Attachment (Paper 1) Flashcards
Caregiver-infant interactions
These are the behaviours shown between a caregiver (usually parent) and a child that helps attachments to be developed and maintained. There are two clear types of this:
Reciprocity
Where a infant responds to the actions of another person. With reciprocity the actions of one person (e.g. the primary caregiver) elicits a response from the other (e.g. the infant). This could be faces being pulled or hand actions.
Interactional synchrony
Where an infant mirrors the actions of another person, for example, their facial expressions and body movements- moving their body in rhythm with their carer.
Brazelton 1979
Reciprocity is shown in his frozen face study where if the parent stopped interacting with the child by pulling a straight face with not emotion then the child became distressed.
Melzoff and Moore 1977
Aim: To examine interactional synchrony in infants
Method: Used a controlled observation, an adult model displayed one of three facial expressions, childs expressions were filmed
Results: Clear association between the infants behaviour and adult model, later research found the same findings in 3 day infants
Conclusion: These findings suggest that interactional synchrony is innate
Schaffer’s stages of attachment
He believed that attachment in infants was split into stages from birth. There were 4 stages that he believed in:
Asocial stage
- This stage is birth to 6 weeks
- Don’t show any preference to humans and have similar,at responses to people and objects
Indiscriminate attachment stage
- 6 weeks to 6 months
- Preference for human company
- Can distinguish between familiar and unfamiliar faces
- Happy to let strangers look after them
Specific attachment
- 7 months and beyond
- Infants show a preference for a specific caregiver (in most cases mother)
- Display separation and stranger anxiety
Multiple attachment
- 9 months and beyond
- Attachment behaviour displayed towards many different people e.g. siblings, grandparents
- Stranger anxiety becomes less important
Schaffer and Emerson 1964 experiment on stages of attachment
Aim: To examine the formation of early attachments
Method: 60 babies from working class families in Glasgow, researchers observed the children and interviewed the mothers
Results: At 25-32 weeks, 50% of children showed separation anxiety, at 40 weeks, 80% of the children had formed specific attachments and 30% had formed multiple attachments
Conclusion: Supports Schaffer’s research for stages of attachment
Evaluation of Schaffer and Emerson experiment
+Ecological validity and mundane realism as interviewed in mothers homes and observed children in their everyday life
- Some infants may have developed earlier than others so there are individual differences
- Mothers may have given socially desirable answers
The role of the father
The role of the father was hardly considered in early attachment theories and research disregarded them as they saw the mother as the primary care giver. There are split idea on the role the father plays in attachment
Biological explanation for fathers role in attachment
- Some researchers argue men are not equipped to form an attachment. Some psychologists point to biological evidence for this
- The hormone oestrogen underlies caring behaviour in women and this hormone is not seen in men
- This could be a reason why men can’t form a close attachment
Different role of fathers
- Other researchers suggest that fathers do not take on a care giver role but infact provide a different role as a playmate
- This builds a different type of attachment
- Geiger 1996 suggests fathers are more likely to engage in stimulating activity which helps develop the child in different aspects
Sensitive responsiveness of fathers
-Finally, some researchers argue that fathers cant demonstrate sensitive responsiveness and respond to the needs of their children and therefore cant form a strong emotional tie or bond
Lone fathers
- Fathers without a mother figure are forced to form an primary attachment with their child but psychologists argue it is not the same as the attachment with mothers
- Lamb 1987 found that sole father care givers found it hard to detect their infants unhappiness
Animal studies
Animal studies have been conducted to provide controlled experiments to track the development of attachment in infants
Lorenz 1935 animal study
Aim: To investigate imprinting in baby geese
Method:
- Lorenz divided a clutch of goose eggs into two groups:
- One group was left with their natural mother
- Other group was placed in an incubator
- Lorenz made sure that when the eggs in the incubator hatched, he was the first moving object they saw. After this, he marked the two groups and returned them to their natural mother
Results: The geese that had hatched in the incubator continued to follow him, whilst those who had hatched naturally followed their mother
Conclusion: Geeslings are programmed to attach to the first moving object they see, highlighting the rapid formation of attachment in animals. This suggests that attachment is innate.
Harlow 1959 animal study
Aim: To investigate the nature of attachment in baby monkey
Method:
- 8 Rhesus Monkeys were placed in a cage with two surrogate mothers, one made of wire and the other made of cloth
- For half the monkeys the food was attached to the wire mother whereas, for the other half the food was attached to the cloth mother
Results: Harlow found that all the monkeys spent most of the time cuddled to the soft cloth monkey
Conclusion: This suggests that monkeys develop attachments based on contact comfort and not based off who feeds them
Evaluation of animal studies
+The studies enhance our understanding of how attachment works
+Monkeys are genetically and behaviourally very similar to humans
-The relationship between human and attachment and animal attachment is very different and the results would be unreliable as there is no evidence that humans and animals will for same attachments
-Unethical
-Long term effects were seen in the animals as geese and monkeys could not form an attachment to their real mothers
Learning theory of attachment
Learning theory is a nurtured base theory that suggests infants learn to became attached to their caregivers. Their are two theories attached to this: …
Classical conditioning
This occurs when a natural response to an environmental stimulus becomes associated with something else
- Before conditioning food is the UCS, which produces an UCR (hunger relief)
- Before conditioning the mother is the NS who produces no response
- During conditioning the baby associates the NS with UCS
- After conditioning, the mother becomes a CS who produces a CR and the baby forms a attachment
Operant conditioning
This is linked to drive reduction, an instinctive need that causes behavioural change. The baby feels hunger which is a negative drive, the caregiver feeds the baby which reduces the negative drive. The primary caregivers presence is positively reinforced by the reduction of hunger forming attachment between the baby and caregiver
