Stages Of Attachment By Schaffer + Caregiver- Infant Interactions Flashcards
What is meant by the term attachment?
Attachment is a strong, emotional, reciprocal bond between 2 people and causes you distress when separated by them (for example infant and caregiver)
What is stranger anxiety?
Distress when in the presence of unknown individuals
What is separation anxiety?
When in the absence of someone you are attached to/have a close bond with that is causes you to be distressed
What are Maccoby’s 4 key attachment behaviours?
Pleasure when reunited, distress when separated, proximity seeking and general attentive behaviour towards an individual
What are Schaffer’s 4 stages of attachment?
Asocial stage, indiscriminate stage, discriminate stage, multiple attachments
What occurs at each stage? (schaffers attachment)
Asocial- Infants will respond to many social and non social types of stimuli and wont be able to tell a difference (humans and toys) however some psychologists have said there to be a preference for eyes and a face.
Indiscriminate- Infants are very sociable and enjoy the company of a range of people and there are no signs of stranger/ separation anxiety.
Discriminate- Infants now have a strong connection with their primary caregiver (parent usually or person who is the most responsive to the baby’s needs) They will search for this person for Security Comfort Protection and now they show signs of attachment.
Multiple attachments- Babies now have a range of secondary attachments whom they share a bond with (grandparents etc). 20% form a secondary attachment within a month of the formation of the primary attachment.
What is meant by the term ‘reciprocity’ in the context of caregiver-infant interaction?
Reciprocity is when the infant and caregiver respond to each others signals in order to elicit a reaction from each other.
What is meant by the term ‘interactional synchrony’ in the context of caregiver-infant interaction?
Interactional synchrony is when the infant and caregiver do the same things at the same time
What are some strengths for schaffers attachment theory?
There is research evidence to support his findings. His longitudinal observations of the Glasgow babies help to show the stages that babies go through when attaching.
Useful applications to help parents understand their babies. Helps to know whether they are progressing normally and see if there are any underlying development issues.
What are some weaknesses of schaffers attachment theory?
Validity of the asocial stage can be questioned. As infants at this stage have poor coordination and mobility- harder to draw conclusions from such little data.
Ethocentrism as this theory was developed from a westernised culture so it can lack high external validity as the results may not be applicable to other cultures.
Meltzoff and Moore 1977 - APFC
Aims- They wanted to systematically study Interactional synchrony in infants
Procedures- They tested 6 babies aged 12-27 days old and 12 babies aged 16-21 days old. A dummy was placed in the infants mouth during the display to prevent any response, after the display, the dummy was removed and the child’s expression was filmed. They were shown facial gestures (sticking tongue out) and manual gestures (clapping hands) in order to investigate their ability to imitate.
Findings- babies ages 12-21 days could imitate both facial and manual gestures.
What is the importance of Meltzoff and Moore’s research?
The ability to imitate serves as an important building block for later social and cognitive development
