Introduction to attachment

Question 1

What is attachment?

Answer 1

• A close two-way emotional bond between two individuals in which each individual sees the other person as essential for their emotional security.

Question 2

What is reciprocity?

Answer 2

• Refers to how two people interact
• It is a two-way mutual process whereby two people respond to each others signals to sustain interaction

Question 3

What research studied reciprocity?

Answer 3

1. Feldman & Eidelman (2007) - Mothers typically pick up on and respond to infant alertness 66% of the time.
2. Feldman (2007) - At 3 months old, interactions with babies are frequent and involve verbal signals and facial expressions.
3. Brazelton et al (1975) - Sugeested that interactions between mother and baby is like a ‘dance’. The mother responds to the baby and the baby responds to the mother.

Question 4

What is interactional synchrony?

Answer 4

• When a Mother and infant reflect both the actions and emotions of the other and do this in a coordinated (synchronised way.

Question 5

What research studies interactional synchrony?

Answer 5

1. Meltzoff and Moore (1977) - observed interactional synchrony in infants as young as 2 weeks old. When the adult displayed an expression the baby would also display the same expression.
2. Isabella et al (1989) - Suggested that interactional synchrony is important for the development of mother-infant attachment. They observed 30 mothers and babies assessing the degree of synchrony and quality of attachment. High synchrony is associated with better quality mother-infant attachment (this means a better emotional intensity of the relationship).

Question 6

What is parent-infant attachment?

Answer 6

• Research traditionally focuses on mother-infant attachment.
• Schaffer and Emerson (1964) found that the majority of babies attached to their mother’s fist within the first 7 months. After which they form secondary attachments to other family members including fathers. 75% of infants attached to their fathers by the age of 18 months. This was determined by the fact infants protested when their fathers walked away.

Question 7

What is the role of the father?

Answer 7

• Grossman (2002) - carried out a longitudinal study exploring both parent’s behaviour and its relationship to the quality of children’s attachments into their teens.
• Quality of infant attachment was more evident and important with mothers, suggesting father attachment was less important. However, this could be because fathers play a different role in attachment. A role that has to do with play and stimulation and less to do with nurturing.

Question 8

How are fathers as primary carers?

Answer 8

• Field (1978) - filmed 4-month-old babies face-to-face interaction with primary caregiver mothers, secondary caregiver fathers and primary caregiver fathers.
• Primary caregiver fathers spent more time smiling, imitating and holding infants than secondary caregiver fathers.
• This appears to be an important part of building attachments. Therefore it has less to do with gender and more to do with responsiveness of the parent.

Question 9

(AO3) What is a strength of caregiver-infant interactions?

Answer 9

Controlled observations capture fine detail:

• Observations of mother-infant interactions are generally well-controlled procedures, with both mother and infant being filmed, often from multiple angles.
• This ensures that very fine details of behaviour can be recorded and analysed later. Babies are unaware that they are being recorded so there is no display of demand characteristics in controlled observation (unlike observational research). This is a strength because it means the research has good validity.

Question 10

(AO3) What is a weakness of caregiver-infant interactions?

Answer 10

Do we really understand?:

• It is difficult to know what is happening when observing infants.
• Gratier (2003) - found that interactions between mothers and infants are the same. However, what is being observed is merely hand movements or changes in expressions, it is difficult to be certain what is taking place from the infant’s perspective.
• This means we cannot know for certain that behaviours seen in mother-infant interaction have a special meaning.

Question 11

(AO3) What is a weakness of attachment figures?
(1)

Answer 11

Why aren’t children without fathers different?

• The study by Grossman found that fathers as secondary attachment figures had an important role in their children’s development.
• However, other studies (MacCallum and Golombok (2004)) have found that children growing up in single or same-sex parent families do not develop any differently from those in two-parent heterosexual families.
• This would seem to suggest that the father’s role as a secondary attachment figure is not important.

Question 12

(AO3) What is a weakness of attachment figures?
(2)

Answer 12

Gender roles:

• The reason fathers tend not to become the primary attachment figure could simply be the result of traditional gender roles, in which women are expected to be more caring and nurturing than men. Therefore fathers don’t feel they should act like that.
• On the other hand, it could be that female hormones (oestrogen) create higher levels of nurturing and therefore women are biologically pre-disposed to be the primary attachment figure (Taylor et al (2000))