Attachment

• reciprocity

  when the primary caregiver and infant respond to each others signals and each elicits a response
• interactional synchrony

  when the primary caregiver and infant reflect the actions and emotions of the other in a co-ordinated way
• alert phases


  Feldman: from three months a mother and baby pay close attention to each other's verbal signals and facial expressions
• active involvement

  Brazelton: both the mother and baby initiate interactions, like a 'dance'
• synchrony begins

  Meltzoff and Moore:

  • observed interactional synchrony in two week old babies
  • adults displayed one of three facial expressions or gestures
  • the baby's response mirrored the adult
• importance for attachment

  Isabella:

  • observed 30 mothers and babies together
  • high levels of synchrony were associated with better quality mother-baby attachment
• A strength of caregiver-infant interactions.

  recorded in a lab, reliable, valid, inter-rater reliability
• A limitation of caregiver-infant interactions.

  hard to interpret a babies behaviour, Feldman: observation doesn't tell us why reciprocity and synchrony are important for a child's development
• Schaffer and Emerson's stages of attachment

  • Stage 1: Asocial stage (weeks old) - similar interactions between people and inanimate objects
  • Stage 2: Indiscriminate stage (2-7 months) - no separation or stranger anxiety
  • Stage 3: Specific stage (7 months) - identifies primary attachment figure, now shows signs of separation and stranger anxiety
  • Stage 4: Multiple stage (+7 months) - baby now forms secondary attachments with other people they regularly spend time with
• Schaffer and Emerson's research

  • 60 babies, 31 male, 29 female (gender bias)
  • researchers visited their home for their first year then again at 18 months (naturalistic environment increases validity, Hawthorne effect)
  • asked mothers to write down behaviour when they were to leave a room (social desirability bias)
  • results help identify the stages of attachment
• Attachment to the father: Schaffer and Emerson


  • 3% of cases the father was the primary attachment figure
  • 27% of cases the father was the joint primary attachment figure
  • 75% of babies studied by Schaffer and Emerson formed an attachment with their father by the age of 18 months
  • this is determined by the fact that babies protested when their father walked away, this is a sign of attachment due to separation anxiety
• Distinctive role of the father


  Grossmann:

  • longitudinal study, from babies to teens
  • researchers looked at both parent's behaviour and its relationship to the quality of their baby's later attachments to other people
  • quality with mothers but not fathers were related to attachments in adolescents, suggesting the father is less important
  • quality of fathers' play was related to the quality of adolescent attachments
  • suggesting the importance of both play and stimulation from the father and emotional development from the mother
• Fathers as primary attachment figures

  Field:

  • filmed four month old babies face-to-face interaction with primary caregiver mothers, secondary caregiver fathers and primary caregiver fathers
  • both primary mothers and fathers spent more time smiling, imitating and holding babies than secondary caregiver fathers
  • therefore it seems fathers have the potential to provide the responsiveness required but perhaps only express this when given the role of the primary caregiver (we would expect lesbian-parent families children to develop differently, therefore is their role distinctive?)
• Animal studies: Lorenz

  • observing imprinting in goslings
  • separated eggs, put 1/2 in an incubator and 1/2 with the mother
  • found that once hatched, their innate response is to imprint what they see first
  • found the critical period for attachment was a few hours after hatching
• Strengths of Lorenz's research:

  • Regolin and Vallortigara replicated the study with chicks and shapes, chicks followed the shape they were exposed to first, supports the innate mechanism to imprint on a moving object present in the critical period
• Limitations of Lorenz's research:

  • hard to generalise results to humans
  • ethics of animal studies
• Animal studies: Harlow

  • observing the importance of contact comfort
  • placed baby rhesus monkey's in either condition:
  • wired mother with food
  • cloth mother without food
  • mechanical bear used to scare them
  • observed baby monkey always run to cloth mother for comfort when distressed
• Strengths of Harlow's research:

  • has helped social workers and clinical psychologists understand why a lack of bonding experience may be a risk factor in child development
• Limitations of Harlow's research:

  • hard to generalise results to humans
  • ethics of animal studies
• Explanations of attachment: Learning theory

  • classical conditioning - attachments are learned by the food (unconditioned stimulus) producing a natural response of pleasure (unconditioned response) being paired with a caregiver (conditional stimulus), eventually associating caregiver with pleasure even in the absence of food
  • operant conditioning - attachments happen because the caregiver has become associated with the reduction of hunger (negative reinforcement) and the caregiver becomes the source of reinforcement (positive reward/avoid negative)
• Strengths of learning theory:

  • conditioning may influence the baby's primary attachment figure if a particular parent is associated with warmth or comfort
• Limitations of learning theory:

  • Behaviourist explanation is reductionist, ignores cognitive processes for the emotional nature of attachment
  • Schaffer and Emerson: babies tended to form primary attachment with mother regardless of whether she was the one that fed them
  • Lorenz: goslings imprinted on what they saw first, no association with food
  • Harlow: baby monkeys displayed attachment towards cloth mother without food
• Explanations of attachment: Bowlby's Theory

  • monotropy - one primary attachment figure
  • Bowlby identified 2 principles for monotropic theory:
  • law of continuity - consistent childcare means better quality attachment
  • law of accumulated separation - effects of every separation from the mother add up
• Explanations of attachment: Bowlby's Theory

  • social releasers - 'cute' innate behaviours that encourage attention from adults
  • within this he identified the critical period to form an attachment was 6 months
  • if an attachment isn't formed in this time, its harder for the child to form one later
• Explanations of attachment: Bowlby's Theory

  • internal working model - a child forms a mental representation of their relationship with their primary attachment figure
  • acts as a model for future relationships
  • acts as a model for future parenting on their own children
• Strengths of Bowlby's theory

  • Brazelton: observed babies become distressed when an adult ignored their social releasers, suggesting they're important for child development
  • Bailey: observed 99 mothers and their one year old babies quality of attachment, found that mothers with poor attachment to their own primary attachment figure were more likely to have poorly attached babies
• Limitations of Bowlby's theory

  • Schaffer and Emerson: theory lacks validity because they found babies formed secondary attachments in the multiple stage
• Mary Ainsworth's 'Strange Situation'

  • controlled observation of infant-caregiver interaction in a lab with a two-way mirror
  • behaviours used to judge attachment included:+
  • proximity-seeking - baby with good quality attachment will stay close to caregiver
  • exploration - good attachment enables babies to feel comfortable to explore, using their caregiver as a secure-base
  • stranger anxiety - closely attached displays stranger anxiety
  • separation anxiety - closely attached protests when separated
  • response to reunion - securely attached greet caregiver and seek comfort
• Types of attachment:

  • secure attachment - explore happily but regularly return to caregiver, show moderate separation and stranger anxiety, require and accept comfort during reunion
  • insecure-avoidant attachment - explore freely but don't seek proximity of caregiver, no signs of separation of stranger anxiety, avoid comfort during reunion
  • insecure-resistant attachment - seek proximity of caregiver, high levels of separation and stranger anxiety, resist comfort during reunion
• Strengths of types of attachment :

  • strong predictive validity as it measures something related to child development
  • Bick: tested inter-rater reliability of the 'Strange Situation' using trained observers, found agreement on attachment type in 94% of cases
• Limitations of types of attachment:

  • Kagan: suggested that genetically-influenced anxiety levels could account for variation in attachment behaviour
  • Takahashi: study may have a culture bias, therefore suggests that anxiety response was due to the unusual nature of the experience in a certain culture (Western vs Japanese)
• Cultural variations in attachment:

  • IJzendoorn and Kroonenberg: conducted a study to look at the proportions of attachment types across countries
  • 32 studies of attachment where the 'Strange Situation' was used
  • studies conducted in 8 countries, 15 of which were in the USA
  • 1,990 children
  • results were meta-analysed
  • in all countries, secure attachment was most common
  • variations between results of studies in the same country were actually 150% greater than those between countries
• Strengths of cultural variation:

  • indigenous psychologists means they can communicate well with participants, increasing the validity of data
• Limitations of cultural variation:

  • looking at attachment behaviour in different studies conducted in different countries may not tell us anything about cross-cultural patterns of attachment, ignores confounding variables (poverty, social class, room size may limit exploration)
• Bowlby's theory of maternal deprivation: Effects on development

  • intellectual development - if children were deprived of maternal care for too long during the critical period (2 1/2 years) they would experience delayed intellectual development, characterising low IQ
  • emotional development - being deprived of a mothers emotional care creates affectionless psychopathy which is an inability to experience guilt, remorse or strong emotion towards others
• Bowlby's theory of maternal deprivation: Research

  • looked at the emotional and intellectual consequences of separation from primary caregiver
  • 44 criminal teens accused of stealing, interviewed for signs of affectionless psychopathy
  • interviewed their families to see whether teens had any prolonged separation rom their mothers
  • compared to a control group
  • found 14 of the 44 teens were affectionless psychopaths, 12 of which had prolonged separation from their mother
  • 2 participants in the control group had experienced separation from their mother
• Strengths of Bowlby's maternal deprivation theory:

  • Levy: showed that separating baby rats from their mother for as little as a day had a permanent effect on their social development
• Limitations of Bowlby's maternal deprivation theory:

  • researcher bias, Bowlby conducted all the interviews for both the normal and control group
  • Rutter: may be privation not deprivation, perhaps children in the '44 thieves' study never formed an attachment in the first place
• Romanian Orphan Studies: Institutionalisation: Rutter

  • followed a group of 165 Romanian orphans adopted by families in the UK
  • investigating the extent to which good care could make up for poor early experiences in institutions, assessing physical, cognitive and emotional development in 4-25 year olds
  • compared to a control group of 52
  • found half the adoptees had delayed intellectual development and were undernourished
  • children adopted after 6 months had a disinhibited attachment, symptoms include attention-seeking and clinginess
• Romanian Orphan Studies: Institutionalisation: Zeanah

  • assessed attachment in 95 Romanian children aged 21-31 months who had spent most of their lives in institutional care
  • compared to a control group of 50 children not institutionalised
  • attachment type measured using the 'Strange Situation
  • 74% of control group had a secure attachment
  • 19% of institutional group had a secure attachment
  • 44% of institutional group had a disinhibited attachment
  • less than 20% of control group had a disinhibited attachment