Attachment

• Reciprocity


  When the baby responds to the mother/caregiver
• Alert phase


  1. Infant signals to caregiver that it's time to interact

  2. Mother picks up on this
• Active involvement


  1. Caregiver and infant take turns responding to each other

  2. e.g. caregiver waves, infant smiles
• Interactional synchrony


  • Baby mirrors (imitates) their caregiver's behaviour
  • Both are synchronized as they carry out the same action at the same time
• Key studies of caregiver-infant interactions 


  • Meltzoff & Moore - adults displayed facial expressions
  • Isabella et al. - imitated adult behaviour
• Suggests babies are born with a programmed ability to interact to help attach with a caregiver
• Positive correlation between level of synchrony


  And attachment
• Evaluation of caregiver-infant interactions: Led to useful applications
• Evaluation of caregiver-infant interactions: Questionable validity of testing children in lab conditions due to lack of ecological validity
• Give the two phases of reciprocity

  Alert phase and active involvement
• Bowlby suggested there is a positive correlation between


  Quality of an infant's primary attachment and the quality of their later relationships
• Internal working model


  They acquire an internal working model, they can predict later relationships (continuity hypothesis)
• Secure infants


  • More socially competent, more popular, sociable and more empathetic
  • Expected others to be friendly, trusting (easy to form relationships) due to IWM
• Avoidant children


  • Most likely to be victims of bullying
• Resistant children


  • Most likely to be bullies
• Attachment type


  Positively correlated with love experiences
• Secure attachment type


  • Happy, friendly and trusting, also have longer relationships (10 year average vs 6.5 years)
• Avoidant attachment type


  • More jealous and feared intimacy
• Lack of attachment


  Leads to a lack of internal working model and attachment disorders
• Children with attachment disorders have no preferred attachment style and can't interact with others
• Maternal deprivation


  Consequences of deprivation of maternal care, if denied mother love for a frequent prolonged time you may become emotionally disturbed
• Negative effects if maternal deprivation occurs before 2.5 years
• Maternal deprivation


  • Only applies if there is no mother substitute, can be avoided if suitable substitute care is given
  • 3 stages: protest, despair, detachment
• Effects of maternal deprivation


  • Intellectual development low
  • Emotional development may have affectionless psychopathy - inability to experience affection, guilt, shame or responsibility
• 86% of affectionless thieves had experienced early separation
• Institutionalization


  Effects of living in an institutional setting for a continued period of time
• Romanian Orphans


  • Over 100,000 orphans put into orphanages with little cognitive, emotional stimulation and emotional care, many were malnourished
• Effects of early institutionalization

  • Lagged behind on physical, cognitive and social development measures
  • Disinhibited attachment - attention seeking, indiscriminate towards strangers
• Physical and intellectual underdevelopment can be reversed with good quality care
• Poor parenting by institutionalized women


  Their children were more likely to be in care
• Strange Situation


  Lab setting with one-way mirror, contains a number of episodes assessing infant's attachment behaviours
• Attachment types identified


  • Secure, insecure-resistant, insecure-avoidant
• Imprinting


  Innate programmed attachment formation from birth
• Goose imprinting study


  • Geese imprinted on whoever they hatched with
• Cupboard love theory


  Attachment is for comfort, not just food
• Monkeys suffered consequences of wire mother attachment - more aggressive, less sociable, neglected young
• Monotropic theory


  Attachment is important for child's survival, evolved through natural selection, critical period for attachment formation
• Internal working model


  Cognitive framework including mental representations that affect later relationships
• Stages of attachment


  • Asocial, indiscriminate, discriminate, multiple attachments
• Father's role in attachment

  Biologically different to mothers, play a different 'playmate' role rather than 'nurturer/carer'