Attachment - Caregiver-Infant Interactions

Question 2

What is an attachment?

Answer 2

A close two-way emotional bond between 2 individuals, where each sees the other as essential for their own emotional security

Question 3

What are the 3 ways of recognising an attachment?

Answer 3

Proximity

Secure-base behaviour

Separation anxiety

Question 4

What is separation anxiety?

Answer 4

The distress a person feels when an attachment figure leaves their prescence

Question 5

What is secure-base behaviour?

Answer 5

the tendency to make regular contact with an attachment figure - they are a base from which to explore

Question 6

What is a caregiver?

Answer 6

Any person who provides for a child

Question 7

What stage of a child’s life does an infant refer to?

Answer 7

first year or two

Question 8

What is the importance of caregiver-infant interactions?

Answer 8

they are important for the child’s social development and forms the basis of the attachment between the two

Question 9

What is reciprocy in caregiver-infant interactions?

Answer 9

a two way process between a caregiver and the infant where each party responds to the other’s signals to sustain the interaction

Question 10

What feature of reciprocy is important for laying the foundations for later attachment?

Answer 10

the infant’s actions are regular, allowing the caregiver to anticipate their behaviour and respond appropriately.

this sensitivity lays the foundation for later attachment

Question 11

What is interactional synchrony?

Answer 11

When a caregiver and infant can mirror each other’s actions

Question 12

What is the procedure for the still face experiment?

Answer 12

caregiver interacts with infant

caregiver then stops interacting and has a ‘still face’

caregiver interacts normally again

Question 13

What is the dependent variable in the still face experiment?

Answer 13

the behaviour of the infant:

mouth opening, termination of mouth opening

tongue protusion, termination of tongue protusion etc

Question 14

What are some strengths of the still face experiment?

Answer 14

babies cannot show demand characteristics or social desirability bias

applications - mothers returning to work too soon after having a child could restrict interactional synchrony

test-retest reliability

Question 15

What are some weaknesses of the still face experiment?

Answer 15

can’t find out why infants do certain behaviours as they can’t explain for themselves

infant might not be imitating but repeating behaviours for a reward

Question 16

What was the aim of Schaffer and Emerson’s experiment?

Answer 16

to investigate attachment formation between infants and caregiver

Question 17

What was the method of Schaffer and Emerson’s experiment?

Answer 17

separation anxiety measured by asking parents what protest behaviours babies did

stranger anxiety measured by watching response to unfamiliar adults

Question 18

What were the findings of Schaffer and Emerson’s experiment?

Answer 18

between 25 and 30 weeks - 50% had separation anxiety towards a specific adult

by 40 weeks - 80% had specific attachments and 30% had multiple

Question 19

What are the 4 attachment stages outlined by Schaffer and Emerson?

Answer 19

Indiscriminant attachment

Beginnings of attachment

Discriminant attachment

Multiple attachments

Question 20

What is an indiscriminant attachment?

Answer 20

no preference for any objects or people

preference for a social stimuli

Question 21

What is the beginnings of attachment stage?

Answer 21

can distinguish familiar people from strangers

no stranger anxiety

Question 22

What is a discriminant attachment?

Answer 22

separation anxiety begins

preference for primary attachment figure

Question 23

What is the multiple attachments stage?

Answer 23

discriminant attachments formed with multiple people

Question 24

What are some weaknesses of Schaffer and Emerson’s experiment?

Answer 24

sample bias - all babies from Glasgow and same socio-economic status, leads to cultural bias

historical bias - done in 1964, role of mothers very different now

self report techniques - social desirability bias

determinist - assumes all babies attach the same

uses babies - they can’t explain their behaviour themselves

Question 25

What are some strengths of Schaffer and Emerson’s experiment?

Answer 25

uses babies - they don’t know/care that they’re being watched, no social desirability bias

longitudinal study - lots of data for each participant, internal validity