Attachment

• Caregiver-infant interactions


  Interactions between caregivers and infants that have important functions for the child's social development
• Reciprocity in caregiver-infant interactions


  • Each person responds to the other and elicits a response from them
  • Essential part of any conversation, otherwise people talk over each other
• Alert phases in babies

  • Periodic phases where babies signal (e.g. making eye contact) that they are ready for interaction
  • Mothers typically respond to their baby's alert phases around two-thirds of the time
• Active role of babies in interactions


  • Both caregiver and baby can initiate interactions and take turns responding to each other
• Interactional synchrony


  The temporal coordination of micro-level social behaviour between caregiver and baby
• Interactional synchrony


  Important for the development of caregiver-infant attachment
• Other research suggests early caregiver-infant interactions are important for development
• Schaffer's stages of attachment

  A sequence of four identifiable stages of attachment development observed in all babies
• Schaffer's stages of attachment

  • Stage 1: Asocial stage
  • Stage 2: Indiscriminate attachment
  • Stage 3: Specific attachment
  • Stage 4: Multiple attachments
• Role of the father

  Traditionally limited, as fathers would go out to work to provide resources while mothers stayed at home and took care of the children. In recent times, the role of the father has significantly changed.
• Question about the father's role

  • Whether the father's role is similar to or different from that of the mother
• Attachment to fathers


  Fathers are much less likely to become babies' first attachment figures compared to mothers
• Schaffer and Emerson (1964) found that the majority of babies first became attached to their mother at around 7 months, and in only 3% of cases the father won the first attachment. In 27% of cases the father was the joint first object of attachment with the mother.
• 75% of the infants in Schaffer and Emerson's study formed an attachment to their father by the age of 12 months, evidenced by the fact the infants protested when their father walked away.
• Distinctive role for fathers

  • Fathers have a different role in attachment, more to do with play and stimulation and less to do with nurturing
• Grossman (2002) found that the quality of infant attachment with mothers but not fathers was related to children's attachments in adolescence, suggesting that father attachment was less important. However, the quality of the father's play with infants was related to the quality of adolescent attachments.
• Fathers as primary attachment figures

  When fathers do take on the role of primary caregiver, they are able to adopt the emotional role more typically associated with mothers
• Field (1978) found that primary caregiver fathers spent more time smiling, imitating and holding babies than the secondary caregiver fathers, which are all part of the process of attachment formation.
• Lorenz's research on imprinting

  Lorenz observed that newly hatched ducklings would follow the first moving object they saw, a phenomenon called imprinting
• Imprinting procedure


  Ducklings were hatched with the researcher as the first moving object they saw, and they then followed him everywhere
• Sexual imprinting


  Lorenz also investigated the relationship between imprinting and adult mate preference, finding that birds imprinted on an object would later display courtship behaviour towards that object
• Harlow's research on attachment

  Harlow worked with rhesus monkeys to study the importance of contact comfort and the effects of maternal deprivation
• Learning theory


  Approach that emphasises the importance of the attachment figure as a provider of food
• Classical conditioning


  1. Learning to associate two stimuli together

  2. Food serves as an unconditioned stimulus

  3. Caregiver becomes a conditioned stimulus

  4. Conditioned response of pleasure
• Operant conditioning


  1. Learning from the consequences of behaviour

  2. Crying leads to a response from the caregiver

  3. Mutual reinforcement strengthens attachment
• Attachment as secondary drive

  Attachment is a secondary drive learned by an association between the caregiver and satisfaction of a primary drive (e.g. hunger)
• Learning theory explanations lack support from studies on animals
• Learning theory explanations lack support from studies on human babies
• Elements of conditioning could be involved in some aspects of attachment
• Learning theory sees the baby playing a relatively passive role in attachment development
• Monotropy theory


  Bowlby's theory that attachment is an innate system that gives survival advantage, with a focus on a child's attachment to one particular caregiver
• Monotropy


  • The child's attachment to the primary caregiver is different and more important than others
  • The more time a baby spends with the primary attachment figure, the better
• Law of continuity


  The more constant and predictable a child's care, the better the quality of their attachment
• Law of accumulated separation


  The effects of every separation from the mother add up, and the safest dose is therefore a zero dose
• Social releasers


  Innate behaviours like smiling, cooing, and gripping that encourage attention from adults and build the attachment relationship
• Critical/sensitive period


  The period around 6 months to 2 years when the infant attachment system is active and sensitive
• Internal working model


  A mental representation of the relationship with the primary attachment figure, which serves as a model for future relationships
• Monotropy is contradicted by evidence of multiple attachments
• Animal evidence supports Bowlby's idea of a critical/sensitive period
• Bowlby's idea of a critical period has been criticised and replaced with 'sensitive period'