Attachment

• attachment meaning

  attachment is an emotional two way bond between two individuals where they both see each other as essential for their own emotional security.
• what is caregiver - infant interaction

  The social interaction between the caregiver and the infant from an early age. This aids in important function for the child's social development
• what is reciprocity

  The mother-infant interaction is reciprocal as they both respond to each others signal and elicits a response from each other. The reciprocal actions are what strengthens the emotional connection between mother and infant
• what is interactional synchrony

  Mother an infant reflect each others emotions and actions and do this in a coordinated way. For e.g of you smile the baby will smile. These synchronous actions further strengthen the emotional bond between the mother and the infant.
• What are other features of the caregiver - infant interaction?

  • mimicking
  • physical touch
  • motherese
• evaluation of caregiver-infant interaction - strength

  • condon and sander analysed videos of infants interacting with their caregivers
  • they observed that infants moved and reacted similar to rhythm of adult conversations
  • supports interactional synchrony
• evaluation of caregiver-infant interaction - weakness

  • we don't know if babies actions are meaningful or intentional
  • young children have little to no motor coordination
  • Bremner distinguished between behavioural response and behavioural understanding
  • he found that just because an infant reciprocates their mothers actions doesn't mean they understand the purpose of the reciprocity or interactional synchrony
• Stages of attachment - study

  • Schaffer and Emmerson
  • aim = to identify the stages of attachment and to find the pattern of attachment between infants and their parents
  • participants = 60 babies from Glasgow, all from same estate and most were working class
• stages of attachment - procedure

  • analysed interactions between infants and parents
  • carers were also interviewed
  • mother kept a daily diary to record behaviours of infant based on stranger anxiety and separation anxiety
  • longitudinal study - 18 months
  • checked monthly and visited once again after the 18 months
• findings of the stages of attachment study

  • babies of the parents who had sensitive responsiveness were more likely to form attachments
  • sensitive responsiveness was more important than amount of time spent with infant
  • parents who were more sensitive to babies needs but spent less time - formed attachment
  • parents who responded to babies needs and spent more time with baby - more intense attachment
  • attachment forms when parents plays and communicates with their child rather than feeding them
  • schaffer and emmerson came up with the 4 stages of attachment
• what are the stages of attachment?

  • Asocial (first few weeks of life) - infants respond to faces and objects similarly
  • indiscriminate attachment (3-7 months) - can be comforted by anyone but does start to develop awareness to familiar faces
  • specific attachment (7+ months) - infant seeks and prefers one adult. Seeks for protection and security in specific people. Starts to show stranger and separation anxiety
  • multiple attachments (by one year) - seeks security and protection in multiple people. My also show separation anxiety for multiple people
• Evaluation on the stages of attachment study - strength

  • good external validity
  • study was carried out in families' own home and most observations was carried out by infants own parents during ordinary activities and reported to researchers later
  • so behaviour of infant is not affected by the presence of other people
  • this means participants behaved naturally
• evaluation of the stages of attachment study - weaknesses 1/2

  • low population validity

  small sample size and all the participants came from the same estate and area.

  reduces the strength of findings and conclusions

  cannot be generalised so lacks explanation of attachment development

  also has low temporal validity - parenting techniques have changed since 1950s by the influence of bowlby's theory on attachment

  child rearing practices vary from culture to culture and one historical period to another, so these findings can't be generalised to other social and historical contexts
• evaluation of the stages of attachment - weaknesses 2/2

  • asocial stage can't be studied objectively

  S+E stated that the asocial stage is very important in terms of interactions

  However babies have little to no motor coordination

  Bremner distinguished between behavioural understanding and behavioural response and found out that just because babies reciprocate actions doesn't mean they understand the purpose of it, so it's difficult to derive information from their behaviour as their responses may not be deliberate.
• what is the role of the father? 1/2

  • S+E found 75% of infants in their study formed a secondary attachment with the father by 18 months, 29% within a month of primary attachment, demonstrated by separation anxiety
  • suggests father is important but unlikely to be the first person the child develops attachment to
  • this doesn't mean the father can't be the primary attachment figure
• what is the role of the father? 2/2

  • Tiffany Fields observed interactions between infant and primary caregiver, mother or father, and found that regardless of gender, the primary caregiver is the one who spends more time with them e.g holding them, smiling at them
• evaluation on the role of the father - strength 1/2

  • Grossman et al conducted a longitudinal study looking at behaviour of mothers and fathers to their infants and its relationship to their quality of later attachment
  • found that the quality of mother attachment to the infant is related to the quality of infant attachments in later life
  • however, they also found the quality of father's play with baby linked to quality of attachment in adolescence
  • suggests fathers play a unique role surrounding play and stimulation rather than nurture
• evaluation on the role of the father - strength 2/2

  • Real world application
  • research can be used to advice parents
  • decisions over roles could cause pressure to the point prospective parents could consider having a child or not
  • e.g fathers are more than capable to be a primary attachment figure likewise not having a father around won't affect child's development
• evaluation of the role of the father - weakness

  • confusion over the research question
  • lack of clarity over the question being asked. 'what is the role of the father?' is more complicated than it sounds
  • some research s interested in the role of the father being the primary attachment whereas other research is focused on secondary attachment
  • e.g Grossman found that fathers who had secondary attachment were important in childs development, whereas field et al looks at the role of father being the primary caregiver
  • makes it difficult to offer simple answer
• Lorenz's research on imprinting

  aim = to effect the mechanism of imprinting
• Lorenz's research on imprinting - procedure

  • divided gosling eggs into 2 groups
  • one group left with natural mother and other group were incubated
  • when incubated group hatched the first moving 'thing' they saw was Lorenz so started following him around
  • Lorenz marked the 2 groups to distinguish between them and put them together again
  • This time Lorenz and the natural mother were present but the goslings divided themselves apart and started following their corresponding 'parent'
• Lorenz's findings on imprinting 1/2

  • control group followed natural mother and second group followed Lorenz
  • Lorenz's goslings showed no recognition to natural mother
  • imprinting is a process similar to attachment where it binds a young animal to a caregiver in a special relationship
• Lorenz's findings on imprinting 2/2

  • in some experiments, Lorenz got young goslings to imprint on inanimate objects such as yellow wellington boots
  • found the critical period - strongest tendency to imprint was between 13-16 hours after hatching
  • after 32 hours, tendency to imprint would have passed and it would not take place
• Lorenz's research on sexual imprinting

  • animals attach to and display sexual behaviours to the first moving object or animal they see right after birth
  • Lorenz reported a case where a peacock was born surrounded by turtles, so only had the desire to mate with turtles later in life
• AO3 - Lorenz's research - Limitation 1/2

  • there is a problem generalising findings from birds to humans

  mammalian attachment system is different from birds as mammals can form attachments any time in life and at higher emotional intensity

  low ecological validity - can't be generalised beyond the research setting
• AO3 - Lorenz research on imprinting - 2/2

  • sexual imprinting is not as permanent as Lorenz stated it was

  Guiton et al found that chickens imprinted on yellow washing up gloves did try mate with them when adults

  but eventually preferred mating with other chickens despite initial imprinting

  shows learning and experience is more important for forming attachments than imprinting
• Procedure of Harlows research on effects of privation

  • 16 rhesus baby monkeys separated immediately after birth and placed in cage with 2 surrogate mothers: one made of wire and one covered in a soft cloth
  • in one condition milk was dispensed by wire mother
  • in other condition milk was dispensed by cloth mother
  • amount of time spent with each mother was recorded
  • what would happen if monkeys were frightened by a mechanical teddy bear was also recorded
• Findings from Harlow's research 1/2

  • both groups of monkeys spent time with cloth mother even if she didn't dispense milk
  • infant would only go to wire mother for food and after they were fed they would return to cloth mother where they would spend the majority of their day
  • if a frightening object was placed in front of infant, it would immediately seek refuge with cloth mother
  • Harlow reported developmental issues with infant monkeys that grew up with surrogate mothers compared with those that grew up with natural mothers
• Findings from Harlow's research 2/2

  • Those that grew up with surrogate mothers were more timid, aggressive, had difficulty mating, females were 'inadequate' mothers, some even killing their offspring
  • these behaviours were from monkeys that were left with surrogate mothers for over 90 days
  • those left less than 90 days can reverse these behaviours if they were placed in a normal environment where they can form attachments
  • Harlow concluded that contact comfort was more important than food in the formation of attachment
• AO3 - Harlow's research - Strength 1/2

  • profound effect of psychologists understanding human mother-infant attachment

  showed attachment is due to contact comfort and not food

  showed importance of quality of early relationships for later social development

  has theoretical value as it contributes to our understanding of human attachment

  increases internal validity
• AO3 - Harlow's research - strength 2/2

  • Harlow’s conclusions helped social workers understand risk factors of child neglect and abuse and proper care of animals in zoos, which means zoos should ensure animals have opportunity to form such attachments for healthy development

  high external validity - real life applications to various contexts which provide change in society
• AO3 - Harlow's research - Limitation

  • significant ethical breaches
  • faced severe criticism for the ethics in the research
  • monkeys suffered greatly in the procedure
  • since monkeys were seen similar enough to generalise findings to humans, this means their suffering was also human-like
  • Harlow was well aware of the suffering as he referred to the wire mothers as ‘iron maidens’ after a medieval torture device
  • cost-benefit analysis should have been done
• what is the learning theory explanation?

  • children learn to become attached to their caregiver because they give them food
  • also referred to as the ‘cupboard love’ theory
  • learning can be due to associations made between stimuli (classical conditioning)
  • or due to behaviour being altered by reinforcement and punishment (operant conditioning)
  • according to Dollard and Miller attachment combines the two types of conditioning
• what is classical conditioning?

  • involves learning to associate 2 stimuli together
  • food is an unconditioned stimulus that gives an unconditioned response (pleasure) when fed
  • at the start the caregiver is a neutral stimulus who produces no response
  • however the caregiver eventually becomes paired with the unconditioned stimulus (food)
  • now that the baby has associated the caregiver with the food the caregiver becomes a conditioned stimulus which in turn produces a conditioned response (pleasure) from the baby
  • the baby begins to seek the caregiver as they provide them with food
• what is operant conditioning? 1/2

  • involves learning to repeat the behaviour or not depending on the consequences
  • if a behaviour produces a positive consequence it is likely to be repeated again , meaning the behaviour has been reinforced
  • if behaviour results in an unpleasant consequence it is less likely to be repeated again
• what is operant conditioning? 2/3

  • explains why babies cry for comfort:

  < crying results in a response from caregiver e.g feeding

  < as long as the crying produces a positive response it is reinforced

  • reinforcement is a two way process
  • as the behaviour of baby crying is reinforced the caregiver receives negative reinforcement - the crying stops
  • strengthens attachment
  • food = primary reinforcer - directly satisfies hunger
  • caregiver = secondary reinforcer - associated with the primary reinforcer
• AO3 - Learning theory - Strength

  • it is still credible that classical conditioning between primary caregiver and provision of comfort and social interactions is part of what builds the attachment
• AO3 - Learning theory - weaknesses 1/2

  • contradictory evidence from animal studies
  • Lorenz goslings imprinting - showed attachment before feeding
  • Harlow’s study on contact comfort - monkeys seeked refuge in cloth mother even if it wasn’t dispensing any milk
• AO3 - Learning theory - weaknesses 2/2

  • contradictory evidence from Brazleton et al
  • importance of interactional synchrony and reciprocity
  • attachments form to the person that is the most attentive to the baby
  • so unconditioned stimulus of food is irrelevant
• What did Bowlby’s evolutionary explanation say?

  • Bowlby rejected the learning theory and instead looked at Lorenz and Harlow’s work and proposed the evolutionary explanation
  • that attachment was an innate system that gave a survival advantage
  • Imprinting and attachment evolved because they ensured that young animals stay close to their caregivers which protects them from hazards