Paper 1

• Attachment


  A two way enduring emotional bond that develops between the infant and the caregiver early in the infant's life
• Attachment development


  1. Two-way communication

  2. Responding to each other

  3. Builds emotional bonds

  4. Infant shows distress when separated from caregiver
• Interactional synchrony


  • Infant and caregiver reflect each other's actions and emotions in a coordinated manner
• Reciprocity


  Interaction wherein the adult and infant continuously respond to each others actions and can initiate or respond to communication
• Imitation


  Interaction where the infant mimics/copies the adult's behaviour exactly
• Sensitive responsiveness


  When the adult pays close attention to the infant's communication and responds in an appropriate manner
• Caregiverese


  Where adults modulate their voice, slowing it down and raising the pitch to make it almost song-like
• Bodily contact


  Physical contact, often skin-to-skin, seen as important in bonding, particularly in the first few hours of life
• Meltzoff and Moore (1977) found that infants between 12 and 21 days old imitated facial and manual gestures of an experimenter
• Papousek et al (1991) showed that the tendency to produce caregiverese is common across American, Chinese, and German mothers
• Modern techniques of studying attachment use multiple observers, video cameras, and inter-rater reliability to reduce bias
• Findings on infant-caregiver interaction depend on inferences about internal mental states based on observations of infant behaviour, which is subjective and can suffer from observer bias
• Researchers are unable to claim intentionality as imitation behaviour may be an unconscious automatic response
• Social sensitivity is a concern when investigating child rearing techniques as some parents may find their life choices criticised
• Stranger distress


  Signs of discomfort when around a stranger and ability to distinguish between familiar and unfamiliar people
• Separation anxiety


  Signs of discomfort when the caregiver moved to another room, showing the development of an attachment bond
• Schaffer and Emerson (1964) found separation anxiety in the majority of babies by 25-32 weeks, with stranger anxiety occurring in most babies approximately one month later
• In the 18 month follow-up, 87% of babies had developed multiple attachments, with the strongest attachments tending to be to the mother
• Schaffer and Emerson's study used only white, working class Scottish babies from Glasgow, so lacks external validity
• Schaffer and Emerson's study was carried out in the 1960s, so may lack temporal validity due to changes in childrearing practices
• Schaffer and Emerson's study had high ecological validity and mundane realism as children were studied in their own homes
• Schaffer and Emerson's study incorporated self-report, allowing for triangulation and greater internal validity
• Asocial (pre-attachment) stage


  Occurs from 0-6 weeks of age, babies respond to objects similarly to humans but are more content with certain individuals and humans in general
• Indiscriminate (diffuse attachment) stage

  Occurs from 6 weeks to 7 months, babies can be handled by strangers without distress but can discriminate between familiar and unfamiliar individuals with preference for familiar adults, no separation or stranger anxiety
• Specific (or discriminate attachment) stage


  Occurs from 7-9 months onwards, babies experience separation and stranger anxiety, demonstrate a preference for one primary caregiver
• Multiple stage


  Occurs after 9 months of age, babies can be observed to be attached to more than one individual, including brothers, sisters, and grandparents, fear of strangers also decreases
• Schaffer found the primary attachment figure was the mother 65% of the time, the mother and someone else (i.e. the father) were both primary attachment figures in 30% of cases, and the father was the primary attachment figure in only 3% of cases
• The role of mothers and fathers has changed in Western cultures since the 1960s, with mothers more likely to work and fathers more likely to help with a greater proportion of childrearing
• Bowlby's view on fathers

  Fathers can fill a role closely resembling that filled by a mother, but in most cultures this is uncommon, fathers are more likely to engage in physically active and novel play than the mother and tend to become the child's preferred play companion
• Field (1978) found that primary caretaker fathers engaged in significantly more smiling, imitative grimaces, and imitative vocalizations than did secondary caretaker fathers, comparable with mothers' behaviour
• Verissimo et al (2011) found that a strong attachment to the father was the biggest predictor of ability to make friends at nursery, suggesting fathers play an important role in the socialisation process
• Findings on the importance of the father in social development could provide confidence to fathers taking on the role of primary caregiver and for single gender families becoming more common
• Infants are unable to communicate their thoughts and emotions, so findings depend on inferences about internal mental states based on observations of behaviour, which is subjective and can suffer from observer bias
• Imprinting


  When an animal such as a bird will strongly attach to the first object (usually the mother) that they encounter, the infant animal will then follow this object
• Lorenz (1932) found that geese follow the first moving object they see, during a 12-17 hour critical period after hatching, a process known as imprinting
• Hess (1958) showed the strongest imprinting responses occurred between 12 and 17 hours after hatching, and after 32 hours the response was unlikely to occur
• Lorenz concluded that the process of imprinting is a strong biological feature of attachment in certain birds, and that imprinting occurs based on the first object rather than on other cues
• Harlow (1958) found that newborn rhesus monkeys spent more time with a cloth surrogate mother than a wire surrogate mother, even if the wire mother provided milk
• Harlow observed that monkeys who were left with surrogate mothers for more than 90 days showed much more timid and socially maladjusted behaviour compared to those left less than 90 days
• Harlow concluded that "contact comfort" (provided by the cloth mother) was more important than food in the formation of attachment, and that early maternal deprivation leads to emotional damage that can be reversed if an attachment is made before the end of the critical period