Attachment. Flashcards
What are the two forms of caregiver-infant interaction?
Reciprocity and interactional synchrony.
What is reciprocity? Example.
This is a form of interaction between caregiver and the infant. Both parties are able to produce a response from the other. Smiling is an example when a smile occurs in the infant, it triggers a smile in the caregiver and vice versa.
Evaluation of reciprocity.
It involves the child’s physical, social and cognitive development. It becomes the basis for development of trust or mistrust. It shows how the child will relate to the world, learn, and form relationships throughout life.
What is interactional synchrony?
Interactional synchrony is where an infant mirrors the actions of another person, for example, their facial expressions and body movements - moving their body in tune with the rhythm of their carer.
Evaluation of interactional synchrony?
– What is being observed is merely hand movements or changes in expression. It is extremely difficult to be certain, based on these observations, what is taking place from the infant’s perspective. Is, for example, the infant’s imitation of adult signals conscious and deliberate?
This means that we cannot really know for certain that behaviors seen in mother-infant interaction have a special meaning.
+ Observations of mother-infant interactions are generally well-controlled procedures, with both mother and infant being filmed, often from multiple angles. This ensures that very fine details of behavior can be recorded and later analysed.
What did Shaffer and Emerson do?
They studied 60 infants from Glasgow at monthly intervals for the first 18 months of their life. This was a longitudinal study. They studied the child’s interactions with other people.
What did Shaffer and Emerson develope due to their findings?
They found the four stages of attachment as an infant’s age increases.
- ASOCIAL STAGE – 0-6 weeks.
- INDISCRIMINATE ATTACHMENT – 6 weeks to 7 months.
- SPECIFIC ATTACHMENT – 7 to 9 months.
- MULTIPLE ATTACHMENTS – 10 months +
Evaluation of Shaffer and Emerson.
\+ has a high ecological validity as it is a field observation and thus the behaviour of the child becomes more accurate due to the natural setting. -- biased sample as it was done in the 1960s from a working-class background and thus cannot be generalised - also has a western bias.
Explain the role of the Father in attachment.
There is now an expectation in western cultures that fathers should play a greater role in bringing up children than was previously the case. Also, the number of mothers working full time has increased in recent decades, and this has also led to fathers having a more active role.
What is a difference between a mother and father in attachment and when is a child more likely to need their father or mother?
Mothers usually adopt a more caregiving and nurturing role compared to the father.
Whereas fathers adopt a more play-mate role than mothers. - more likely to encourage risk-taking behaviour.
Most infants prefer contact with their father when in a positive emotional state and wanting to play. In contrast most infants prefer contact with their mother when they are distressed and need comforting.
Evaluation of the role of the father in attachment.
Numerous factors effect the father’s role and the impact he has on his child’s emotional development.
- cultural factors – until recently father’s were not meant to have an active role in their child’s development.
- social policy – in the UK not until last year father’s were not allowed to take paternity leave but now they are.
- Biological factors – men seem to lack emotional sensitivity when it comes to children, could be due to the lack of oestrogen.
What are the two animal studies for attachment?
Lorenz – imprinting and goslings
Harlow – ‘cupboard love vs comfort’
Explain Harlow’s rhesus monkey experiment procedure.
The procedure:
16 monkeys were separated from their mother’s at birth.
They were then placed in cages with access to two surrogate ‘mother’s’.
One mother was made of wire but had a feeding bottle attached; the other was covered with a cosy cloth but NO feeding bottle.
What did Harlow find out from his study?
He found that the monkeys spent most of their time with the cloth-covered monkey as they preferred comfort!
What were the long-lasting effects on Harlow’s monkeys? Part of the evaluation as well.
There were long-lasting effects on the monkeys (critical period):
- They were much more timid.
- They didn’t know how to act with other monkeys.
- They were easily bullied and wouldn’t stand up for themselves.
- They had difficulty with mating.
- The females were inadequate mothers.
Evaluation of Harlows research.
– There were long-lasting abnormal effects on the monkeys which harmed their future offspring. Once the females became parents they became neurotic - smashed their infants face into the ground.
+ He proved that comfort was more desired than ‘cupboard love’
– confounding variable( an outside influence that changes the accuracy of the DV.) - wire mothers had a different face that the comfort one.
– The whole study generalises the attachment of monkeys to humans which cannot be justified. It was also an ethical nightmare!
+ he did inspire the work of Bowlby though.
Explain Lorenz’ gosling imprinting experiment.
The Procedure:
He incubated half of the goose eggs, and the other half went back to a goose mother.
When the young goslings were hatching, Lorenz imitated a goose and became the first thing they heard and saw.
They began to follow Lorenz as the ‘mother goose’.
To ensure imprinting had occurred Lorenz put all the goslings together under an upturned box and allowed them to mix. When the box was removed the two groups separated to go to their respective ‘mothers’ - half to the goose, and half to Lorenz.
What did Lorenz find out from his study?
He found that geese follow the first moving thing they see during the critical period ( 12-17 hours after hatching)
This imprinting process suggests that attachment is innate and programmed genetically.
Evaluation of Lorenz’ study.
– Like Harlow, there were long-lasting effects on the goslings which came in the form of an irreversible sexual nature.
– Lorenz believed that imprinting could not be reversed, however modern research proves that it may be reversible -
+ Guiton et al (1966) disagreed with the irreversible nature of imprinting. They imprinted newly hatched chickens onto yellow rubber gloves. In later life, just as the theory predicts, they did indeed try to mate with the gloves. However, when they had chance to spend time with others of their own species, they developed a ‘taste’ for mating with these instead.
What are the two explanations of attachment?
Learning theory(classical and operant) Bowlby's monotropic theory.
Describe the learning theory for attachment.
This theory propses that all behaviours are learned rather than inherited.
What is classical conditioning( part of the learning theory)? How it links to attachment.
A new conditioned response is learned through association between a neutral stimulus ( mother) and an unconditioned stimulus (food). The mother becomes the conditioned stimulus.
