Attachment Flashcards
what is Reciprocity ?
how 2 people interact
both infant and mother respond to each others signals and elicit a response
mothers usually pick up on and respond to the infants 2/3 of the time ( Feldman and Eildman 2007)
Brazleton et al describes the interaction as a couples dance as each partner responds to each others moves
what is Interactional Synchrony and who are the researches behind it ?
mother and infant reflect both actions and emotions of the other in a coordinated way. Meltzoff and Moore observed interactional synchrony in children as young as 2 weeks old. An adult displayed one of 3 facial expressions or gestures. the child’s response was filmed and identified by independent observers . there was a link between adults gesture and babies actions.
Isabelle et al observed 30 mothers and assessed their level of synchrony. high levels of synchrony meant better quality of mother infant attachment
what are the advantages and disadvantages of caregiver-infant interactions?
- subjective as babies expression may have no meaning
- observations don’t tell us why there is reciprocity and interational synchrony
- it is socially sensitive as Isabelle et al’s study shows that mothers should not go to work
+ controlled observations
Parent- infant attachment
traditionally the mother
Schaffer and Emerson found what babied become attached to their mother first around 7 moths then secondary attachment a few weeks later. in 75% of the studies an attachment was made with the father by 18 months ( determined by baby showing separation anxiety from father)
Role of the father
Grossman carried out longitude study looking at both parents behaviour and attachment with child until their teens. The attachment with the mother was related to the child’s attachment during adolescent suggesting the father is less important . however, the quality of the fathers play with the child was related to their quality of attachment suggesting the fathers role is more to do with play and stimulation rather than nurture.
Father as primary care giver
evidence shows that fathers can adapt to the role of primary care giver if mother not present. Field filmed 4 moth old baby interact with primary mother, primary father , and secondary father. Primary fathers and mothers spent more time smiling , imitating and holding than the secondary father. therefore gender does not affect attachment.
advantages and disadvantages of attachment figures
- inconsistent findings as different researchers are interested in finding different things e.g. primary and secondary attachment. no studies actually tell us what the role of the father is.
-socially sensitive as suggests child might be at a disadvantage if mother goes back to work - children with fathers growing up are no difference showing similar role
+ biological explanation, woman have more oestrogen making them more nurturing
Schaffer and Emerson’s Study
investigated the aims of early attachment at the age which they develop emotional intensity and to whom they direct it at 60 babies (1 male and 29 female) from Glasgow working class families . they were visited to their homes every month for for the first year and again at 18 months. mothers asked if babies show any protest and tested separation and stranger anxiety. they found that between 25 and 32 months 50% of babies showed signs of separation anxiety . they showed reciprocity. BY age 40 weeks 80% of babies had specific attachment and 30% showed multiple attachment
Schaffer and Emerson evaluation
+good external validity as carried out in the homes
+longitudinal so good internal validity as children followed up so no confounding variables as same children used
- can’t be generalised
- doesn’t necessarily measure attachment as stranger and separation anxiety are only two components that make up attachment
Stage 1 of attachment
asocial stage
0 - 6 weeks
recognising and forming bonds with carer but behaviours towards human and non-human objects are similar.
baby shows preference to familiar people and can calm down quickly with them
baby happier in the presence of humans
Stage 2 of attachment
indiscriminate stage
6 weeks -7 months
child shows preference to humans rather than inanimate objects. they recognise and prefer similar objects
they accept comfort from any adult
do not show stranger of separation anxiety
Stage 3 of attachment
specific attachment
around 7 - 11 months
infant starts to show stranger anxiety and separation anxiety. the child has formed a specific attachment with the primary caregiver
Stage 4 of attachment
multiple attachments
a month after forming specific attachments
child forms secondary attachment
evaluation of sages of development
- problems with asocial stage as baby has no coordination and is immobile so judgements on behaviour can not be made when this young
- problems with multiple attachments as not clear when baby forms second attachment as different in collectivist cultures
- the stage theory suggests that development of attachment is not flexible
+application as gives a mothers point of view of their child’s progress in attachment
Lorenz’s Research
Lorenz randomly divided goose eggs. Half of them hatched in a natural environment with their mother. The others hatched in an incubator and the first moving thing they saw was Lorenz.
Incubator group followed Lorenz and the control group followed the mother duck. This was imprinting whereby bird species that are mobile from birth attach to and follow the first moving object they see. Lorenz identified a critical period in which imprinting needs to take place this can be as brief as a few hours after hatching. if they did not form an attachment in this time Lorenz found that the chicks did not attach themselves to a mother figure
Evaluation of Lorenz’s research
- research may not generalise to other animals let alone humans
- observations can be questioned. E.g. the idea that imprinting has a permanent effect on mating behaviour. Guiton et al found that some chickens imprinted on yellow washing up gloves would try and mate with them as well as adults. But with experience they learnt they preferred to mate with other chickens. This suggests that the impact of imprinting on mating behaviour is not permanent as Lorenz believed.
sexual imprinting
Lorenz investigate the relationship between imprinting and adult mate preference. He observed that birds that imprinted on humans will later show courtship behaviour towards the humans. E.g. in a case study Lorenz described a peacock that had been reared in a retile house at a zoo. The first thing the peacock saw when born as a giant tortoise. As an adult the peacock showed courtship behaviour toward the giant tortoise therefore had undergone sexual imprinting.
Harlow’s Research evaluation
-highly unethical
+ real life application for social workers as they understand the effects of neglect and abuse
+can generalise better to humans that Lorenz’s study of goose
Harlow’s research
Harlow tested the idea that soft object serves some of the functions of a mother. In one experiment he reared 16 baby monkeys with two wire model mothers. In one condition milk was dispensed from the plain wire mother whereas in the second condition milk was dispensed from the cloth covered mother.
it was found that the monkeys cuddled and sought comfort when frightened from the cloth mother over the wire mother even when the wire mother dispensed milk. This shows that contact comfort is more important to monkeys than food when it came to attachment behaviour.
what is the importance of comfort contact
Harlow observed that new-born kept alone in a bare cage usually died but survived if they had something soft like a cloth
Maternally deprived monkeys as adults (Harlow)
Harlow followed the monkeys into adult hood to see if the effects of not having a real mother, being maternally deprived had any permanent effects. The researchers found sever consequences. The monkeys reared by only the wire mother were the most dysfunctional even those reared with the cloth mother did not develop normal social behaviour. They were more aggressive less sociable and bred less often than other monkeys (as they were unskilled at mating). As mothers the deprived monkeys neglected their children and sometimes attacked their children even killing them
the critical period for normal development (Harlow)
A mother had to be introduced to the infant monkey within 90 days for an attachment to form. After this time attachment was impossible and the damage done by early deprivation became irreversible
learning theory
behaviourist approach that emphasises the role of learning in the acquisition of behaviour e.g. classical and operant conditioning.
Dollard and Miller
proposed that caregiver-infant attachment can be explained by the learning theory. Their approach is often referred to as ‘the cupboard of love’ approach as it emphasise the importance of the caregiver being the provider of food. They proposed that children love to learn whoever gives them food.
classical conditioning
involves learning to associate two stimuli together so the response you give to one will also be given for the other. Food was the UCS, and the pleasure from the food is the UCR. The caregiver is the neutral stimulus and over time they will be associated with food and so become a conditioned stimulus. After conditioning if the caregiver is seen the infant will produce a conditioned response of pleasure.
operant conditioning
involves learning to repeat a behaviour, or not depending on the consequences. If it is a pleasant consequence the behaviour is more likely to be repeated and so the behaviour is reinforced. This explains why babies cry for comfort. Crying leads to a response form the caregiver e.g. food and comfort, as long as the caregiver gives the right response (food and ‘social suppressor’) the crying is reinforced.
At the same time the caregiver receives negative reinforcement because the crying stops escaping from something unpleasant is reinforcing.
This interplay of mutual reinforcement strengthens the attachment.
explain why Attachment is a secondary drive
hunger is a primary drive; it’s an innate biological motivator as we are motivated to eat to reduce hunger. Sears et al suggested that as caregivers provide food, the primary drive of hunger becomes generalised to them and so attachment is a secondary drive learned by the association between the caregiver and the satisfaction of the primary drive.
evaluation of learning theory of attachment
-counter evidence as lorenz used imprinting which maintained the attachment
-can’ be generalised
+ evidence for we do learn by association eg pavlovs dog
- does not take into account that other things form attachment eg reciprocity and interactional synchrony
Bowlby’s monotropic theory
Bowlby rejected the learning theory of attachment because ‘if it were true an infant of 2years old should take readily to whoever feeds them and this is not the case’. Instead he looked at the studies of Lorenz and Harlow and proposed an evolutionary explanation: attachment is an innate system that gave us a survival advantage. Imprinting and attachment evolved they ensure that young animals stay close to their caregiver and this protects them from hazards. Millions of years ago this might have been wild animals, today it is traffic and electricity.
monotropy
he placed emphasis on a child’s attachment to one particular caregiver and believed that this attachment is different and more important than others. Bowlby called this person the mother but it did not need to be the baby’s actual mother. The more time the baby spent with the mother the better.
The law of continuity
that the more predictable and constant the child’s care the better the quality of attachment.
