Attachment Flashcards
What is an attachment?
An enduring two-way emotional tie to a specific other person, normally a parent and child
How long do attachments normally take?
Attachments normally take a few months to develop
What features do those with an attachment normally display?
Proximity
Separation distress
Secure base behaviour
(stranger anxiety)
What is proximity?
They try to stay physically close to one another
What is separation distress?
They are distressed when they leave one another
What is secure base behaviour?
Even when independent, they make regular contact, e.g. infants go off and play but return to the mother while playing
What is reciprocity?
Responding to the actions of another with an action
(turn taking)
Interaction flows back and forth between caregiver and infant
Why is reciprocity important?
It helps to reinforce attachment bond and is important for later development of communications skills
What are ‘alert phases’?
Where babies are ready for interaction
More frequent after 3 months
Why are ‘alert phases’ important?
Mothers generally pick up on this and respond to it 2/3 of the time; the sensitivity level can predetermine how strong an attachment is formed
What is interactional synchrony?
When two people interact they tend to mirror what the other is doing - facial and body movements/expressions
How can interactional synchrony be defined?
‘the temporal coordination of micro level social behaviour’
What was the procedure of Meltzoff and Moore’s study into interactional synchrony (I.S.)?
Observed the beginnings of I.S. in infants as young as 2 weeks. Adult displayed 1 of 3 facial expressions or hand gestures.
Baby had in a dummy to stop immediate gesture response, it was then taken out and response was filmed
What did Melzoff and Moore’s original study find?
An association between the adult’s facial expression and the baby’s response
What did Meltzoff and Moore’s later study find?
The same synchrony was found in children only 3 days old, so is therefore thought to be innate rather than learnt
What did Isabella et al discover in relation to interactional synchrony?
That high synchrony was associated with better attachment quality
What did Condon and Sander do?
Analysed frame by frame video recordings of infants’ movements, and found that infants coordinated their actions in sequence with adults’ speech
What are the strengths of interactional synchrony?
controlled observations mean we see fine details
research support
real world application
behaviour is intentional and human specific
What are the weaknesses of interactional synchrony?
We don’t know the purpose of it
Interactional synchrony is not universal
Why is having controlled observations a strength of interactional synchrony?
Observations are generally filmed from multiple angles, ensuring that fine details of behaviour are seen.
And because babies are unaware of being observes they act normally- increases validity
What is a limitation of some research into interactional synchrony?
Difficulties in testing babies’ behaviours as their mouths are in fairly constant motion and the motions being tested occur frequently
-Difficult to identify what is a response to the experiment and what is normal behaviour
What is an example of real world application for interactional synchrony?
Research by Isabella et al showed that achieving interactional synchrony is important in developing attachment
Suggests mothers should not return to work too soon; has implications for childcare practices and maternity leave in the UK
How do we know that behaviour is intentional and human specific in interactional synchrony?
Abravenal and Deyong: observed infant behaviour to two objects: one simulated a tongue moving and the other a mouth opening and closing
5 and 12 week babies made little response to either
-infants do not just imitate everything, their responses are a specific social response to other humans
Why is the purpose of interactional synchrony a weakness?
The ideas of synchrony and reciprocity simply describe the behaviours seen in research, there is no knowledge of purpose.
There are suggestions that it helps develop attachments or relieve stress but simple observations do not show if this is the case.
Why is the universality of interactional synchrony a weakness?
Interactional synchrony is not found in all cultures
Le Vine: found Kenyan mothers have little physical contact or interactions with their infants but that they go on to form secure attachments
Suggests I.S. isn’t necessary for attachments to form
Who researched the impact of bodily contact on attachment?
Klaus + Kennell: Compared mums who had extended physical contact with those who only had contact during feedings, 1 month later- greater physical contact found to be cuddling with babies more and more eye contact- still noticeable 1yr later
Evaluate bodily contact?
Practical application: hospitals started placing mothers and babies in the same room in the days following birth rather than rooming them apart
Who researched motherese/caregiverese?
Papousek et al: Rising voice to show an infant that it was their turn in the interaction found to be cross-cultural. (USA/Chinese/German mothers all showed this behaviour) Suggests it is an innate device to facilitate attachment formation
Evaluate motherese/caregiverese?
However… it is often used by adults to all infants, not just the ones they have attachments to- suggests it helps communication with infants but not specifically attachment
What was the aim of Schaffer + Emerson’s research?
To identify and describe distinct stages of attachment
to assess if there was a pattern to attachment formation
What was the procedure of Schaffer + Emerson’s research?
60 working class Glaswegian mothers + babies (31 m 29f) Did observation of pps each month for a yr and again at 18 months - focused on who infant smiled at, causes of distress, positive responses etc
How did Schaffer + Emerson measure attachment?
Separation protest (left alone in everyday situations) and stranger anxiety (approached by researcher at start of each visit)
What were Schaffer + Emerson’s findings?
25-32 weeks- 50% showed separation anxiety to 1 adult, (called specific attachment- normally most interactive and sensitive to baby) 40 weeks- 80% had specific attachment, 30% multiple attachment
Mothers normally 1st attachment (65%) Fathers first joint attachment 27% of the time
What were Schaffer and Emerson’s conclusions?
Pattern of attachment formation common to all infants
Multiple attachments are the norm and of similar quality
What are Schaffer + Emerson’s first two stages of attachment?
- Asocial stage- up to 2 months, similar behaviour to all objects, 2. Indiscriminate attachment- 2-7 months, prefer people to objects, prefer familiar adults, relatively easily comforted by any adult, no separation/stranger anxiety
What is Schaffer + Emerson’s third stage of attachment?
- Specific/ discriminate attachment: 7+ months, different protest when particular adult puts them down (separation anxiety)- primary attachment figure, start to show stranger anxiety
What is Schaffer and Emerson’s fourth stage of attachment?
- multiple attachments: shortly after formation of specific attachment, form secondary attachments, 29% formed 2nd attachment within a month of 1st attachment, 1/3 had 5 or more attachments by a year
What are the strengths of Schaffer and Emerson’s study?
ecological validity, rough 50/50 m/f split- generalisability, studied mums + babies, no demand characteristics from babies, longitudinal design, large data amount per pp
What are the weaknesses of Schaffer and Emerson’s study?
low temporal validity (done in 60s), can’t generalise pps (Glaswegian/WC only), demand characteristics in mother interviews-social desirability bias, debate over whether babies can form multiple attachments from the start- e.g. collectivist cultures where multiple caregivers are common
What did Sagi et al study?
Studied the Israeli Kibbutzim- where infants raised by communal children’s home- found children 2x as closely attached to primary attachment figure in individualist cultures, but Kibbutzim children more likely to form multiple attachments from the start
What is a limitation of how attachments are measured?
Separation/stranger anxiety have to be inferred because we don’t know why baby is crying- measures may be too simplistic
How does behaviourism suggest attachments are formed?
Classical conditioning- association- (e.g. mother + food)
Operant conditioning- reinforcement + and - (e.g. give baby food = baby stop crying or crying = food)
How does SLT suggest attachments are formed?
Imitation- baby imitates behaviour of others
imitate parent’s affectionate behaviours, and parents reward appropriate behaviours/motivation (D+M)
What is the Tabula Rasa theory?
We are born a blank slate- we learn relationships rather than being born with them- “cupboard love” theory (we learn to love who feeds us)
What did Dollard and Miller study? (D+M)
Applied classical + operant conditioning to attachment formations. Emphasised importance of caregiver as provider of food
What is the classical conditioning example of attachment formation? (D+M)
food = happy baby, food + carer = happy baby, carer= happy baby
What is the operant conditioning example of attachment formation? (D+M)
+ reinforcement: baby cries= food
- reinforcement: food= baby stops crying
What else did Dollard and Miller suggest?
Attachment as secondary drive- hunger thought of as primary drive- innate biological motivator, attachment is a learned secondary drive as a result of association between caregiver and primary drive
What are the limitations of the learning theory of attachment?
counter evidence- Lorenz’s geese/Harlow’s monkeys, Schaffer + Emerson, oversimplified, learning theory based on animal studies (Skinner/Pavlov), reductionist
Why do we use animal studies?
When it would be unethical or impractical to carry out the same research on humans
Why do we study animals?
They breed faster, so effects of something through the generations are easier to see than in humans
What was the procedure of Lorenz’s experiment?
Randomly divided goose eggs into 2 groups, half hatched with mother, half hatched in incubator- first moving thing they saw was Lorenz
To see if imprinting had occurred, he marked 2 groups then put them together with both himself + mother present
What were the results of Lorenz’s experiment?
Incubator goslings followed Lorenz everywhere/showed no recognition of mother, control group followed mother
Lorenz identified a critical period when imprinting takes place (a few hrs in some species)
If no imprinting occurs- chicks do not attach to anyone
What was the aim of Lorenz’s research into sexual imprinting?
Noted initial imprinting long-lasting and irreversible, aimed to investigate relationship between imprinting and adult mate preferences
What was Lorenz’s experiment on sexual imprinting?
Found baby birds that imprinted on human showed courtship to humans, found peacock raised in reptile home (imprinted on tortoise) directed courtship to giant tortoises- concluded imprinting causes animal to choose mate which is the same as the one they imprinted on