P1: Attachment

• Attachment

  When two people develop long and lasting emotional bonds, in this case the infant and their caregiver. Both the infant and caregiver seek closeness to each other and feel secure when close to their attachment figure.
• Reciprocity


  A mutual turn-taking form of interaction, like a conversation with each person playing close attention and responding to the other's signals and cues.
• Interactional synchrony

  Simultaneous, coordinated matching of behaviour and emotional states between the infant and caregiver.
• Sensitive responsiveness


  The caregiver carefully paying attention to the infant's communication and responding appropriately.
• Child-directed speech

  A sing-song voice with variable tone, used to keep the infant's attention. Also known as motherese (MES).
• Bodily contact, including breastfeeding, is seen as vital for developing an attachment.
• Stages of attachment identified by Schaffer

  • Stage 1 (birth to 6 weeks) - Asocial stage, no preference for caregivers
  • Stage 2 (6 weeks to 7 months) - Indiscriminate attachment, can tell familiar from unfamiliar adults
  • Stage 3 (6-9 months) - Specific attachment, strong connection to primary caregiver
  • Stage 4 (9-10 months) - Multiple attachments, develop attachments to other caregivers
• Schaffer found that for 65% of infants, the mother was the sole primary attachment figure, 30% had both parents, and only 3% had the father as the primary attachment figure.
• Father's role

  Initially less important than the mother's, but by 18 months most infants had developed attachment to the father. Fathers provide more active play to encourage risk-taking, while primary caregiver fathers show more sensitive responsiveness like mothers.
• Imprinting


  Behavior common in birds where young animals follow the first moving object they see after hatching
• Loren's imprinting experiment

  1. Randomly divided a clutch of gray like goose eggs

  2. Half hatched naturally with biological mother

  3. Half hatched in incubator with Loren as first thing goslings saw

  4. Tested limits of imprinting by making goslings wait before seeing moving object
• Goslings hatched by mother followed her, goslings hatched by Lorenz imprinted on him
• Critical period

  Around 32 hours, if goslings didn't imprint by this point they lost the ability
• Loren's work

  • Provides evidence for biological aspect to attachment behavior in birds
  • Process of imprinting is based on vision
• Cupboard love theory

  Infants love their mothers because they feed them, forming association between food and mother
• Harlow's monkey experiment

  1. Removed infant monkeys from mothers soon after birth

  2. Placed in cage with two surrogate mothers: wire mother with bottle, cloth mother without food

  3. Recorded time monkeys spent with each

  4. Frightened monkeys to see which surrogate they ran to
• Monkeys spent majority of time with cloth mother, not wire mother
• Monkeys ran to cloth mother when frightened
• Harlow's findings

  • Monkeys suffered maternal deprivation
  • Had long-term problems interacting with other monkeys and raising their infants
  • Rejected cupboard love theory, argued animals have innate need for physical contact
• Monotropic relationship

  Human infants crave comfort from their mothers, as argued by Bowlby
• Critical period

  (according to Bowlby) 6 to 30 months, after which attachment damage is irreversible
• Later research showed deprived human orphans who received suitable care could recover, indicating humans have a sensitive not critical period
• Knowledge from Lorenz and Harlow's work informed child care practices, e.g. encouraging immediate physical contact between mother and baby
• Harlow's research was unethical, subjecting primates to suffering
• However, Harlow's work influenced later researchers like Bowlby, ultimately improving policies around infant care
• Attachment

  The strong bond that develops between an infant and their primary caregiver, usually their biological mother
• Infant and primary caregiver

  Develop a strong bond quickly
• Biological psychologists' view on attachment

  • Attachment bond is innate, babies are primed with the need to attach to their mother figures, and caregivers have an innate response to care for them
• Behaviorist perspective on attachment

  • Babies just really need to be fed, and they love their mother because she is the best way to get food, parents' love for infants is more relief that the baby has stopped crying
• Classical conditioning explanation of attachment

  Neutral stimulus (mother) becomes associated with unconditioned stimulus (food), resulting in conditioned response (pleasure)
• Operant conditioning explanation of attachment

  Crying behavior is positively reinforced by parents providing care, and parents' behavior is negatively reinforced by the removal of the unpleasant crying stimulus
• Primary drives

  Instinctual desires required for survival and reproduction, such as sleep, hunger, thirst, and sex
• Secondary drives


  Learned desires that can ultimately satisfy primary drives, such as money
• Attachment as a secondary drive

  Infants seek attachment with their mothers because they learn the mother will ultimately satisfy their primary drive of hunger
• Bowlby's Monotropic Theory


  • Infants are naturally driven to form a strong bond with their primary caregiver (usually the mother) due to evolutionary reasons, as the caregiver is the main source of food and protection
• Bowlby's concept of social releases


  • Innate infant behaviors like crying, smiling, and vocalizing that are designed to draw the caregiver's attention
• Bowlby's concept of critical period

  • Humans have a critical period in the first 30 months after birth to form a primary attachment, failure to do so can lead to lasting negative impacts
• Internal working model

  A set of schemas formed about relationships, based on the first attachment relationship, that guide beliefs about the trustworthiness of others and the normality of expressions of love
• There are alternative theories to Bowlby's evolutionary perspective, such as the behaviorist "cupboard love" theory of attachment
• Variations in how even young children interact with the world and their mothers

  • Some children are very independent, not needing their mothers for reassurance
  • Others are excessively clingy