Attachment

• Attachment 


  A close two-way emotional bond between two individuals in which each individual sees the other as essential for their own emotional security. Attachment in humans takes a few months to develop.
• Attachment


  We can recognise an attachment when people display the following behaviours:

  • Proximity - people try to stay physically close to their attachment figure.
  • Separation distress - people show signs of anxiety when an attachment figure leaves their presence.
  • Secure-base behaviour - even when we are independent of our attachment figures we tend to make regular contact with them. Babies display secure-base behaviour when they regularly retur to their attachment figure while playing.
• Reciprocity

  A description of how two people interact. Caregiver-infant interaction is reciprocal in that both caregiver and baby respond to each other's signals and each elicits a response from the other.
• Interactional synchrony 


  Caregiver and baby reflect both the actions and emotions of the other and do this in a co-ordinated (synchronised) way.
• Caregiver-infant interactions 


  From the start babies have meaningful social interactions with their carers. Psychologists believe that these interactions have important functions for the child's social development. In particular good quality early social interactions are associated with the successful development of attachments between babies and their caregiver(s).
• Caregiver-infant interactions- Reciprocity 


  From birth babies and their mothers (or other caregivers) spend a lot of time in intense and highly pleasurable interaction. An interaction is said to show reciprocity when each person responds to the other and elicits a response from them. For example, a caregiver might respond to his baby's smile by saying something and then this in turn elicits a response from his baby. This kind of reciprocal interaction is also sometimes called 'turn-taking’. It is an essential part of any conversation, otherwise people talk over each other.
• Caregiver-infant interactions- Reciprocity: Alert phases

  Babies have periodic 'alert phases' in which they signal that they are ready for interaction. Research shows that mothers tend to pick up on & respond to their baby's alertness around 2/3 of the time (Feldman & Eidelman 2007), but this varies with the skill of the mother and external factors such as stress (Finegood et al. 2016). From around 3 months this interaction tends to become increasingly frequent & involves both mother and baby paying close attention to each other's verbal signals & facial expressions (Feldman 2007).
• Caregiver-infant interactions- Reciprocity: active involvement

  Traditional views of childhood have portrayed babies in a passive role, receiving care from an adult. However, it seems that babies as well as caregivers actually take quite an active role. Both caregiver and baby can initiate interactions and they appear to take turns in doing so. T. Berry Brazelton et al. (1975) described this interaction as a 'dance‘ because it is just like a couple's dance where each partner responds to the other person's moves.
• Caregiver-infant interactions- Interactional synchrony

  You might have watched the sport of synchronised swimming in which pairs of swimmers perform the same actions in unison. Two people are said to be 'synchronised' when they carry out the same action simultaneously. Interactional synchrony can thus be defined as 'the temporal co-ordination of micro-level social behaviour' (Feldman 2007). It takes place when caregiver and baby interact in such a way that their actions and emotions mirror the other.
• Caregiver-infant interactions- Interactional synchrony: Synchrony begins

  Andrew Meltzoff and Keith Moore (1977) observed the beginnings of interactional synchrony in babies as young as two weeks old. An adult displayed one of three facial expressions or one of three distinctive gestures. The baby's response was filmed and labelled by independent observers. Babies' expression and gestures were more likely to mirror those of the adults more than chance would predict i.e. there was a significant association.
• Caregiver-infant interactions- Interactional synchrony: Importance for attachment

  It is believed that interactional synchrony is important for the development of caregiver-infant attachment. Russell Isabella et al. (1989) observed 30 mothers and babies together and assessed the degree of synchrony. The researchers also assessed the quality of mother-baby attachment. They found that high levels of synchrony were associated with better quality mother-baby attachment (e.g, the emotional intensity of the relationship).
• Strength of caregiver-infant interaction research

  They are usually filmed in a laboratory. This means other activity, that might distract a baby, can be controlled. Also, using films means that observations can be recorded & analysed later, so it is unlikely that researchers will miss any key behaviours. Also, the filmed interactions means that multiple observers can record data & establish the inter-rater reliability of observations. Finally, babies don't know they are being observed, so their behaviour doesn’t change in response to. So the data collected has good reliability & validity.
• Limitation of caregiver-infant interaction research

  One limitation of research on caregiver-infant interactions is the difficulty in interpreting a baby's behaviour due to their lack of coordination and immobility, which results in only small movements or subtle expressions; thus, it is challenging to determine if actions like smiling or hand twitches have specific meanings or are random responses to caregiver actions.
• Limitation of caregiver-infant interaction research

  Observing behaviors like synchrony and reciprocity in caregiver and baby interactions, as noted by Ruth Feldman (2012), does not reveal their developmental significance; while these patterns are consistently observable, they do not provide insights into the purpose of the behaviors, leaving uncertainty about their importance for child development based solely on observational research.
• counterpoint of limitation of caregiver-infant interaction research

  There is evidence from other lines of research to suggest that early interactions are important. For example Isabella et al. (1989) found that achievement of interactional synchrony predicted the development of a good quality attachment. This means that, on balance, caregiver-infant interaction is probably important in development.
• Stages of attachment

  Many developmental theories identify a sequence of qualitatively different behaviours linked to specific ages. In the case of 'stages of attachment' qualitatively different infant (baby) behaviours are linked to specific ages, and all babies go through them in the same order.
• Multiple attachments 


  Attachments to two or more people. Most babies appear to develop multiple attachments once they have formed one strong attachment to one of their carers.
• Stages of Attachment


  Rudolf Schaffer and Peggy Emerson (1964) studied the attachment behaviours of babies. Their findings led them to develop an account of how attachment behaviours change as a baby gets older. They proposed that there were four identifiable stages of attachment, a sequence which is observed in all babies.
• Stages of Attachment - Stage 1: Asocial stage

  In a baby's first few weeks of life its observable behaviour towards humans and inanimate objects is fairly similar - hence the term 'asocial'. However, Schaffer and Emerson did not believe that it is entirely asocial because even at this stage babies show signs that they prefer to be with other people. Babies also tend to show a preference for the company of familiar people and are more easily comforted by them. At this stage the baby is forming bonds with certain people and these form the basis of later attachments.
• Stages of Attachment - Stage 2: Indiscriminate attachment

  From 2 to 7 months babies start to display more obvious and observable social behaviours. They now show a clear preference for being with other humans rather than inanimate objects. They also recognise and prefer the company of familiar people. However, at this stage babies usually accept cuddles and comfort from any person - hence the term indiscriminate. They do not usually show separation anxiety when caregivers leave their presence or stranger anxiety in the presence of unfamiliar people.
• Stages of Attachment - Stage 3: Specific attachment

  Around 7 months, most babies begin to show attachment signs, such as stranger anxiety when their primary attachment figure is absent and separation anxiety when apart from them; the primary attachment figure is typically the person who best responds to the baby's cues, often the mother in 65% of cases.
• Stages of Attachment - Stage 4: Multiple attachments

  Shortly after babies start to show attachment behaviour (e.g. stranger anxiety and separation anxiety) towards one person they usually extend this behaviour to multiple attachments with other people with whom they regularly spend time. These relationships are called secondary attachments. Schaffer and Emerson observed that 29% of the children formed secondary attachments within a month of forming a primary (specific) attachment. By the age of one year the majority of babies had developed multiple attachments.
• Schaffer and Emerson’s research (Stages of Attachment)

  Schaffer and Emerson (1964) conducted an observational study on early infant-adult attachments with 60 babies (31 boys and 29 girls) from Glasgow, mainly from skilled working-class families; researchers visited homes monthly for the first year and again at 18 months, asking mothers about their babies' protests during seven everyday separations (e.g., when an adult left the room) to measure separation anxiety and also assessed the babies' responses to unfamiliar people to evaluate stranger anxiety.
• Strength of Schaffer and Emerson’s research (Stages of Attachment)

  One strength of Schaffer and Emerson's research is that it has good external validity. Most of the observations (though not stranger anxiety) were made by parents during ordinary activities and reported to the researchers. The alternative would have been to have researchers present to record observations. This might have distracted the babies or made them feel more anxious. This means it is highly likely that the participants behaved naturally while being observed.
• Counterpoint of external validity as a strength of Schaffer and Emerson’s research (Stages of Attachment)

  On the other hand there are issues with asking the mothers to be the 'observers. They were unlikely to be objective observers. They might have been biased in terms of what they noticed and what they reported, for example they might not have noticed when their baby was showing signs of anxiety or they may have misremembered it. This means that even if babies behaved naturally their behaviour may not have been accurately recorded.
• Limitation of Schaffer and Emerson’s research (Stages of Attachment)

  1 limitation is the validity of the measures they used to assess attachment in the asocial stage. Young babies have poor co-ordination & are fairly immobile. If babies less than 2 months old felt anxiety in everyday situations they might have displayed this in quite subtle, hard-to-observe ways. This made it difficult for mothers to observe & report back to researchers on signs of anxiety & attachment in this age group. This means that the babies may actually be social but, due to flawed methods, they appear to be asocial.
• Strength of Schaffer and Emerson’s research (Stages of Attachment)

  They have practical application in day care (where babies are cared for outside of their home by a non-family adult). In the asocial and indiscriminate attachment stages day care is likely to be straightforward as babies can be comforted by any skilled adult. However, Schaffer and Emerson's research tells us that day care, especially starting day care with an unfamiliar adult, may be problematic during the specific attachment stage. This means that parents use of day care can be planned using Schaffer and Emerson's stages.
• Father

  In attachment research the father is anyone who takes on the role of the main male caregiver. This can be but is not necessarily the biological father.
• Caregiver versus attachment figure

  There is a difference between a primary caregiver and a primary attachment figure. A primary caregiver is the person who spends most time with a baby, caring for its needs. A primary attachment figure is the person to whom the baby has the strongest attachment. Often the same person fulfils the two roles but not always.
• Heteronormativity 


  This line of research focusing on the role of the father in infant development is based on the assumption that babies have two opposite-gender parents. This is of course not always the case. Although the research reported here concerns fathers in two-parent heterosexual partnerships there is no suggestion from respectable psychologists that having a single parent or two same-gender parents has any negative impact on children's development.
• Attachment to fathers

  Research by Rudolf Schaffer and Peggy Emerson (1964) indicates that most babies attach to their mothers first, typically around 7 months, with only 3% of babies attaching solely to their fathers; however, 27% have fathers as joint attachment figures. By 18 months, 75% of the babies studied formed an attachment to their fathers, shown by their protests when the father left.
• Distinctive role for fathers

  A study by Klaus Grossmann et al. (2002) investigated the role of father-child attachment in development compared to mother-child attachment, finding that while attachment to mothers is linked to later adolescent attachments, fathers' play quality with babies correlates with adolescent attachment quality, indicating that fathers contribute uniquely through play and stimulation rather than emotional development.
• Fathers as primary attachment figures

  A distinction exists between primary & secondary attachment figures, with a baby's primary attachment having special emotional significance that forms the basis for later relationships; research by Tiffany Field (1978) shows that primary caregiver fathers engage in more emotional interactions (e.g. smiling) similar to primary caregiver mothers, suggesting that fathers can fulfill the emotional role of a primary attachment figure when they take on the primary caregiver role, as indicated by reciprocity and interactional synchrony (Isabella et al. 1989).
• Limitation of research into the roles of fathers

  Research on the role of fathers in attachment is complicated due to varying interpretations of the question, with some researchers focusing on fathers as secondary attachment figures who behave differently from mothers, while others view fathers as primary attachment figures capable of taking on maternal roles, making it challenging to provide a straightforward answer regarding their specific roles.
• Limitation of research into the roles of fathers

  Research on the role of fathers shows mixed findings based on methodology; longitudinal studies like Grossmann et al. suggest fathers are important secondary attachment figures that contribute to children's development through play and stimulation. However, studies (e.g., McCallum and Golombok 2004) indicate that children from single-mother and lesbian-parent families develop similarly to those from two-parent heterosexual families, leaving the question of whether fathers have a unique role unanswered.
• Counterpoint of conflicting evidence as a limitation of research into the roles of fathers

  These lines of research may not in fact be in conflict. It could be that fathers typically take on distinctive roles in two-parent heterosexual families, but that parents in single-mother and lesbian-parent families simply adapt to accommodate the role played by fathers. This means that the question of a distinctive role for fathers is clear after all. When present, fathers tend to adopt a distinctive role, but families can adapt to not having a father.
• Strength of research into the roles of fathers

  Research on the role of fathers provides valuable advice to parents by showing that fathers can be primary caregivers and attachment figures, which can alleviate parental anxiety about caregiving roles and demonstrate that children from families without fathers, such as lesbian-parent or single-mother families, can develop normally.
• Animal studies 


  In psychology these are studies carried out on non-human animal species rather than on humans, either for ethical or practical reasons - practical because animals breed faster and researchers are interested in seeing results across more than one generation of animals.
• Lorenz’s research (animal studies)

  Lorenz (1952) first observed the phenomenon of imprinting when he was a child and a neighbour gave him a newly hatched duckling that then followed him around. As an adult researcher Lorenz set up a classic experiment in which he randomly divided a large clutch of goose eggs. Half the eggs were hatched with the mother goose in their natural environment. The other half hatched in an incubator where the first moving object they saw was Lorenz.
• Lorenz’s research (animal studies)- Findings

  The incubator group followed Lorenz everywhere whereas the control group, hatched in the presence of their mother, followed her. When the two groups were mixed up the control group continued to follow the mother and the experimental group followed Lorenz. This is called imprinting. Lorenz identified a critical period in which imprinting needs to take place. If imprinting does not occur within that time Lorenz found that chicks did not attach themselves to a mother figure.