attatchment Flashcards
define reciprocity
a description of how two people interact. Mother-infant interactions is reciprocal in that both infant and mother respond to each other’s signals and each elicits a response from the other.
define interactional synchrony
Mother and infant reflect both the actions and emotions of the other and do this in a co-ordinated way.
what is the purpose of reciprocity and interactional synchrony?
reciprocity= From birth babies and their mothers spend a lot of time intense and pleasurable interaction. Babies have periodic ‘alert phrases and signals and facial expressions that they are ready for interactions. Feldman and Eidelman showed how mothers typically pick up and respond to infant alertness around two thirds of time. From around three months this interactions tends to be increasingly frequent and involves close attention to each other’s verbal signals and facial expression -Feldman (2007)
Interactional synchrony= it takes place when mother and infant in such a way that their actions and emotions mirror the other. Meltzoff and Moore 1977 observed the beginnings of interactional synchrony in infants as young as two weeks old. It is believed that it is important for the development of mother-infant attachment as Isabella assessed 30 mothers and infants to assess the degree of the synchrony and the researchers assessed the quality of the mother attachment and they found that high levels of synchrony were associated with better quality of mother infant attachment.
what are the attachment figures?
Parent-infant attachment
Schaffer and Emerson found that the majority of babies did become attached to their mothers first and within a few weeks or months formed a secondary attachments to other family members including the father. 75% of the infants studied an attachment was formed with the father by the age of 18 months. As the infants protested when their fathers walked away.
The role of father
Grossman carried out a longitudinal study looking at both parents behaviour and its relationship to the quality of children’s attachment into their teens. Quality of infant attachment with mothers but not fathers was related to children’s attachment in adolescence suggesting that father attachment was less important. The quality of father’s play with infants was related to the quality of adolescent attachments. This suggests that fathers have a different role in attachment - one is more play and stimulation than nurturing.
Fathers as primary carers
This shows that when fathers do take on the role of being the main care-givers they adopt behaviours more typical for mothers. Field filmed four months old babies in face to face interaction with primary caregivers mothers, secondary caregiver fathers and primary caregiver infants. Primary caregivers fathers like mothers spent more time smiling, imitating infants than the secondary care giver fathers. This behaviour is important in building attachment with infant. So it seems that fathers can be the more nurturing attachment figure. So the attachment development is the level of responsiveness.
what is the evaluation for reciprocity and interactional synchrony?
limitation- it is hard to know what is happening when observing infants as the observations of interactions between mothers and infants have shown the same patterns of interactions but when observing all you can see are hand gestures and facial expressions and it is difficult to be certain based on these observations so it would be difficult to tell if the infant imitation of the adult is conscious or deliberate.
strength- observations of mother infant interactions are well controlled and it ensures all the fine detail of behaviour can be captured and analysed so it produced a good validity study and as the baby does not care that they are being observed it will not affect the controlled observations.
limitations- we are not told the purpose of synchrony and reciprocity as Feldman shows synchrony only describes behaviour that has occurred at the same time.
what is the evaluation for the attachment figure?
limitation- the research in the role of the father is confusing as different researchers are interested in different research questions. some psychologists are interested in the role of the father as a secondary attachment whereas others are concerned of a primary attachment some say fathers have a distinct role and some say the fathers can take a maternal role so it is too subjective and it cannot easily answer simple questions.
limitation - the study of Grossman found that fathers as secondary attachment figures had an important role in their child’s life but MacCallum and Golombok have found that children who grow up in a single parent, same sex household do not develop differently from straight families.
limitation- The fact that fathers do not become the primary attachment reflects the gender roles and how women are supposed to behave more nurturing so fathers do not act that way it could also be due to female oestrogen which creates a high level of nurturing nature.
define the stages of attachment
many developments theories identify a sequence of qualitatively different behaviours linked to specific ages. In some characteristics of the infants behaviours towards others change as the infant gets older.
define multiple attachments
attachments to two or more people. Most babies appear to develop multiple attachments once they have formed one true attachment to a main carer.
what was the key study of Schaffer and Emerson?
Aim: To investigate the formation of early attachments in particular the age at which they developed
what were the stages of attachment ?
stage 1) asocial stage-n first few weeks the baby is recognising and forming bonds with its carer. the babies show some preference for familiar adults in that those individuals find it easier to calm them and the babies are also happier when in the presence of other humans.
stage 2 ) indiscriminate attachment from 2-7 months babies display more observable social changes and they are drawn to people rather than objects and at this stage babies usually accept cuddles and comfort from any adult as they do not show separation or stranger anxiety.
stage 3) specific attachment= from around 7 months babies start to display anxiety towards strangers and gain separation anxiety as they have formed a specific attachment and is drawn to their primary attachment figure- the most interactive one and who responds to their signals.
stage 4) multiple attachments= After babies start to display behaviour towards one adult whom they are attached to they usually extend this attachment and they develop multiple attachments.
what is the evaluation for Schaffer and Emerson?
strength- it was carried it within the families homes and most of the observation were done by the parents during ordinary activities and reported to researchers later so the behaviour of the baby would not be affected by the presence of an observer so the babies behaved naturally - good external validity strength- it was carried out longitudinally so the same children were followed up and as they have better internal validity than cross- sectional designs and they do not have the confounding variables of individual differences. limitations- limited sample characteristics as all families were from the same district and social class so these results cannot be generalised to other cultures.
what is the evaluation of stages of attachment ?
limitations- the problem is that babies who are young have poor coordination and are immobile so it is difficult to make judgements based on their behaviour so the evidence is unreliable.
limitation- it is unclear how children form multiple attachments some research argues they only form attachments to one caregiver but others like Bowlby argue they can develop more attachment’s especially if they come from a collectivist household.
limitation - difficult to measure multiple attachments as we are not able to distinguish between a secondary attachment figure and a playmate.
define animal studies
studies carried out on non-human animal species rather than on humans either ethical or practical reasons as the researchers are interested in seeing results across more one generation.
what was Lorenz’s research about?
in the 20th century a number of ethologists had conducted an animal study of the relationships between infant animals and their mothers
imprinting = Lorenz first observed imprinting when he was a child and a neighbour gave him a newly hatched duckling that then followed him around.
procedure= Lorenz set up a classic experiment as he randomly divided goose eggs. Half the eggs were hatched with the mother goose in their natural environment. The other hatched in an incubator where the first moving object they
saw a Lorenz.
Findings= The incubator followed Lorenz everywhere but the control group hatched in the presence of their mother , followed her. When the two groups were mixed the control group to follow the mother and the experimental group followed Lorenz.
It shows bird species are mobile from birth to attach and follow the first moving object they see. He identified a critical period in which imprinted must take place it depends on the species it can be brief as a few hours after hatching. If imprinting does not occur within that time Lorenz found that chicks did not attach themselves to a mother figure.
what is sexual imprinting?
Lorenz investigated the relationship between and adult mate preferences. He observed that birds that imprinted on human would often later display courtship behaviour towards humans. In case study Lorenz described a peacock that had been reared in the reptile house of a zoo where the first moving objects the peacock saw after hatching were giant tortoise. As an adult this bird would only direct courtship behaviour towards giant tortoises. So he concluded he had undergone sexual imprinting.
what is the evaluation for imprinting?
limitation= Lorenz was interesting imprinting in birds. Some of the findings have influenced our understanding of human development, there is a problem in generalising from findings on birds to humans. Mammalian mothers show more emotional attachment to young than do birds and mammals may be able to form attachments at any time, albeit less easily than infancy. So it is not appropriate to try generalise any of Lorenz’s ideas to humans.
limitation- Researchers have criticised some of Lorenz’s conclusions as the idea of imprinting has a permanent effect on mating in behaviour , Guiton et al (1966) found that chickens imprinted on yellow washing gloves would try to mate with them as adults but that with experience they eventually learned to prefer mating with other chickens. This suggests that the impact of imprinting on mating behaviour is not as permanent as Lorenz believed.
what was Harlow research?
aim- Harlow carried out perhaps the most important animal research in terms of information our understanding of attachment. He worked with rhesus monkeys.
the importance of contact comfort
Harlow observed that new-borns kept alone in a bare cage usually died that they usually survived if given something soft like a cloth to cuddle.
procedure= Harlow tested the idea that soft objects serves some of the functions of a mother. In one of the experiments he reared 16 baby monkeys with two wire model ‘mothers’. In one condition milk was dispensed by the plain wire mother whereas in a second condition the milk was dispensed by the plain wire mother in a second condition the milk was dispensed by cloth -covered mother.
findings=it was found that the baby monkeys cuddled the soft objects in preference to the wire one and sought comfort from the cloth one when frightened regardless of which dispensed milk. This showed that ‘contact comfort’ was of more importance to the monkeys than food when it came to attachment behaviour.
what were the features of Harlow’s research?
-Maternally deprived monkey as adults
Harlow followed the monkeys who had been deprived of a ‘real mother’ into adulthood to observe maternal deprivation- seen as a permanent. they found severe consequences. The monkeys reared with wire mothers only were the most dysfunctional, those reared with a soft toy as a substitute did not develop normal social behaviour. They were shown to be more aggressive and less sociable than other monkeys and they bred less often than is typical for monkeys being unskilled at mating. A mothers some of the deprived monkeys neglected their young and others attacked their children in some cases they killed them.
The critical period for normal development
Harlow concluded that there was a critical period for this period- a mother figure had to be introduced to an infant monkey within 90 days for an attachment to form. After this attachment was impossible and early deprivation was irreversible.
what are the evaluations for Harlow’s research?
strength- it develop an understanding for mother-infant attatchment. He showed that attachment does not develop as the result of being fed by a mother figure but as a result of contact comfort. Harlow showed the importance of the equality of early relationships for later social development including the ability to hold down adult relationships for later social development including the ability to hold down adult relationships and successfully rear children.
Strength- Harlow’s research has had important applications in a range of practical contexts. it has helped social workers understand risk factors in child neglect and so abuse and intervene to prevent it. These findings are also important in the care of captive monkeys, we now understand the importance of proper attachment figures for baby monkeys in zoos and also in breeding programmes in a wild.
limitation- Harlow faced severe criticism for the ethics of his research. The monkeys suffered as a result of Harlow’s procedure. This species is considered similar enough to humans to be able to generalise findings which also means that their suffering was quite human like. Harlow was aware of the suffering was presumably quite human like. Harlow himself was aware of the suffering he caused and he referred to the iron maidens after as a medieval torture device.
define learning theory
a set of theories from the behaviourist approach to psychology that emphasise the role of learning in the acquisition of behaviour. Explanations for learning of behaviour include classical conditioning and operant conditioning.
learning theory in attachment
Dollard and Miller proposed that caregiver-infant attachment can be explained by learning theory. The approach is cupboard love approach as it emphasises the importance of the caregiver as a provider of food. it proposed that children learn to love whoever feeds them.
classical conditioning in attachment
it involves learning to associate two stimuli together so that we begin to respond to one in the same way as we respond to another. Food serves as an unconditioned stimulus and being fed gives us pleasure so it is an unconditioned response. A caregiver starts as a neutral stimulus and they produce a neural response as when the same person provides the food over time they become associated with ‘food’. When the baby sees this person there is an immediate expectation of food- when the baby sees this person there is an immediate expectation of food. The neutral stimulus has become a conditioned stimulus. Once conditioning has taken place the sight of the caregiver produces a conditioned response of pleasure.
operant conditioning = involves learning to repeat behaviour or not depending on its consequences. If a behaviour creates a pleasant consequence that behaviour is likely to be repeated again. This behaviour is being reinforced the same if a behaviour creates a negative response it will less likely be repeated. This shown by operant conditioning which when babies cry for comfort - an important behaviour when building attachment. Crying leads to a response to the caregiver for example feeding. When the caregiver gives the a correct response crying is reinforced . The baby then directs crying for comfort towards the caregiver for comfort towards the caregiver who responds with comforting ‘social suppressor’ behaviour. This reinforcement is a two way process. At the same times as the baby is reinforced for crying the caregiver receives negative reinforcement as the crying stops escaping from something unpleasant is reinforcing
Attachment as a secondary drive
Hunger is a primary drive - its innate biological motivator. We are motivated to eat in order to reduce the hunger drive. Sears suggested that as caregivers provide food the primary drive hunger becomes generalised to them. Attachment is thus a secondary drive learned by an association between the caregiver and the satisfaction of a primary drive.
what is the evaluation of learning theory and attachment?
limitation - a range of animal studies have shown that young animals do not always attach to those who feed them. Lorenz’s geese imprinted before they were fed and maintained these attachments regardless of who fed them. Harlow’s monkey attached to a soft surrogate in preference to a wire one that dispensed milk. so in both animal studies it is clear that feeding does not develop attachment so the same must be true for humans as they also believed that non- human animals and humans were equivalent.
limitation- research also shows that feeding is not an important factor in humans as Schaffer and Emerson’s study show many babies developed primary attachment to their biological mother even though other carers did most of the feeding. so it shows the learning theory is not accurate as feeding is shown not be a key element of attachment and there is no unconditioned stimulus or primary drive involved.
limitation - it ignores the factors associated with forming attachments as research in early infant care giver interactions show the quality of attachment is associated with factors like developing reciprocity and good levels of interactional synchrony. As studies have shown that the best quality attachments are with sensitive carers that pick up infant signals and respond appropriately. it is hard to develop these finding on cupboard love if attachment was developed by feeding as there would be no purpose for these complex interactions and we would not expect to find relationships between them and the quality of infant caregiver attachment.
define monotropic
a term used to describe Bowlby’s theory. the mono means ‘one’ and indicates that one particular attachment is different from all others and of central importance to the child’s development.
