Attachment- Introduction To Attachment: Caregiver-infant Interaction And Attachment Figures

Question 1

What is involved in caregiver-infant interaction?

Answer 1

• babies have alert phases
• interactional synchrony= mirroring
• reciprocity
• baby is active
• caregiver-infant interaction is all about reciprocity vs interactional synchrony I.e. do babies engage in a sort of ‘conversation’ with their caregiver or do they imitate them?

Question 2

Discuss ‘babies have alert phases’

Answer 2

From birth, babies and their mothers (or carers) spend a lot of time in intense and pleasurable interaction. Babies have periodic ‘alert phases’ and signal they are ready for interaction which mothers respond to 2/3 of the time (Feldman and Eidleman)

Question 3

What is interactional synchrony? Who observe interactional synchrony in infants as young as 2 weeks old?

Answer 3

• Mother and infant reflect both the actions and emotions of the other and do this in a co-ordinated (synchronised) way- their actions and emotions mirror each other
• Meltzof and Moore (1977) observed the beginnings of interactional synchrony in infants as young as 2 week old- an adult displayed 1 of 3 facial gestures or 1 of 3 distinctive gestures and the child’s response was filmed. An association was found between the expression/gesture and the action of the child

Question 4

Important for the development of attachment, high synchrony=

Answer 4

Higher quality attachment- it is believed that interactional synchrony is important for the development of mother-infant attachment. Synchrony provides the necessary foundation for the mother and infant connection which can be built upon in subsequent years

Question 5

What is a study that supports higher interactional synchrony= higher quality attachment?

Answer 5

Isabella et al (1989) observed 20 mothers and infants together and assessed the degree of synchrony and the quality of mother-infant attachment. They found that high levels of synchrony were associated with better quality mother-infant attachment e.g. the emotional intensity of the relationship

Question 6

Discuss reciprocity = mother-infant interaction

Answer 6

Reciprocity is a description of how two people interact. Mother-infant interaction is reciprocal in that both the infant and mother respond to each other’s signals (verbal signals and facial expressions) and each elicits a response from each other, like a conversation; from around 3 months this interaction tends to be increasingly frequent

Question 7

Discuss ‘baby is active’

Answer 7

Traditional views of childhood have seen the baby in a passive role, receiving care from an adult. However, it seems the baby takes an active role- both mother and child can initiate interactions and they appear to take turns in doing so

Question 8

Define attachment

Answer 8

An emotional, reciprocal bond between an infant and a primary caregiver that endures over time and leads to certain behaviours such as clinging and proximity seeking- it ultimately serves the function of protecting an infant

Question 9

What are the evaluation points for caregiver-infant interactions?

Answer 9

❌ hard to know what is happening when observing infants- many studies involving interactions between mothers and infants have shown the same patterns on interactions, however 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 we cannot really know for certain if behaviours seen in mother-infant interactions have a special meaning

✅ research involves well-controlled procedures- observations of mother-infant interaction are usually filmed, often from multiple angles, ensuring that very fine details of behaviour can be recorded and later analysed. Furthermore, babies are unaware they’re being filmed so their behaviour doesn’t change in response to controlled observation (demand characteristics), which is generally the problem for observational research - this is a strength as good internal validity

❌ observations don’t tell us the purpose of interactional synchrony and reciprocity- Feldman points out that interactional synchrony (and by implication reciprocity) simply describe behaviours that occur at the same time and so doesn’t tell us what their value is or what the infant is learning. However, there is some evidence that reciprocity and interactional synchrony are helpful in the development of mother-infant attachment (Isabella et al)

❌ research into mother-infant interaction is socially sensitive- this is because it suggests that children may be disadvantaged by particular child-rearing practices. In particular, mothers who return to work shortly after a child is born restrict the opportunities for achieving interactional synchrony which is important for developing infant-caregiver attachment = possible suggests that mothers shouldn’t return to work so soon and so has socially sensitive implications

✅ potential value to society- the identification of interactional synchrony as an important foundation in the formation of high quality attachment, for example, could help psychologists to develop interventions to improve mother-infant attachments- Crotwell et al used a 10 minute parent-child interaction therapy (PCIT) with 20 low income mothers and their pre-school infants and compared them to a control group. The group who had the very brief PCIT intervention improved their interactional synchrony whereas the control group did not. The findings suggest that research on interactional synchrony could lead to valuable methods for improving and developing mother-infant attachments (particularly in at-risk groups)

Question 10

Define primary attachment

Answer 10

The person who has formed the closest bond with a child, demonstrated by the intensity of the relationship (usually the child’s biological mother but other people can fulfil the role)

Question 11

Babies mainly form primary attachments with

Answer 11

Mothers- Schaffer and Emerson (1964) found that the majority of babies became attached to their mother first and this happens around the age of 7 months- in only 3% of cases the father was the first sole object of attachment, but 27% of them were the joint first object

Question 12

Define secondary attachment

Answer 12

The closest emotional bond is with the primary attachment figure; additional support is available from secondary attachment figures who provide an emotional safety net

Question 13

What % did Schaffer and Emerson former secondary attachments with their fathers?

Answer 13

75%- Within a few weeks, or months, babies form secondary attachments to other family members, including the father. In 75% of infants studied by Schaffer and Emerson an attachment was formed with the father by the age of 18 months; this was determined by the fact the infants protested when their fathers walked away- a sign of attachment

Question 14

Who found that adolescent attachment most related to mothers?

Answer 14

Grossmann carried out a longitudinal study looking at parents’ behaviour and its relationship to the quality of children’s attachment into their teens- this research suggested that the father attachment was less important to the attachment type of teenagers

Question 15

What is important from fathers as secondary attachment figures, in relation to children’s attachment?

Answer 15

Father’s play- the quality of fathers’ play with infants was related to children’s attachment. This suggests fathers have a different role in attachment, one that is more to do with play and stimulation, and less to do with nurturing (Grossman)

Question 16

Fathers can be primary care givers- there is some evidence to suggest that when fathers do take on the role of being the main caregiver, they adopt behaviours more typical of

Answer 16

Mothers- Tiffany Field filmed 4 month old babies and found that primary caregiver fathers, like mothers, spent more time smiling, imitating and holding infants than secondary caregiver fathers

Question 17

Explain why ultimately though, level of response, not gender is what matters for forming attachment

Answer 17

Smiling, imitating and holding infants are behaviours that appear to be important in building an attachment with an infant; these can be performed by men or women. So it seems the father can be the more nurturing attachment figure- the key to attachment relationship is the level of responsiveness, not the gender of the parent

Question 18

What are the evaluation points for attachment figures?

Answer 18

❌ research into the role of fathers in attachment is confusing because different researchers are interested in different research questions- on the one hand, some psychologists are interested in understanding the role of the father as secondary attachment figures, whereas others are more concerned with the father as primary attachment figure. The former have tended to see fathers behaving differently from mothers and having a distinct role. The latter have tended to find that fathers can take on a ‘maternal’ role. This is a problem because the answer provided by psychologists is affected by the initial research question, which make it difficult to come to conclusive truth

❌ limitation of the research is that social biases prevent objective observation of fathers’ behaviour. It is difficult to analyse the interaction between fathers and their infants without the influence of preconceptions about how fathers behave. These stereotypes such as as fathers being rougher in their play and stricter etc, may cause unintentional observer bias in the researcher where observers ‘see’ what they would expect rather than the actual reality. As a result, conclusions on the role of father in attachment are hard to disentangle from social biases of their role SO inter-observer reliability needed

❌ although fathers can become the primary attachment figures, the question of why they generally don’t remains unanswered- the fact that fathers don’t tend to become the primary attachment figure could simply be the result of traditional gender roles, in which women are expected to be more nurturing and caring than men. Therefore, fathers simply don’t feel they should act in a nurturing way. On the other hand, it could be the female hormones such as oestrogen create higher levels of nurturing and therefore women are biologically predisposed to becoming the primary attachment figure…BUT DETERMINISTIC

❌ research has important economic implications- mothers feel pressured to stay at home because of research that says mothers are vital for healthy development. In some families, this may not be economically the best solution for them or our society in general. In contrast, this research may be of comfort to mothers who feel they have to make a hard choice about not returning to work