Attatchment Flashcards
Attachment
close two-way emotional bond between 2 individuals in which each individual sees the other as essential for their own emotional security
Reciprocity
How 2 people interact. Caregiver-infant interaction is reciprocal in that both caregiver and baby respond to each other’s signals and each elicits a response from the other
Reciprocity Example
a caregiver may respond to their baby’s smile by saying something and then this in turn elicits a response from the baby
Alert Phases
babies have periodic ‘alert phases’ in which they signal (e.g. by making eye contact) that they are ready for a spell of interaction
Research into Alert Phases
Feldman and Eidelman (2007) - mothers typically pick up on and respond to their baby’s alertness around 2/3 of the time
Finegood et al. (2016) - response varies according to the skill of the mother and external factors such as stress
Feldman (2007) - from around 3 moths this interaction tends to become increasingly frequent and involves both mother and baby paying close attention to each other’s verbal signals and facial expressions
Active Involvement
Traditional views of childhood have portrayed babies in a passive role, receiving care from an adult. However it seems that babies as well as caregivers actually take quite an active role. Both caregiver and baby can initiate interactions and they appear to take turns in doing so.
Interactional Synchrony
caregiver and baby reflect both the actions and emotions of the other and do this in a co-ordinated way
Synchrony Begins
Meltzoff and Moore (1977) - observed the beginnings of interactional synchrony in babies as young as 2 weeks old
An adult displayed one of three distinctive gestures
The baby’s response was filmed an labelled by independent observers
Babies’ expressions and gestures were more likely to mirror those of the adults more than chance would predict
Interactional Synchrony Importance for Attachment
Russell Isabella et al. (1989) - observed 30 mothers and babies together and assessed the degree of synchrony
The researchers also assessed the quality of mother-baby attachment
They found that high levels of synchrony were associated with better quality mother-baby attachment
Schaffer’s Stages of Attachment
In the case of ‘stages of attachment’ qualitatively different infant behaviours are linked to specific ages and all babies go through them in the same order
Multiple Attachments
Attachments to two or more people. Most babies appear to develop multiple attachments once they have formed one strong attachment to one of their carers
Stage 1: Asocial Stage
Babies first few weeks of life - observable behaviour towards humans and inanimate objects is fairly similar
Schaffer and Emerson don’t believe they are entirely asocial as babies still show signs that they prefer to be with other people
Babies also show a preference for the company of familiar people and are more easily comforted by them
At this stage the baby is forming bonds with certain people and these form the basis of later attachments
Stage 2: Indiscriminate Attachment
2-7 months - babies start to display more obvious and observable social behaviours
They now show a clear preference to being with other people
They also recognise and prefer the company of familiar people
At this stage babies to usually accept comfort from anyone
Do not usually show separation anxiety or stranger anxiety
Stage 3: Specific Attachment
From around 7 moths - majority of babies start to display the classic signs of attachment towards one particular person:
- stranger anxiety
- separation anxiety
The person who the attachment has formed with is said to be the primary attachment figure
Not necessarily who the baby spends most time with but the one who offers the most interaction and responds to the baby’s signals with the most still
This is the mother 65% of the time
Stage 4: Multiple Attachment
Shortly after babies start to show attachment behaviour towards one person they start to extend this behaviour to multiple attachments with other people with whom they regularly spend time
These are called secondary attachments
Schaffer and Emerson observed that 29% of the children formed secondary within a month of forming a primary one
By 1 year the majority of babies have formed multiple attachments
Schaffer and Emerson (1964) - Procedure
Study involved 60 babies from Glasgow and majority from skilled working class families (31 male, 29 female)
Researchers visited babies and mothers in their home every month for the first year and again at 18 months
Researchers measured separation and stranger anxiety to measure their attachment
Schaffer and Emerson (1964) - Findings
Schaffer and Emerson identified 4 distinct stages in the development of infant attachment
Father
In attachment research the father is anyone who takes on the role of the main male caregiver. This can be but not necessarily the biological father
Attachment to Fathers
Evidence suggests that fathers are much less likely to become the primary attachment figure than mothers
Schaffer and Emerson (1964) - 3% of cases the father was the sole object of attachment. 27% of cases the father was the joint first object of attachment with the mother
Most fathers go on to be important attachment figures
75% of the Glasgow babies formed an attachment with their father by 18 months
Distinctive Role for Fathers
Klaus Grossmann et al. (2002) - carried out a longitudinal study where babies’ attachments were studied until they were teenagers
Researchers looked at both parents’ behaviour and its relationship to the quality of their baby’s later attachments to other people
Quality of a mother’s attachment but not the father’s was related to attachments in adolescence
Attachments to fathers are less important
Also found that the quality of fathers’ play with babies was related to the quality of adolescent attachments
Suggests that fathers have a different role - one of play and stimulation - and less to do with emotional development
Fathers as Primary Attachment Figures
A baby’s relationship with their primary attachment figure forms the basis of all later close emotional relationships
There is some evidence to suggest that when fathers do take on the role of primary caregiver they are able to adopt the emotional role more typically associated with mothers
Tiffany Field (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 primary caregiver mothers, spent more time smiling, imitating and holding babies than secondary caregiver fathers
Smiling, imitating and holding are all part of reciprocity and interactional synchrony which are part of the process of attachment formation
Animal Studies
In psychology these are studies carried out on non-human animal species rather than on humans, either for ethical or practical reasons
Imprinting
Lorenz (1952) first observed the phenomenon of imprinting when he was a child and a neighbour gave him a newly hatched duckling that followed him around
Lorenz (1952) - Procedure
Set up a classic experiment in which he randomly divided a large clutch of goose eggs
Half of the eggs were hatched with the mother goose in their natural environment
The other half hatched in an incubator where the first moving object they saw was Lorenz
Lorenz (1952) - Findings
The incubator group followed Lorenz everywhere whereas the control group followed the mother goose
When the two groups were mixed the control group continued to follow the mother goose and the experimental group followed Lorenz
Lorenz identified a critical period where imprinting needed to take place (can be as brief as a few hours)
If imprinting doesn’t happen within that time the chicks didn’t attach themselves to a mother figure
Sexual Imprinting
Lorenz also investigated the relationship between imprinting and adult male preferences
In a 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 tortoises
As an adult the bird would only direct courtship behaviour towards giant tortoises
Lorenz concluded that the peacock had undergone sexual imprinting
Harlow (1958) - Procedure
Tested the idea that a soft object serves some of the functions of a mother
In one experiment he reared 16 baby rhesus monkeys with two wire model mothers
In one condition milk was dispensed by the plain wire mother and whereas in a second condition the milk was dispensed by the cloth-covered mother
Harlow (1958) - Findings
The baby monkeys cuddled the cloth covered mother in preference to the plain wire mother and sought comfort from the cloth one when frightened regardless of which mother dispensed milk
This showed that ‘contact comfort’ was of more importance to the monkeys than food when it came to attachment behaviour
Maternally Deprived Monkeys as Adults
Harlow and colleagues also followed who had been deprived of a real mother into adulthood to see if this early maternal deprivation had permanent effects
The researchers found severe consequences
The monkeys reared with the plain wire mother were the most dysfunctional
However even those reared with the cloth covered mother did not develop normal social behaviour
The deprived monkeys were more aggressive and less sociable and bred less often than is typical for monkeys
Maternally Deprived Monkeys as Mothers
Some of the deprived monkeys neglected their young and others attacked their children, even killing them in some cases
