Attatchment Flashcards
What is attachment
an emotional tie or bond between two people, usually a primary caregiver and a child.
The relationship is reciprocal (shared), which means that it is a two-way relationship
Why care givers and Inca to are subjects of research
they provide an insight into the type and nature of attachment.
Reciprocity
when an infant responds to the actions of another person in a form or turn-taking. With reciprocity, the actions of one person (i.e. the primary caregiver) elicits a response from the other (i.e. the infant
Brezelton et al 1975
describe this interaction (reciprocity)as a ‘dance’ because when a couple dance together they each respond to one another’s movements and rhy
reciprocity as a caregiver– infant interaction
Where the interaction between both individuals flows back and forth
Feldman 2007
reciprocity increases in frequency as the infant and caregiver pay increasing attention to each other’s verbal and facial communications
What happens when caregiver pays attention to infants behaviour
Lay the strong foundations for attachment to develop later between the caregiver and infant.
Interactional synchronicity
When infants mirror the actions or emotions of another person
Example of interactional synchronicity
Facial expressions
Copying adults behaviour
Interactional synchronicity with care giver and infant
child will move their body or carry out the same act as their caregiver simultaneously and the two are said to be synchronized (in ‘sync’)
How babies brains develop
Neurons number increases connections increases as time goes by from few weeks geststation and to 2 years
Who studied synchronicity in 1983
Meltzoff and Moore
What did meltzoff and Moore propose
some primitive capacity for matching the acts of others (Meltzoff & Moore, 1977, 1983a). Such an ability would be an important building block for subsequent social and cognitive development.
They claim that intentional interaction is innate.
Aim of meltzoff and moore
To examine Interactional synchronicity in infants they wanted to find out if these interactions were innate
Methods of meltzoff and moore
Using a controlled observation, an adult model displayed one of three facial expressions, or a hand gesture. To start with, the child had a dummy placed in his/her mouth to prevent a facial response. Following the display from the adult model, the dummy was removed and the child’s expressions were filmed.
Results of meltzoff and moore
There was a clear association between the infants’ behaviour and that of the adult model.
Later research by Meltzoff and Moore (1983) found the same findings in three day old infants
Conclusions of meltzoff and moore
These findings suggest that Interactional synchrony is innate and reduces the strength of any claim that imitative behaviour is learned
Evaluate points of meltzoff psychology research
Methodological problems with Meltzoff’s research.
2. Recent research found that only secure attachment engage in
interactional synchrony
3. Lack of reliability
Methodological problems of meltzoff and Moore peel
P: There are methodological problems with studying interactional synchrony using observational methods.
E: There is the possibility of observer bias where the .
E: To addres should be used to examine the inter- of the observations. Recent research by Koepke et al. (1983) failed to replicate the findings of Meltzoff and Moore.
L: This lack of research support suggests that the results of Meltzoff and Moore are unreliable and more research is required to validate their findings
Kaitz et al
found that there are certain behaviours that are innate. For example, they found that tongue protrusion may be a prepackaged motor programme that simply is released by the adult’s behaviour. This means that it has an intentional
Criticism of meltzoff and Moore
only securely attached infants engage in interactional synchrony.
Peel for meltzoff criticism
E: Isabella et al. (1989) found that the more securely attached the infant, the greater the level of interactional sync hrony.
E:
interactional and that Meltzoff and Moore’s original findings may have overlooked individual differences which could be a mediating factor.
L: Therefore, this is a limitation because it
This suggests that not all children engage in
synchrony
may be that
attachment type
is what
causes interaction
rather than being
innate as Meltzoff and Moore claimed.
Isabella et al
Isabella et al. (1989) found that the more securely attached the infant, the greater the level of interactional sync hrony.
E:
interactional and that Meltzoff and Moore’s original findings may have overlooked individual differences which could be a mediating factor.
Who researches stages of attachment
Schaefer and Emerson
Aim of eshaeffer and Emerson
account of how attachment
behaviours change as a baby gets older. They proposed that there
four identifiable stages
Four stages of attachment
Asocial
Indiscriminate attatchments
Discriminate attatchment
Multiple attatchment
Asocial age
Birth to two months
Indiscriminate attatchments age
Two to six months
Discriminate specific attatchment
Seven to twelve minthd
Multiple attatchments age
Ome year onwards
Description of asocial
An infant shows similar responses to objects and peopel
Indiscriminate attatchments descriptions
An infant now shows a preference for human company over non- human company
Specific attatchment description
An infant shows a preference for one caregiver
Stranger anxiety
Multiple attatchments descrimjntstion
Attatchment behaviours are now displayed towards several different people
Results of Schaefer and Emerson
5 months-50% showed sep anxiety
10 months. 80% discriminate attatchment 30% started to form multiple attatchments
Strength of Schaefer and emmerson
One strength of Shaffer and Emerson’s research is that it has high external validity (ecological validity)
E: Shaffer and Emerson conducted the observations in each child’s own home which means that the children and parents were more likely to act naturally.
E: This suggests that the behaviours observed such as separation anxiety and forming an attachment in the first year of age happened in a real-life environment.
L: Therefore, the results are likely to apply to other children from a similar demographic in their own homes which increases the ecological validity of the findings.
Schaefer and emmerson lacks population validity
Traditional role of father
Limited
as fathers would go to work to provide resources whilst the mothers stayed home and took care of the children, in recent times the role of the father has significantly changed.
biological evidence of the role of the father
hormone oestrogen underlies caring behaviour in women and the lack of oestrogen in men is why they are unable to form a close attachment.
men are simply not equipped to form an attatchment
Fields 1978
filmed 4-month-old babies in face-to-face interaction with primary caregiver mothers, secondary caregiver fathers and primary caregiver fathers. Primary caregiver fathers, like mothers, spent more time smiling, imitating and holding infants than the secondary caregiver fathers. This behaviour appears to be important in building an attachment with the infant. It seems that fathers can be the more . The key to the attachment is responsiveness not gender
Grossman proposed
Fathers do not take the role of a care giver but more of a playmate
Grossman 2002
Longitudinal study
parents’ behaviour and its relationship to the attachment to the quality of the children’s attachment into their teens.
Quality of infant attachment with mothers but not fathers was related to children’s attachment in adolescents suggesting that father attachment was less important. However, the quality of the fathers’ play with infants have a different role in attachment one that is more to do with play and stimulation, and less to do with nurturing.
Evaluation points of the role of the father
There is research evidence that provides support for the role of the father as a ‘playmate’ rather than primary caregiver.
Research evidence suggests that fathers are not as equipped as mothers to provide a sensitive and nurturing attatchment
Research suggests that fathers can form secure attachments with their children if they are in an intimate marriage
A weakness of research into attachment figures is that there are inconsistent findings as to the role of the father in attachment
Schaeffer and Emerson 1964
found that the majority of babies did become attached to their mothers’ first primary attachment (around 7 months) and within a few weeks or months formed secondary attachments to other family members including the father. In 75% of the infants studied an attachment was formed with the father by the age of 18 months. This was determined by the fact that the infants protested when their fathers walked away a sign of attachment
Hrdy 1999
found that fathers were less able to detect low levels of infant distress, in comparison to mothers.
E: These results appear to support the biological explanation that the lack of oestrogen in men means that fathers are not equipped innately to form close attachments with their children.
L This suggests that the role of the father is, to some extent, biologically determined and that a father’s role is restricted because of their makeup. This provides further evidence that fathers are not able to provide a sensitive and nurturing type of attachment, as they are unable to detect stress in their children.
Belsky et al 2009
found that males who reported higher levels of marital intimacy also displayed a secure father–infant attachment, whereas males with lower levels of marital intimacy displayed insecure father–infant attachments.
L: This suggests that males can form secure attachments with their children but the strength of the attachment depends on the father and mother relationships
Inrerator reliabikity
Why we use animal studies
For practical reasons because animals breed faster than humans and researchers are interested in seeing results across more than one generation of animals. This is an advantage because they can see how animals attach to their babies and then they can understand how humans may attach.
For ethical issues because researchers can carry out research on animals that it is not allowed in humans due to the ethical implications.
When did animal studies of attatchment start
1950 John dollars and neal miller created the learning theory of attatchment that claims that attachment is learned behaviour and humans attach to primary care giver because they are fed
Main researchers of attachment animal studies
Lorenz 1952
Harlow 1958
Konrad Lorenz
Father of ethology
Claimed that the learning process depends upon a combo of two factors
1)innate knowledge
2)learning from indicualnexperiences
Imprinting
A rapid learning process that takes place early in the life of a social animal (such as a goose) and establishes a behaviour pattern (such as recognition of and attraction to its own kind or a substitute)
aim of lorenz
Investigate mechanisms of imprinting
Animals form attachment to the first large moving object they see
Suggests attachment is innate and programmed genetically
Egg in Lorenz went into the conditions
1)with the mother and hatched with mother
2)am incubator where they hatched with Lorenz