Stages of attachment

• Attachment is a strong emotional and reciprocal bond between 2 people
• Reciprocity is when the infant and caregiver take turns responding to eachother through verbal and facial expressions
• Interactional synchrony is when a mother and infant mirror eachother
• Higher levels of synchrony = better quality attachment [ isabella et al. ]
• Primary attachment at 7 months, secondary attachment at 18 months
• It is difficult to know what is happening when observing babies, or if the imitation is deliberate
• A baby is not aware it is being observed so behaviour is completely natural [often filmed for detail ]
• Stages of attachment were researched by schaffer and emerson
• Four stages of attachment

  Asocial

  Indiscriminate

  Discriminate [specific ]

  Multiple attachments
• Asocial stage

  0 - 8 weeks .

  Behaviour towards humans and objects is similar

  Preferance for faces / familiar people

  Happier around humans

  Smile at anyone
• Indiscriminate stage

  2 - 7 months

  Recognise and smile more at familiar people

  Preference for people over objects

  Accept comfort from any adult
• Discriminate stage

  7 - 12 months

  Primary attachment to one person

  Stranger and separation anxiety
• Multiple attachments

  12 months +

  Secondary attachments with familiar adults

  Attachments depend on consistency of relationship

  Separation anxiety
• Schaffer and Emerson investigated early attachments in 60 babies from working class glasgow [31 m 29 f] mothers were questioned on the babies behaviour every month for a year and again at 18 months
• One weakness is that all babies were from working class Glasgow, results may not be generalisable to other cultures
• One strength is the standardised questions used, making the study repeatable
• One weakness is that the mothers response may be biased, or be changed because of demand characteristics, and not accurate of the babies real behaviour
• One strength is the results uses in childcare and informing new families about how to best care for babies