Attachment

• Developmental psychology


  Area of psychology that deals with the changes that happen during the life-span, through infancy, childhood, adolescence, adulthood and old age
• Attachment


  An emotional relationship between two people (reciprocal) in which each seeks closeness and feels more secure when in the presence of the attachment figure
• Attachment


  • Proximity seeking
  • Distress on separation
  • Pleasure on reunion
  • Orientation of behaviour towards the attachment figure
• The first attachment to form is between the infant and his/her primary caregiver (usually the mother)
• Reciprocity


  The two-way nature of caregiver-child interaction where both the adult and the child are involved, making sounds and gestures directed towards the other
• Interactional synchrony (IS)


  The timing of communications between parent and child, where the two are reacting to one another's actions and emotions in a rhythmical manner
• High levels of IS predict secure attachments, and seem to be optimal for development
• Meltzoff and Moore (1977) found that very young infants (2-3 weeks old) seemed to imitate the facial expressions and gestures performed by an experimenter
• There is always uncertainty in research using infants, as their behaviour needs to be interpreted by the researcher, which leads to possible investigator bias
• Stages of attachment identified by Schaffer

  • Asocial/pre-attachment stage (0-6 weeks)
  • Indiscriminate attachments (6 weeks to 6 months)
  • Specific attachments (From 7 months)
  • Multiple attachments (9/10 months+)
• Asocial/pre-attachment stage


  Newborn babies can't see very well, and don't discriminate between objects and people, but towards the end of this stage, they start showing a preference for looking at people
• Indiscriminate attachments


  Babies prefer to be with people, and are beginning to be able to tell people apart, for example, smiling more at familiar people. However, they can be held and easily comforted by strangers without protest
• Specific attachments


  Babies clearly prefer certain people, and begin to show separation anxiety when their preferred caregiver leaves. They also reject strangers
• Multiple attachments


  Very soon after the first attachment, babies develop further ones: according to Shaffer, 28% of infants have developed an additional attachment within 1 month of the first. Within 6 months, 78% of babies have multiple attachments
• Schaeffer and Emerson - "Glasgow babies" (1964)


  Longitudinal study of 60 infants and their mothers in a working class area of Glasgow (UK) to document the process of attachment formation and identify the stages of attachment
• Infants begin to show separation protest from 6-8 months. Stranger anxiety usually appears about 1 month later. Most infants developed multiple attachments, which were apparent in 87% by 18 months of age. 30% of infants had more than 5 attachments
• The common pattern of the development attachment suggests a universal, innate, biologically determined process
• Researcher bias and cultural bias (ethnocentrism) are problems with this kind of study on babies
• Role of the father

  For very young children, the mother is usually the primary caregiver, as breastfeeding is the primary source of nutrition. However, fathers can also take on the role of primary caregiver
• There is no good evidence to support the idea that women are biologically better equipped for parenting than men
• In traditional families, mothers and fathers are seen to have different roles, with fathers' interactions with the child being more playful, physical and exciting than the mother's, but this seems to be culturally- and subculturally-specific
• Evidence suggests that children raised by single parents and same-sex couples are no different to others in terms of social and emotional development
• Konrad Lorenz - Imprinting in greylag geese


  Lorenz's geese followed him as if he were their mother. Imprinting could only occur between 4 and 24 hours of age. The bond formed was permanent and irreversible
• Imprinting in these species is an automatic, innate process, based on the formation of a visual and auditory template of the 'mother' figure. It can only happen in a critical period
• Imprinting is not the same as attachment. There is clearly a critical period for imprinting, but is the same true of attachment? This is controversial
• Geese are precocial (can move around independently shortly after hatching), while humans are altricial (born helpless and dependent)
• Harry Harlow - "The nature of Love"


  Infant rhesus macaque monkeys spent most time with the cloth 'mother' and only visited the wire 'mother' to feed, and clung to the cloth 'mother' when frightened
• Infants do not attach to the one who feeds them (challenging learning theory) but to the one who provides the most contact comfort
• Harlow's research has been hotly debated due to ethical concerns over the suffering caused to the monkeys
• However, this research helps us to understand the rare and shocking cases of neglect and privation in human children
• Harlow used numerous controls to ensure the internal validity of his research, and give it scientific credibility (e.g. using a standardised 'mechanical monster' to frighten the monkeys for a specific period of time)
• However, the two 'mothers' differed in more than one way (face and body), so it is not possible to distinguish the effects of these two variables – was it really the 'contact comfort' of the cloth mother that the babies ran to, or was it her friendly face?
• Harlow's animals suffered permanent psychological damage. Follow up observations found that monkeys raised in this way developed abnormal social, sexual and parenting behaviour.
• However, this research helps us to understand the rare and shocking cases of neglect and privation in human children, such as the girl known as 'Genie', who was discovered at the age of 13, having been locked in a room with almost no human contact from an early age.
• Behaviourists (learning theorists)


  Argue that we come into the world as a relatively 'blank slate', with only a few innate responses and that nurture (experience and learning) teaches us the rest
• Classical conditioning


  We learn to associate two different stimuli that are repeatedly presented together
• Operant conditioning


  We learn by being reinforced (rewarded or punished) for performing particular actions (operants)
• Drive reduction


  Food is a primary drive, because its absence will very quickly result in death. Because of the association of emotional closeness with feeding, attachment becomes a motivator in itself – a secondary drive, according to the theory.
• Schaffer and Emerson found that only about 50% of infants had their primary attachment to the person who fed them, which suggests that food is not the primary reason for attachment.
• Harlow found that the monkeys ran to the cloth mother, not the one who fed them, suggesting that 'creature comfort' is more important than food in attachment.