Attatchment Flashcards
Caregiver infant interactions
Reciprocity - each respond to each other and elicits a response
Interactional synchrony - mother and infant interact in such a way that their actions and emotions mirror each other
Schaffer and Emerson
Schaffer and Emerson found that babies form attatchments to their mother first and within a few weeks form secondary attatchment figures. 75% of infants formed an attatchment to their father within the age of 18 months
Role of the father
Grossman et al.
Longitudinal study
Caregiver infant interactions evuals
Hard to know what is happening - observations are movements or facial expressions, different to be certain what is happening from the infants perspective. May not have a special meaning
Controlled observations - generally well controlled, both mother and infant filmed, fine details captured and can be later analysed. Babies are not aware they r being observed, no change in natural behaviour. Good validity
Don’t tell the purpose of synchrony and reciprocity - Feldman points out they describe the behaviour but not explain. Reliably observed, no purpose. However, evidence that it is useful to mother infant development attatchment.
Schaffer and Emerson
60 babies, from Glasgow working-class families
Visited at home every month for the first year and again at 18 months
Mothers asked questions about the kind of protest their babies showed in 7 everyday separations
E.g. adult leaving the room
Measure attatchment and stranger anxiety
Findings
50% showed signs of separation anxiety from adult usually mother
By 40 weeks 80% had specific attatchments, and 30% displayed multiple attatchmrents
Stages of attatchent
- Asocial stage,first few weeks - human and objects behaivor similar, show some preference to familiar adults, happier in presence of other people
- Indiscriminate attatch, 2-7 months - preference to people than objects, prefer familiar people. No stranger or separation anxiety. Not different to towards any one person
- Specific attachment, from 7 months - attached to primary caregiver, not person spent most time w but who responds the best to them. Stranger and separation anxiety.
Multiple attatchments - adults who they regularly spend time with, secondary attatchments.
Schaffer and Emerson evuals
Good external validity - carried out in the homes. Most of the observations were done parents during ordinary activities and reported later. Not affected by observers.
Longitudinal design - same children followed up, better internal validity, no confounding variables of individual differences like in cross sectional studies.
Limited sample - same place and class, child rearing practices differ from cultures and classes. Cannot be generalised well to other contexts
Stages of attatchment evuals
Lorenz’s research
Imprinting
Randomly divided a clutch of goose eggs, half hatched natural with mother, half hatched in an incubator and Lorenz was the first moving thing they saw.
Findings - followed the first thing they saw. When they two groups were mixed they still followed Lorenz. Animals attach to the first moving thing they see.
Critical period
Imprinting need to take place within this time,
If it does not occur Lorenz found that chicks do not form any attatchment s to a mother figure
Sexual imprinting
Lorenz observed that birds that imprinted on humans later displayed courtship behaviour towards people
Lorenz peacock case study - peacock reared in a reptile house in a zoo onky directed courtship behaivor towards giant tortoises. Undergone sexual imprinting
Lorenz evuals
Generalisability to humans - findings in birds to humans, mammalian attatchment system different to birds, i.e. mammalian mothers show more emotional attatchment to young. Can’t be generalised to humans
Some observations have been questioned - Guiton et al. found that chickens that I printed on yellow washing up gloves would try to mate with them as adults, but with exp would prefer to mating with other chickens. Sexual imprinting not permanent
Hallows research
16 baby monkeys
Wire mother and cloth mother
One condition each dispensing milk
Findings -
Cuddled the soft mother and sought comfort when scared regardless of which dispensed the milk
Contact comfort is more important to monkeys than food
Maternally deprived monkeys as adults
Permanent effect
Monkeys reared w only wire were mist disfunctional
Aggressive and less sociable
Bred less often
Some mothers neglected young, others attacked their offspring, killing in some cases
Critical period - within 90 days, if not damage irreversible
Harlow evuals
Theoretical value - understanding of human attachment, showed attatchment doesn’t depend on feeding but contact comfort. Showed importance of early relationships on later social development, ability to hold down relationships and rear children
Practical value - applies to real world. Child neglect and abuse interventions and prevention. Care of captive monkeys, zoos and breeding programmes
Ethics - sever criticism. Monkeys suffered greatly, species considered similar enough to humans to generalise findings, so they would have suffered similarly. Harlow aware, called wire mother the iron maiden, medieval torture device. However findings important enough to justify
