Attatchment Flashcards
What is RECIPROCITY?
How two people interact e.g a mother and infant respond to each others signals and elicit a response.
Experiment for reciprocity?
Feldman and Eidelman mothers pick up and respond to infant alertness 2/3 of the times.
What is INTERACTIONAL SYNCHRONY?
When an infant mirrors the actions of another person.
Experiment for interactional synchrony?
Meltzoff and Moore made an adult display 3 facial expressions and they found an association between both.
Evaluation for reciprocity and interactional synchrony experiments.
:) controlled observations - no risk of demand characteristics and can be easily replicated.
:( hard to observe babies - they have low motor control and we can’t establish cause and effect.
Fathers as primary care givers
- adopt behaviours more typical of mothers
- spend more time smiling, imitating and holding infants than secondary care givers
Evaluation of attachment figures
:( inconsistent findings of fathers if fathers had distinct role why aren’t children without fathers different.
Schaffer and Emerson experiment
Aim - investigate at what age infant becomes attached, who they become attached to, and if they can form multiple attachments.
Procedure - longitudinal study, 60 infants (working class - Glasgow) families visited once a month over 18 month period to observe interactions and interview caregiver about infant behaviour.
Results - first attachment formed between 6-8 months
- mother was main attachment figure for 65% at 18 months, 3% had primary attachment to father - 31% formed multiple attachments
Evaluation of Schaffer and Emerson
:) good external validity - observations were done in the home by parents.
:) longitudinal - dame children followed up and observed meaning good internal validity.
:( can’t generalise findings as all families came from same social class.
Stages of attachment
- Asocial stage - 0-6 weeks - all stimuli produces a reaction.
- Indiscriminate attachment - 6 weeks-7 months - enjoy all human company and smile more at familiar faces.
- Specific attachment - 7 months - expresses protest when separated from one individual. Stranger anxiety.
- Multiple attachments - 10 months+ - begin to attach to others
Evaluation of stages of attachment
:( methodological problems - just because baby gets distressed when one person leaves the room doesn’t mean they are an attachment figure.
:( suggests development is inflexible - suggests babies form single attachments before multiple but with most babies it’s the opposite.
What is imprinting?
A form of attachment where offspring follows the first large moving object they see.
Experiment for imprinting
Lorenz
Procedure - set up two conditions
- He was the first moving object to be sen after geese hatched
- Mother goose was the first to be seen
Findings - chicks who saw him first followed him as if he were a mother and tried to mate with him when they got older, ignoring other geese.
- chicks who saw the mother first tried to mate with other geese when they were older. - there was a ‘critical period’ of a few hours in which to imprint.
Evaluation of Lorenz’s experiment
:) field experiment - high ecological validity
:) high internal and external validity - findings apply to all geese and it accomplished Lorenz’s aims of how imprinting increased the chance of survival of geese.
:( can’t generalise findings to humans
Harlow’s monkey study
Procedure
- reared 16 baby monkeys with two wire mothers
- one wire mother dispensed milk
- one wire mother was covered in cloth and dispensed milk
Findings
- baby monkeys preferred cloth mother
- sought comfort from cloth covered mother when they were scared
- showed contact comfort was more important than food in forming attachments
- those who were maternally deprived were antisocial, aggressive and bred less often. Also neglected young.
Harlow’s monkey evaluation
:) practical applications - helped social workers understand risk of neglect
:) theoretical value - important for psychologists in understanding mammal attachments
:( can’t generalise results to humans