attachment

• Caregiver-infant interactions


  Close two way emotional bond between two individuals in which each individual sees the others as essential for their emotional security
• Stages of attachment (Schaffer and Emerson)

  1. Observation

  2. Asocial

  3. Indiscriminate

  4. Specific attachments

  5. Multiple attachments
• Observation stage


  • Natural, overt (aware they are being observed)
• Schaffer and Emerson studied 60 babies from skilled working class families from Glasgow at monthly intervals for the first 18 months of life using a longitudinal approach
• Children were all studied in their own homes and visited monthly for about a year
• The primary attachment was not always the one who fed bathed the infant - only 39% did
• Stages of attachment


  • Asocial (0 to 6 weeks)
  • Indiscriminate (6 weeks to 7 months)
  • Specific attachments (7 to 11 months)
  • Multiple attachments (After 9 months)
• Reciprocity


  From birth, caregivers interact with their child. An interaction shows reciprocity when each person responds to other and elicits a response from them
• Interactional synchrony


  Temporal coordination of micro level social behaviour, seen when caregivers and babies mirror each other behaviours
• Schaffer and Emerson (1964) found that most babies attach to mothers by 7 months, with only 3% of babies having the father as the sole attachment figure at 7 months, and 27% having the father as a joint attachment figure
• Grossmann et al (2002) found that the quality of attachment with mothers, not fathers, was related to further attachments, suggesting that father attachments are less important
• Grossmann et al (2002) also found that the quality of play with fathers related to the quality of teen attachment, suggesting fathers have a different role to mothers, more to do with play and stimulation rather than emotional development
• Field (1978) found that primary caregiver fathers spent more time smiling at, imitating and holding babies than secondary caregiver fathers, suggesting fathers do have the potential to be more emotion-focused primary attachment figures
• Imprinting (Lorenz)


  The first moving thing a baby goose sees, they will imprint on and follow
• Lorenz found that as long as the first thing they see is moving they will imprint on them and make sure they follow their mother, but after a certain point without seeing a thing that moves the gosling will not imprint on anything
• Sexual imprinting (Lorenz)


  A case study where a peacock raised in the reptile house at the zoo imprinted on a giant tortoise and displayed courtship behaviour towards them as an adult
• Harlow's monkey study


  • Raised 16 monkeys with two wire mothers, one plain wire and one cloth covered wire. Found that the baby monkeys spent up to 22hr with the cloth covered mother and went to it for comfort when frightened, regardless of who gave the milk. This shows contact comfort is more important than food for attachment behaviour
• Harlow found a critical period for attachment formation - 90 days
• Harlow followed the monkeys into adulthood and found that early maternal deprivation had a lasting negative effect, with monkeys reared with only plain wire showing the strongest effects
• John Bowlby's monotropic theory


  Children come into this world biologically pre programed to form an attachment, and this attachment is different to and more important than later ones
• Social releasers


  Infants are born with social releasers (cute behaviour) crying, smiling, cooing, gripping etc. to stimulate care/loving behaviours from mother
• Internal working model


  The type of relationship the baby experiences with the mother, will assume/expect all relationships are like that. This is a mental representation or blueprint that shapes emotional relationships later in life
• Brazelton et al (1975) found that the more a baby is ignored the more distressed and less reactive a bay becomes, illustrating the role of social releasers in emotional development
• Schaffer and Emerson (1964) found that even if the first attachment seems to be significantly stronger, it does not mean that it differs in quality from the other child's attachments
• Classical conditioning


  A neutral stimulus becomes associated with an unconditioned stimulus, resulting in a conditioned response
• Operant conditioning


  Behaviours that produce a reward (positive reinforcement) or avoid something unpleasant (negative reinforcement) are likely to be repeated
• Crying is a positive reinforcement for the baby as it produces a reward (getting fed)
• Drive reduction


  Attachment is seen as a secondary drive, learned as an association between the caregiver and the reduction of a primary drive like hunger
• There is a critical period of 6 months - 2 ½ years for attachment formation, after which it becomes harder to form an attachment
• Strange Situation (Ainsworth and Bell)


  Controlled observation to test attachment security, involving playing in an unfamiliar room, being left alone, left with a stranger, and being reunited with a caregiver
• Types of attachment in the Strange Situation

  • Secure (B)
  • Insecure avoidant (A)
  • Insecure resistant (C)
• Secure attachment (B)


  • Happily and regularly return to attachment figure, moderate separation and stranger anxiety, require and accept comfort at reunion, explore happily
• Insecure avoidant attachment (A)


  • Explore freely with little referencing of attachment figure, little or no reaction when caregiver leaves or returns, little or no stranger anxiety, do not require comfort and may avoid contact, do not seek proximity
• Insecure resistant attachment (C)

  • Explore less and remain close to attachment figure, high separation and stranger anxiety, difficult to comfort at reunion
• 60-75% of infants display secure attachment, 20-25% display insecure avoidant attachment
• Ration and secure base


  A procedure to test attachment behaviours in infants
• Ration and secure base procedure

  1. Stranger comes in, talks to caregiver and approaches baby - test stranger anxiety

  2. Caregiver leaves baby and stranger together - test separation and stranger anxiety

  3. Caregiver returns and stranger leaves - test reunion behaviour and exploration

  4. Caregiver leaves baby alone - test separation anxiety

  5. Stranger returns - test stranger anxiety

  6. Caregiver returns and is reunited with baby - test reunion behaviour
• Types of attachment


  • Secure attachment
  • Insecure avoidant
  • Insecure resistant
• Secure attachment


  • Happily and regularly return to attachment figure
  • Moderate separation anxiety and stranger anxiety
  • Require and accept comfort at reunion
  • Explores happily
• Insecure avoidant


  • Explore freely with little referencing of attachment figure
  • Little or no reaction when caregiver leaves or returns
  • Little or no stranger anxiety
  • Do no require comfort an may avoid contact
  • Do not seek proximity