Attachment Key Terms Flashcards
What is reciprocity?
It is a description of how two people interact.
When both mother and infant respond to each other’s signals and gets a response from the each other back.
What is intersectional synchrony?
It is when mother and infant reflect both actions and emotions of the other person and do this in a synchronised way.
What are the stages of attachment?
It is a sequence of qualitatively different behaviours linked to specific ages.
During the stages some characteristics of the infants behaviour towards others changes as the infant gets older.
The stages include:
- Asocial stage.
- Indiscriminate attachment stage.
- Specific attachment stage.
- Multiple attachments stage.
What are multiple attachments?
It is an attachment to two or more people.
Most babies develop multiple attachments once they have formed one true attachment to the main carer.
What are animal studies?
They are studies carried out on non-human animal species rather than on humans, either for ethical or practical reasons.
Practical reason - animals bread faster and researchers are interested in seeing results across more than one generation of animals.
What is the learning theory?
It is a set of theories from the behaviourist approach that emphasise the role of learning.
The two explanations are:
- classical conditioning.
- operant conditioning.
What does monotropic mean?
It is a term used to describe Bowlby’s theory.
It indicates that one particular attachment is different from all the others and is important to the child’s development.
What are the internal working models?
They are the mental representations of our attachment to our primary caregiver.
That affect future relationships because they carry our perception of what relationships are like.
What is the critical period?
It is the time you have for an attachment to form if it is to form at all.
Lorenz and Harlow noted that attachment in birds and monkeys had critical periods.
Bowlby extended the idea to humans saying that humans have a sensitive period, after which it will be more difficult to form an attachment.
What is the strange situation?
It is a controlled observation designed to test attachment security.
Infants are assessed on their response to:
- playing in an unfamiliar room.
- being left alone.
- being left with a stranger.
- being reunited with a caregiver.
What is secure attachment?
It is thought of as the most desirable attachment type and is associated with physiologically healthy outcomes.
In the strange situation it’s shown by:
- moderate stranger and separation anxiety.
- ease of comfort at reunion.
What is insecure-avoidant attachment?
It is an attachment characterised by low anxiety but weak attachment.
In the strange situation it is shown by:
- low stranger and separation anxiety.
- little response to reunion (an avoidance of the caregiver).
What is insecure-resistant attachment?
It is an attachment characterised by strong attachment and high anxiety.
In the strange situation it is shown by:
- high levels of stranger and separation anxiety.
- resistance to be comforted at reunion.
What are cultural variations?
They are the differences in norms and values that exist between people in different groups.
What is maternal deprivation?
It is the emotional and intellectual consequences of separation between a child and his/her mother or mother substitute.
Bowlby proposed that continuous care from a mother is essential to normal psychological development.
Prolonged separation from a mother causes serious damage to emotional and intellectual development.
