A01 Intro to Attachment

• Baby signals

  From birth, babies and mothers spend a lot of intense pleasurable interaction. Babies have periodic 'alert phrases' signalling they're ready for interaction.
• Feldmann and Eidelman

  Moms respond to these alerts 2/3s of the time. When babies are three months, the interactions tend to be more frequent and involves closer attention
• Reciprocity


  Person responds to the other and elicits a response from them. Traditional views state baby has a passive role- receiving care but baby can also have an active role
• Brazelton

  Both mom and child can take turns playing an active role like a dance
• Interactional synchrony


  temporal co-ordination of micro-level social behaviour. Mother and infant mirror the other actions/emotions
• Meltzoff and Moore

  Infants as young as two weeks old were able to display the 3 facial expressions or gestures displayed by a caregiver adult. Found interactional synchrony is important for development of mother and infants
• Isabella et al


  Observed 30 babies and their mothers and found that higher levels of interactional synchrony were associated with better quality attachment
• Parent-infant attachment

  Schaffer and Emerson found majority of babies become attached at around 7 months and within a few weeks they form secondary attachments to other family members
• Attachment to fathers

  75% of babies are attached to their fathers by 18 months which is suggested by infant protesting when father walks away- sign of attachment
• Role of the father- Grossman


  Conducted longitudinal study of both parents' behaviour and quality of A to their teens. Quality of infant A with mothers was related to adolescence stage suggesting father A is less important
• Father A is a little different

  Quality of father's play was related to A in the adolescence stage so fathers have a different role in attachment- play and stimulation not nurturing
• Fathers as primary care givers

  When fathers take role of being primary care giver they adopt behaviours past associated with mothers
• Field

  Filmed 4-month old babies with primary mother carers and primary father carers. The fathers spent more time smiling ,holding and imitating infants like moms. Behaviour appear to attachment
• Key to attachment

  The key to A is the level of responsiveness not gender