Attachment

• Reciprocity

  • Infants age 2-3 weeks tended to mimic adults' facial expressions and hand movements
• Types of Caregiver-Infant interactions

  • Reciprocity
  • Interactional synchrony
• Reciprocity


  A two-way communication where both people are active participants and signals flow both ways
• Caregiver-Infant interactions

  The way parents and babies communicate with each other, believed to be important for a child's social development and the development of attachments
• Interactional synchrony


  • Infants moved in sequence with adults, coordinating their actions
• Interactional synchrony

  Both parties move in time with the rhythm, infants coordinate their actions with the caregiver
• advantages if caregiver interactions

  Objective - controlling observers using double blind

  face validity - simple and not over complicated

  IFRL (implications for real life) - statistically linked to how they grow up
• Disadvantage of caregiver interactions

  Subjective - difficulty in observing and interpreting infants actions

  cannot be generalised as they ignore the role of the father

  social sensitivity - may change the way parents behave or feel
• In 65% of children, the mother was the first specific attachment compared to 3% for fathers
• Schaffer sought to formulate clear stages of attachment in infants through analysing the child's interactions with their carers
• Multiple attachments began soon after the first attachment had been formed, with most babies having several attachments by 10 months old, including mothers, fathers, siblings, and extended family
• Schaffer studied 60 babies from a working-class area of Glasgow in a longitudinal study over the period of a year and again at 18 months, both through self-report and observation in their own homes
• Schaffer measured the strength of attachment by recording separation anxiety and stranger anxiety
• The mother was the main attachment figure for roughly half of the babies when they were 18 months old
• 75% of infants studied had formed an attachment with the father at 18 months
• The first specific attachment was formed by 50% of infants around 7 months old, evidenced by separation anxiety towards a particular adult, often the mother
• Attachment tends to be to the caregiver who is most interactive and sensitive to infants' signals (reciprocity), not necessarily the person they spend the most time with
• Schaffer's Stages of Attachment

  1. The asocial Stage: Birth to 2 months

  2. Indiscriminate attachment: 2 to 7 months

  3. Specific attachment: 7-12 months

  4. Multiple attachments: 1 year onwards
• advantages of shchaffer

  supporting research

  naturalistic observer

  real-life setting
• Disadvantages of schaffer

  Culture

  social class

  social desirability
• economic factors of role of the father

  Breadwinner and long working hours

  so spend less time with baby
• Biological factors in role of the father

  Skin-to-skin contact releases oxytocin.

  men are less likely to detect infants destress
• individual circumstances in the role of the father

  Dads are more likely to be physically active and challenge their child.

  male children are more likely to prefer dad and female mum.
• What is the learning theory

  Classical conditioning and operant conditioning
• What is classical conditioning

  Unconditioned stimulus (food)-> unconditioned response (baby)

  neutral stimulus (mum) + unconditioned stimulus (food) -> unconditioned response (baby)

  conditioned stimulus (mum) -> conditioned response (baby)
• What is operant conditioning

  Accidental reinforcement