Attachment Flashcards
What is reciprocity?
A description of how people interact. A mother-infant interaction is reciprocal in that both infant and mother respond to each other’s signals and each elicits a response from the other
What is interactional synchrony?
Mother and infant reflect both the actions and emotions of the other in a co ordinated or synchronised way
Describe some research into interactional synchrony.
Meltzoff and Moore observed interactional synchrony in children as young as two weeks old. Where an association was seen between the facial expression of an adult and that of the infant.
Isabella et al. Also found that IS was important for the quality of attachment. 30 mother infant diads were assessed on the quality of IS and found that the better the quality of synchrony the better the attachment
Evaluate reciprocity and interactional synchrony.
- it is incredibly hard to accurately observe infants. For example it’s hard to know whether they are imitating adults or the movement occurred by chance.
- observations done have good internal validity as mother and infant are both filmed from different angles. Babies behaviour also isn’t effected by being watched.
- observations do not tell us the purpose of interactional synchrony, just that it exists.
What percentage of children attached to their father by 18 months old?
Schaffer and Emerson found that 75% of infants protested when their father walked away by the age of 18 months - a sign of attachment.
What is the role of the father in attachment?
Grossman carried out a longitudinal study looking at parents behaviour and attachment. He found that the quality of fathers play with an infant affected the infants later attachment in their teenage years. In infants the attachment of both parents was equally important. This seems to say that a fathers role in attachment is one of playmate.
What happens if a father becomes the primary caregiver?
Tiffany Field found that primary caregiver fathers spend more time smiling, imitating and holding infants than secondary caregiver fathers. This shows that primary caregiver fathers are capable of taking on a more maternal role in attachment.
Evaluate findings on the role of fathers in attachment.
- there are inconsistent findings, depending on what the research focuses on fathers are either just as important as mothers or not so, and more linked to play.
- children growing up in single sex or single parent families develop no differently to other children, showing that research may be flawed.
- biological factors such as oestrogen could show why mothers are generally primary carers.
describe Schaffer and Emersons study and their findings.
- 60 babies from Glasgow, from skilled, working class families
- families visited once a month in the first year then again at 18 months
- mothers interviewed and wrote diaries about babies separation behaviour and stranger anxiety
- between 25 and 30 weeks 50% of babies showed attachment to primary attachment figure
- by 40 weeks 80% of babies had one attachment and 30% had multiple attachments.
name and describe the stages of attachment.
- Asocial stage (first few weeks) babies begin to distinguish between people and inanimate objects. show little preference of people.
- Indiscriminate attachment (from 2-7 months) prefer people over objects and prefer familiar adults. no separation or stranger anxiety.
- Specific attachment (from 7 months) babies begin to show stranger anxiety and separation anxiety from the primary attachment figure
- Multiple attachments (by the age of 1) babies form secondary attachments to other familiar adults.
evaluate Schaffer and Emerson’s study into attachment.
- good external validity as it was done in the babies own homes - not affected by being observed or in a strange place.
- it’s a longitudinal study so has good internal validity and eliminates participant variables/individual differences.
- it had a limited sample, a good number but all from the same place and social class. may not necessarily generalise to other areas of society and may also lack temporal validity as parenting has changed in the last 50 years.
evaluate the stages of attachment.
- the asocial stage is difficult to observe as the babies have limited mobility etc so we can only make an inference that they are asocial.
- evidence from collectivist cultures (Van Ijzendoorn’s study etc) contradicts the stages and shows babies forming multiple attachments first
- there is evidence to suggest that a baby may get distressed when a playmate leaves the room, making it hard to tell whether an individual is a primary attachment figure or a playmate.
describe Lorenz’s research and findings.
in his experiment he randomly divided goose eggs - one group was hatched to a mother goose and he hatched the other half in an incubator.
he found that the experimental group that he hatched himself followed him around like they would the mother goose.
what is imprinting and the critical period?
imprinting is an innate readiness to acquire certain behaviours during a critical period of time. Lorenz identified that the critical period could be as short as a few hours in some species.
what did Lorenz find about sexual imprinting?
he found that birds who had bee reared by humans later displayed courting behaviours towards humans. he used the case study of a peacock raised with giant tortoises who later displayed mating behaviour towards them. he called this sexual imprinting.
evaluate Lorenz’s research.
- birds are not similar to humans so it may be difficult to generalise his findings in geese to human attachment behaviour.
- lorenz believed that sexual imprinting was permanent but Guiton et al. found that chickens eventually learnt to mate with other chickens - showing it was not permanent.
describe Harloew’s research and findings.
- Harlow took 16 baby monkeys and raised them with two mothers. a wire mother that produced food and a cloth mother without food
- Harlow proved the importance of contact comfort as the monkeys preferred the cloth mother regardless of which dispensed milk - they spent 23/24 hours attached to cloth mother.
what did Harlow find about maternally deprived monkeys as adults?
the monkeys raised without real mothers did not develop normally. the monkeys raised only with the wire mother were the worst effected - they were more aggressive and less social than normal monkeys. they mated less often. as parents they neglected or even killed their young.
what did Harlow find about the critical period?
a mother had to be introduced to an infant monkey within 90 days for an attachment to form. after this maternal deprivation became inevitable and irreversible.
evaluate Harlow’s research.
- Harlow influenced the change in parenting in the 1950’s , showing the importance of contact comfort and relationships on later development.
- the findings have been used to help look after and understand neglected or abused children. not to mention monkeys in zoos.
- Harlow’s research was ethically questionable - the monkeys suffered greatly and their suffering could be generalised to humans. however the information it provided may have made it worthwhile.
how does the learning theory use classical conditioning to explain attachment?
food serves as the UCS and the mother as simply a NS. as the mother/primary attachment figure feeds the baby the baby associates food and the UCR of happiness with the mother. so the mother becomes the CS which produces the CR of happiness in the infant.
how does the learning theory use operant conditioning to explain attachment?
the baby performs behaviours linked to attachment that the caregiver will reinorce. for example when a baby cries it receives comfort, so is positively reinforced. on the flip side the caregiver is negatively reinforced when the crying stops.
explain the theory of attachment as a secondary drive (SLT)
learning theory focuses on drive reduction. hunger is a primary drive, biological and innate. Sears et al. suggested that the babies primary drive of hunger becomes generalised to the caregiver who provides the food. so the caregiver becomes a secondary drive by association.
evaluate the social learning theory of attachment.
- in both Lorenz and Harlows experiments they proved that the animal does not attach to the mother that feeds them. Harlow stressed the importance of contact comfort over food. and the geese imprinted on Lorenz before he fed them.
- Schaffer and Emerson showed that babies attach to people who respond and interact with them most rather than the person who fed them most.
- there would be no purpose in complex interactions such as interactional synchrony if babies simply experienced cupboard love.
Describe Bowlby’s monotropic theory of attachment.
It is a theory that involves one important and fundamentally different attachment to one person (monotropic). Featuring social releasers to trigger attachment in the adult. This relationship affects the infants internal working model of relationships.
Define the term monotropic
Bowlby placed great significance on the relationship between the primary caregiver and the infant. He said this relationship was different to others and more important. The law of continuity stated that the more constant and predictable this care the better the attachment. The law of accumulated separation stated that every absence of the caregiver accumulated.
What are social releasers?
Innate cute behaviours that babies are born with such as smiling or making noises. These behaviours trigger the attachment response in adults, which is also innate
