attachment

• schaffer showed how development of infants attachment can be divided into stages.

  1. Pre - attachment phase is between birth and 3 months. Infants produce a similar response to all objects, animate or inanimate. However, towards the end of this period, they become more attracted to other humans rather than objects or events. This preference is demonstrated by them smiling at people's faces.
• 2. Indiscriminate attachment is between 3 months and 7 months. Infants begin to discriminate between familiar and unfamiliar people, preferring familiar people and smiling more towards them. However, they will still allow strangers to look after them and do not show any separation or stranger anxiety
• 3. Discriminate Attachment develops between 7 to 9 months They demonstrate a preference towards one specific person so will show separation anxiety if the person leaves and stranger anxiety if strangers try to handle them. This is said to be there primary attachment and doesnt have to be the person they spend the most time with, but rather the one that is most responsive and sensitive to their needs.
• 4. Multiple Attachment is after 10 months. Infant can now produce a wider circle of attachments to other people such as grandparents, siblings. Stranger anxiety now also decreases.
• Humans are altricial - born at an early stage of development - so need to form attachments for those who will protect and nurture them for their survival.

  Attachments are an enduring two way emotional bond to a specific person which develops in set stages, fairly early in the infant's life.
• Attachments develop as a result of two way communication between infants and caregivers.

  • interaction synchrony - infant mirrors the actions of another person or move their bodies in tune with the carer's spoken language e.g carer pulls a funny face, infant pulls funny face
  • reciprocity - infants responds to the actions of another person by turn taking e.g carer pulls a funny face, infant laughs

  other interactions include bodily contact and caregiverse: a high pitched, slow repetitive song like nature of speech
• Melzofft and Moore :

  had an experimenter display

  • facial gestures such as sticking their tongue out, opening mouth in shock
  • manual gestures such as opening and closing their hands
  • to infants aged 12 - 21 days old
  • infants responses were recorded and rated by independent observers (naive to aims of experiment)

  They found that babies could imitate both the facial and manual gestures suggesting that the ability to observe and imitate develops very early on in infants to aid the form of attachments.
• Meltzoff and Moore AO3:

  • questionable reliability of testing children as infants move their mouths and arms constantly so we cant be certain that infants were engaging in interactional synchrony
  • potentially have overlooked individual differences as a mediating factors, since Isabella et al found that more securely attached infants have a greater level of interactional synchrony.
• Schaffer and Emmerson Glaswegian baby study

  • studies 60 babies and their families of a working class area of Glasgow over the course of monthly observations and interviews for a year and then a follow up visit 18 months after
  • looked for two types of behaviours - stranger and separation anxiety
• Schaffer and Emmerson findings :

  • majority of babies showed separation anxiety by 6- 8 months with stranger anxiety following a month later
  • by the 18th month follow up, 87% of the babies had developed multiple attachments
  • strongest attachments tended to be with the mother, particularly to those with constant caregiver - infant interactions. However, 39% of infant's primary attachment was not the mother but rather whoever is most sensitive and responsive to infants needs
• Schaffer and emmerson conclusions:

  concluded

  • attachments develop in stages in all infants perhaps through biologically controlled processes but also the quality of caregiver infant interaction has a direct impact on the strength of the attachment for infants and caregivers.
• Ainsworth's strange situation

  • controlled observation recording the reactions of a child and mother who were introduced to a room full of toys in 8 episodes each lasting 3 mins.
  • the quality of their attachments were observed by the child's willingness to explore, separation and stranger anxiety and reunions behaviour
• Ainsworths 8 episodes

  1. mother and infant enters room
  2. mother is passive whilst infant explores - mum as secure base concept
  3. stranger enters and talk to mother -stranger anxiety
  4. mother leaves and stranger tries to interact with child - stranger anxiety
  5. parent returns, stranger leaves - reunion behaviour. They continue to play - secure base
  6. parent leaves infant alone - separation anxiety
  7. infant and stranger - stranger anxiety
  8. mother and infant - reunion

  Findings provided evidence for 3 attachment types that correlate to the level of sensitive responsiveness of the parents.
• Insecure avoidant - type a :

  • keeps distance away from mother and explores independently not using mother as a safe base
  • had low stranger and separation anxiety
  • didnt seek comfort from mother when she returned
  • mothers of these babies appeared to show little sensitive responsiveness to infant so infant may have learnt not to depend on her.
• securely attached - type b:

  • used mothers as a secure base as they explored he environment
  • infant had high stranger and separation anxiety but was able to settle back into play when mother returned to comfort them
  • mothers of these infants showed sensitive responses.
• insecure resistant :

  • infant wouldn't explore environment staying close to mother
  • had high stranger and separation anxiety
  • unable to settle when reunited with mother, rejecting their comfort
  • mothers seemed inconsistent with their sensitive responsiveness.
• Main and Solomon later discovered a 4th attachment type

  disorganised and disorientated:

  • child both approaches and avoids mother
• The strange situation and discovery of attachment types led to the concept of the caregiver sensitivity hypothesis whereby a mothers behaviour towards their infant predicts their attachment type.
• Strange situation A03

  • highly operationalised with observers having a clear criteria of 4 specific behaviours securely attached children should display, therefore the study has high inter-rater reliability
  • lacks ecological validity so results may not be applicable outside the lab as in everyday situations mother and stranger are not acting by a script. Bronfenbrenner also said that attachments observed in a lab will be stronger than real life due to the strangeness of the lab environment
• strange situation ao3 - pt2

  • study sees attachments as a permanent characteristic of children. However, attachments could be linked to individual relationships e.g secure to mother but insecurely attached to father. Similarly attachments could changing depending on mother's stress level
  • unethical - distress to infants but could be seen as justifiable as stress is no greater to that of everyday life e.g being left with babysitter.
• the strange situation can be seen as culturally bias as it uses criterias based on US culture of parenting making the study ethnocentric as observations of non- Americans will be judged according to American standards.

  • Bowlby's evolutionary belief suggests that attachments are the same across all cultures but IJzendoorn conducted a meta analysis of 32 studies across 8 different countries using the strange situation experiment to see if attachments are due to biological processes or socialisation.
• • IJzendoorn meta analysis found that intra cultralvariation was 1.5 times greater than cross cultural variations. He thought this could be due to differences in socio - economic factors within the population. Therefore the samples taken may not represent the whole country.
  • however average findings were relatively consistent with Ainsworth's original research: 65% secure, 21% avoidant, 14% resistant
• IJzendoorn did find some excpetions:

  • collectivist countries such as Japan and Israel had a higher incident of insecure resistant, but securely attached was still the highest.
  • This could be because of the child's lack of experience being alone as they tend to spend most of their time with mothers in Japan.
  • And in Israel, there are differences in child rearing styles where everyone looks after everyone's child.
• IJzendoorn did find some exceptions:

  • Individualist countries suh as Germany had a higher incidence of insecure avoidant
  • This could be because in their culture they value independence in children so discourage secure base seeking behaviour

  However as the general trend is towards secure attachments, it may suggest that it is an innate way for a caregiver to interact with their baby, supporting Bowlbys biological theory.
• IJzendoorn ao3

  • reliable as the same standardised methodology of the strange situation was used across cultures
  • consistent in patterns - gemreally secure attachemnts is common. Other types exist more so in some places due to cultural preferences than bad parenting
  • because there are so many cultural differences - family structure, parenting style, role of children and expectations it is hard to pinpoint which feature causes which effect.
• research evidence suggesting role of the father as a playmate

  • geiger found that father's play interactions were more exciting compared to mothers play interactions that were more affectionate and nurturing.
  • Suggests role of father is not as a sensitive parent who responds to child's needs. Lamb's research support this s mothers are preferred when children are distressed and need comfort whereas fathers are preferred when seeking stimulation.
• research evidence suggesting the role of the father as restricted due to their biological makeup- pt 1

  • Hardy found that fathers were less able to detect low levels of infant distress in comparison to mothers supporting the biological explanation that the lack of oestrogen in men means fathers are unable to become the primary attachment figure as they cannot provide the same sensitive and nurturing type of attachment.
• research evidence suggesting the role of the father as restricted due to their biological makeup - pt2

  • However in present times, role of father is changing in society as now many mother have a job and 9% of British single parents are male. Therefore, Lamb's research that males who become main care providers are able to quickly develop sensitivity to children's needs and becomes their safe base, which suggests sensitive responsiveness isnt a biological ability.
• Research evidence suggests that there are several factors that affects the relationships between father and child - pt1

  • belksy found that males who reported higher levels of marital intimacy may also display a secure attachment with their infants, suggesting that the relationship between father and child is not biologically determined but rather mediated by the environment (mother-father relationship)
• Research evidence suggests that there are several factors that affects the relationships between father and child - pt2

  • Brown found that high levels of supportive co-parenting also leads to securer attachments as fathers who spend more time with their children have more opportunities to interact with the child, supporting the development of attachments. However, it may be father who are more sensitive to their child's needs are able to interact with the child more.
• early research into attachment focused on animals on the basis that there was a biological continuity between humans and animals.
• Lorenz investigated the mechanisms of imprinting: a form of attachment where animals will follow the first moving object they encounter (usually the mother)

  • Lorenz split a large clutch of greylag goose eggs
  • One batch was hatched naturally by the mother. The other batch was incubated and ensured that Lorenz was the first moving object they encountered. Following behaviours was recorded
  • Lorenz put all the goslings under an upturned box and allowed them to mix. When he lifted the box, following behaviours were recorded.
• Lorenz found that incubated geese regarded Lorenz as their mother and followed him accordingly whilst naturally hatched geese followed the mother goose

  ao3 - pt 1

  
  

  • noted imprinting occurred between a 4-25 hr critical period after hatching - biological ability
  • imprinting has consequences in the long term as it forms the internal templates for later relationships. Suggested as goslings that imprinted on humans exhibited sexual advances on humans as adult birds - continuity hypothesis
  • imprinting occurs without feeding - Bowlby's monotropic theory
• pt 2 - ao3 imprinting

  • sluckin found that imprinting could occur even after 5 days suggesting the critical period is actually a sensitive period - optimum timeframe for forming attachments but attachments can still form after this period with more difficulty
  • however cant extrapolate to humans - what applies to non human species may not apply to humans
  • different in nature and complexity to human bonds
  • ethical issues - separation from mother causes emotional harm.
• pt 3 - ao3 imprinting

  • imprinting as irreversible as geese that imprinted on Lorenz only followed him and not the mother - biological ability as learning behaviours can be modified by experience.
  • Guiton's chicks had imprinted on yellow rubber gloves so tried to mate with gloves However, with experience they were able to learn to prefer mating with other chicks instead showing effects of imprinting could be reversed.
• 1. Harlow reared rhesus monkeys in a controlled environment with a wired mother surrogate that dispensed food nd a clothed mother surrogate that provided no food. Time spent with each was recorded
  2. set up fear condition of a loud noise to see who infants preferred for comfort when stressed
  3. long term effects were recorded - sociability, relationships to offspring
• Harlow found that:

  • infant monkeys spent most time with cloth mother even though she had no milk
  • only went to wired mother for food
  • when placed in a large cage, would only explore if cloth mother was present and returned back to her more often than wired
  • infant went to cloth mother when frightened

  So can conclude:

  the contact comfort provided by clothed mother was more important that food in the formation of attachment. Contact comfort is associated with lower stress and a higher willingness to explore, indicating a higher emotional security
• Harlow and Soumi raised newborn monkeys in isolation for 6 months. When placed with a normal monkey, gradually increasing their contact time, the monkey had recovered by 3 years suggesting effects of maternal deprivation if placed in a nurturing environment could be reversed.

  Harlow - had monkeys raised in isolation for longer (2yrs). They were psychologically disturbed attacking themselves, other monkeys and even offspring, suggesting maternal deprivation for the whole critical period of attachment can cause irreversible damage.
• Harlow ao3

  • unethical
  • cant extrapolate to humans
  • human bonds are different in complexity and nature
  • practical value as now captive wild animals are made sure to have adequate attachment figures as part of their care
• privation - children who have never formed an attachment. More likely to lead to serious irreversible damage socially, emotionally, physically and intellectually than deprivation.

  • comparing the War orphans and Genie - close attachments war orphans had to each other that explains why they made lasting recoveries whereas Genie who has none made little progress