AO1

• Attachment is a close two way emotional bond between two individuals (generally a caregiver and an infant) where individuals see each other as essential for their own emotional security. It endures over time and serves to protect the infant
• Attachment behaviour

  • Proximity - ppl try to stay physically close to those they are attached to
  • separation distress - ppl are distressed when an attachment figure leaves their presence
  • Secure-base behaviour - even when we are independent, we tend to make regular contact with our attachment figures. e.g. we regularly return to them while playing so the are a base from which to explore
• Caregiver

  • any person who provides care for a child
  • e.g. a sibling, family member
• Infant

  • usually taken to refer to a child's first year of life,
  • although some psychologists also include the second year
• Caregiver-infant interactions

  • the communication between a caregiver and infant.
  • it's believed that these interactions have important functions for the child's social development
  • it forms the basis for attachment between the two
  • the more responsive they are to each other's signals the deeper the bond
• There are two main types of caregiver-infant interaction

  • reciprocity
  • interactional synchrony
• research into reciprocity: alert phases

  -this is periodic and its when they signal that they are ready for interaction

  • mothers typically respond and pick up to their babies alertness 2/3 of the time
  • however the mothers capacity to do this varies according to their skill as a mother and their stress level
  • according to research it becomes more frequent from around 3 months and involves mother and baby paying close attention to each others verbal signals and facial expressions
• research into reciprocity: active involement

  • traditionally babies have been viewed as playing a passive role in these early interactions, more recent research highlights that they play a very active role and that caregivers and baby's take turns in initiating an interaction.
  • Brazelton et al (1975) described this as 'like a dance' whereby the mother and baby respond to each others moves
• interactional synchrony

  • is when a caregiver and infant reflect the actions and emotions of the other in a coordinated way
  • they mirror each other in terms of their facial and body movements
• how is interactional synchrony different to reciprocity

  interactional synchrony is abt mirroring whereas reciprocity is about turn-taking
• Research into interactional synchrony - Meltzoff + Moore (1977)

  • Meltzoff + Moore observed 2+ week old babies. They conducted an experiment within highly controlled + standardised environment
  • An adult displayed one of three facial expressions or gestures and the babies response was filmed and labelled
  • M+M found that the babies mirrored the expressions/gestures of the researcher more often than would be expected be chance
• research into interactional synchrony - Isabella et al (1989)

  • observed 30 mothers with their infants
  • they assessed the degrees of synchrony between them
  • and the quality of the baby/mother attachment

  they found

  a strong positive correlation = the higher the degree of synchrony the higher the quality of attachment
• reciprocity is a caregiver-infant interaction. its a two way process were each party responds to each others signals to sustain the interaction. Reciprocity is thought to be an important precursor to later communications. How sensitive and responsive the caregiver is in responding to the baby's signals is the foundation for later attachment