Introduction to attachment Flashcards
What are the two types of caregiver-infant interactions?
Reciprocity and interactional synchrony
What is reciprocity?
The interaction between the infant and mother as they react and respond to each other
What experiments have been carried out on reciprocity?
Feldman and Eidelman found that mothers pick up and respond to infant alertness where they are ready for interaction 2/3 of the time.
Feldman also found that from three months interactions are more frequent and pay attention to verbal signals and facial expressions. Reciprocity is key to the interaction.
Brazleton et al. described the interaction as a ‘dance’ because each partner responds to each others movement.
What is interactional synchrony?
Where the mother and infant reflect the actions and emotions of the other and do this at the same time.
What experiments have been carried out on interactional synchrony?
Meltzoff and Moore observed the beginnings of interactional synchrony in infants as young as 2 weeks and adults displayed a facial expression or a distinctive gesture. An association was found between the behaviour the adult displayed and the actions of the babies.
Isabella et al observed 30 mothers and infants to assess the synchronicity and found high levels of synchrony were associated with better quality attachments.
What are the strengths of studying caregiver-infant interactions?
Controlled observations capture fine details which means more information can be analysed and they also don’t know they are being observed, increasing the validity of the study.
What are the weaknesses of studying caregiver-infant interactions?
It is hard to know what is happening when observing infants as we don’t know what is happening from an infants perspective.
Observations don’t tell us the purpose of interactional synchrony and reciprocity, they only describe the behaviour.
What experiment was carried out to look at parent-infant attachment?
Schaffer and Emerson found that the majority of babies became attached to their mother first and within a few weeks formed secondary attachments. In 75% of infants an attachment to the father was formed by 18 months.
What experiment was carried out to look at the role of the father?
Grossman carried out a longitudinal study looking at parents’ behaviour and attachments to their children. Quality of infant attachment to their mother but not the father was related to attachment in adolescence. Instead, the quality of fathers play was related to the quality of adolescent attachments.
What experiment was carried out to look at fathers as primary caregivers?
Field filmed 4 month old babies with primary caregiver mothers, primary caregiver fathers and secondary caregiver fathers. She found that behaviour and level of responsiveness is more important in building an attachment than gender.
What are the weaknesses of research into primary attachment figures?
There are inconsistent findings on fathers as some researchers look into them as primary attachment figures and others look at them as secondary attachment figures, meaning there is no clear answer as to the role of fathers.
Children without fathers don’t develop any differently as shown by MacCallum and Golombok, suggesting that the fathers role as an attachment figure is not important.
Fathers are not normally the primary caregivers, which may be because of gender roles or because of female hormones which make them more nurturing.
Research into mother-infant attachment is socially sensitive as it suggests the attachment will be worse if mothers return to work immediately.
