be identified as having a child who is insecurely attached.
The caregiver is likely to act in a way which they think the observer wants them too. Demand characteristics
Artificial environment
Cultures
Culture is the rules, beliefs, moral values and customs that are common to certain groups of people.
Vanljzendoorn and Kroonenberg
Aimed to compare data on attachment in children from a range of different countries. Their method involved gathering data from 32 different studies that had been undertaken in 8 different countries, nearly 2000 children
Germany had the highest amount of insecure avoidant
Secure attachment was most common in all cultures. This supports the idea that there may be an innate drive to form a secure attachment.
Differences between cultures suggest that cultural differences in parenting styles may influence attachment.
Limitations of Vanljzendoorn and Kroonenberg
Some counties only had a small number of studies involved. For instance, there was only 1 study from China with just 25 children. Therefore, we must be more cautious about drawing conclusions about attachment patterns of Chinese children.
Doesn’t tell us anything about why some cultures may vary in their patterns of attachment.
Takahashi
60 middle class Japanese infants
68% secure
0% avoidant
32% resistant
The a sense of avoidant attachment in Japan may be because it is considered rude to ignore an adult in Japan so children may be taught from an early age not to ignore adults
Y
Internal working models
Mental representations of the world and relationships which influence how we feel and behave,
Myron Wilson and smith
Used questionnaires to assess attachment type and bullying in 196 children
Securely attached children were least likely to be involved in bullying
Insecure avoidant were most likely to be victims
Resistant most likely to be bullies
Harlow
Found that monkeys that had been isolated at birth and so hadn’t formed attachments grew up to be cruel and abusive parents
Quinton
Compared 50 women who had been raised in institutions and had poor attachments with a control group of 50 women raised at home.
The women who had been raised in institutions had significantly more parenting problems
However 31% of the ex care women did go on to be good parents
Attachment definiton
A close emotional relationship between 2 persons characterised by mutual affection and desire to maintain proximity.
