Attachment

• Caregiver-infant interactions


  Deep and lasting emotional bonds between infants and caregivers, where both feel more secure when close
• Reciprocity


  • Mutual turn-taking form of interaction, where both caregiver and infant contribute by responding to each other's signals and cues
• Interactional synchrony


  • Simultaneous interaction between infant and caregiver, with matching coordinated behavior and emotional states
• Imitation


  • Infant directly copies the caregiver's expressions
• Sensitive responsiveness


  • Adult caregiver correctly interprets and appropriately responds to the infant's communication
• Meto and mo study

  • Experimenter displayed facial gestures, and found infants could observe and reciprocate through imitation
• Cohn and Tronick study

  • Videotaped interactions between adults and neonates, finding evidence of interactional synchrony and coordination
• Findings in caregiver-infant interaction research depend on inferences and assumptions about the infant's internal mental states, which are considered unscientific</b>
• Social sensitivity is a concern when investigating child-rearing techniques, as some women may find their life choices criticized
• Stages of attachment


  • Stage 1: Asocial (0-6 weeks), Stage 2: Indiscriminate attachment (6 weeks-7 months), Stage 3: Specific attachment (7-9 months), Stage 4: Multiple attachment (9-10 months+)
• Schaffer and Emerson study

  • Longitudinal observation of 60 working-class babies in Glasgow, finding separation anxiety by 25-32 weeks and stranger anxiety 1 month later, with 87% developing multiple attachments by 18 months
• Role of fathers


  Fathers play an important role in their infants' lives, encouraging active play and forming strong attachments
• Primary caregiver fathers


  Adopt a more sensitive and responsive interactional style, similar to mothers
• Strong attachment to the father is the best predictor of the ability to make friends in school
• Research on caregiver-infant interactions could lead to legislation ensuring equal paternity and maternity leave, with economic implications
• Animal studies of attachment

  • Lorenz's imprinting studies on geese, and Harlow's studies on rhesus monkey attachment to cloth vs. wire mothers
• Imprinting


  Strong evolutionary biological feature of attachment in certain birds, with a critical period for forming the bond
• Contact comfort


  Infants' biological need for physical contact and comfort, rather than just food
• Generalization of animal behavior to human psychology is problematic, due to differences in biology and social/cultural experiences
• Learning theory


  Infants become attached to their caregiver through classical and operant conditioning, associating the caregiver with food and positive reinforcement
• Monotropic theory


  Infants have an innate instinctual drive to form a strong attachment to their mother, which is vital for survival
• Internal working model


  A blueprint for future relationships, formed through the child's monotropic attachment to their mother
• Bowlby's ideas have been developed and applied to early child care, such as encouraging immediate physical contact between mother and baby
• Ainsworth's Strange Situation


  • Behaviors indicating attachment strength, including proximity to mother, exploration, stranger anxiety, separation anxiety, and reunion response
• Ainsworth's attachment types


  Secure, insecure-avoidant, and insecure-resistant
• Bobby argues the father's role is to provide resources for the family while the mother's monotropic role is crucial


  This is likely a reflection of 1940s worldview that is likely correct in its time but now lacks temporal validity
• Ainsworth's strange situation


  • Structured observation of infant and mother pairs in a lab setting
  • Included the mother leaving the room and the stranger entering
  • Recorded behaviors that indicated attachment strength
• Ainsworth's findings


  Provided evidence for three distinct attachment types: secure, insecure avoidant, and insecure resistant
• Ainsworth's findings showed 66% of infants were secure, 22% insecure avoidant, and 12% insecure resistant
• Secure attachment


  Develops due to the attention of a consistently sensitive responsive mother
• Strange situation


  • Highly controlled observational research study with standardized procedures and clear behavioral categories
  • Has resulted in precise replications
  • Predictive validity - children classified as securely attached tend to have better social, emotional, and academic outcomes
• The strange situation was developed in America, so it may be a culture-bound test not valid when applied to other cultures
• The strange situation has low ecological validity as the observation is not in a familiar environment like the family home
• The mother knows her behavior is being observed, so she may show more sensitive responsiveness due to demand characteristics
• Using the strange situation to assess attachments in non-Western countries may be an example of ethnocentrism and suffer from cultural bias
• Bowlby's theory of maternal deprivation


  If the child's monotropic attachment is disrupted during the critical period due to prolonged separation from the mother, this deprivation has negative and irreversible consequences
• Consequences of maternal deprivation

  • Social development - delinquency behaviors 44 thieves
  • Emotional development - affectional psychopathy, inability to show caring behaviors or empathy
  • Intellectual development - low IQ, lower cognitive abilities than peers
• Bowlby's research is correlational, so deprivation and delinquency could be linked to a third factor such as extreme poverty or contact with criminal relatives
• Bowlby's work on attachment led to significant positive changes to policies related to child welfare
• Monotropy may exaggerate the importance of the mother as a primary caregiver and underestimate the role of the father