Caregiver-infant interactions & Role of the Father

Question 1

What is attachment?

Answer 1

A strong, emotional & reciprocal bond between 2 people, especially and infant & caregiver.

Question 2

What are caregiver-infant interactions?

Answer 2

meaningful interactions that are thought to have important functions for the child’s development

Question 3

What are 2 features of caregiver-infant interactions?

Answer 3

• reciprocity
• interactional synchrony

Question 4

What is reciprocity?

Answer 4

• a 2 way mutual process where each party responds to the other’s signals to sustain interaction
• the behaviour elicits a response from the other

Question 5

What is interactional synchrony?

Answer 5

• takes place when the mother & infants emotions and actions mirror each other
• its believed that interactional synchrony is important for mother-infant attachment as high levels of interactional synchrony are associated with better quality of mother-infant attachment concluded by Isabella et al.

Question 6

What was Meltzoff & Moore’s study involving interactional synchrony?

Answer 6

• they observed the beginnings of interactional synchrony in babies as young as 2 weeks
• a male model displayed one of 3 facial expressions or hand gestures while the infant had a dummy in their mouth
• the dummy was then removed and the infant’s response was filmed
• an association was found between the model’s expressions or gestures and the baby’s actions

Question 7

What did Schaffer & Emerson find about parent-infant interactions?

Answer 7

• majority of babies become attached to their mothers first
• within a few weeks or months they form secondary attachments
• in 75% of infants studied they formed an attachment with their fathers by 18 months - this was determined since infants protested when their fathers walked away

Question 8

What did Grossman find about the role of the father in his longitudinal study (2002)?

Answer 8

• his study involved looking at both parent’s behaviour and its relationship to the quality of their child’s attachment in their teens
• quality of infant attachment to their mothers was related to the children’s attachment in adolescence which suggests that father’s attachment is less important
• the quality of the father’s play with infants was related to the quality of adolescent attachments which suggests that fathers have a different role in attachment which is more to do with play & stimulation

Question 9

What was Tiffany Field’s (1978) study?

Answer 9

• evidence shows that father take on role of primary caregiver & adopt behaviour usually associated with mothers
• 4 month old babies were filmed during face-to-face interactions with primary caregiver mothers & fathers and secondary caregiver fathers
• primary caregiver fathers spent more time smiling & imitating their infant (like mothers) than secondary caregiver fathers
• this shows that fathers can be the more nurturing figure
• attachment relationships depend more on level of responsiveness rather than gender of parent

Question 10

Evaluation: It’s hard to know what’s happening when observing infants

Answer 10

• studies involving observing mothers & infants show same pattern of interaction
• only hand gestures & change in expressions are observed
• it is difficult to determine what is taking place in the infant’s perspective with these observations
• e.g. the infant’s imitation of an adult’s signals may not be conscious or deliberate
• this means we can’t fully know if observations from mother-infant interactions have an important meaning

Question 11

Evaluation: Controlled observations capture fine detail

Answer 11

• observations from mother-infant interactions are usually highly controlled procedures
• involves filming of interaction from several angles
• this ensures that fine details of behaviour are recorded and can be analysed in depth later
• this is a strength since babies don’t care that they’re being observed so behaviour doesn’t change due to controlled observation
• this means research has good validity

Question 12

Evaluation: Inconsistent findings on fathers

Answer 12

• research into the role of fathers in attachment is confusing since different researchers focus on different research questions
• e.g. some psychologists are interested in understanding the role of fathers as secondary attachments whilst others focus on them as the primary attachment figure
• the 1st see fathers having their own distinct role and behaving differently from mothers
• the 2nd find that fathers can take on a ‘maternal’ role
• this is a limitation since psychologists can’t easily answer a simple question about the role of the father

Question 13

Evaluation: Why don’t fathers generally become primary attachments?

Answer 13

• fathers not becoming the primary attachment figures could simply be due to traditional roles where women are expected to be the caring & nurturing ones
• however it could be that female hormones (oestrogen) create high levels of nurturing so women are biologically made to be the primary attachment figure according to Taylor et al. (2000)