caregiver-infant interactions in humans

• Stages of attachment-schaffer and emerson

  1. Observation

  2. Studied 60 babies from skilled working class families from glasgow at monthly intervals for the first 18 months of life using a longitudinal

  3. Children were all studied in their own homes and visited monthly for about a year

  4. Interactions with their careers to establish if and when infants started to display separation anxiety
• The primary attachment was not always the one who fed bathed the infant - only 39% did
• Stage 1 - asocial


  0 to 6 weeks, Babies respond to inanimate objects and humans in similar ways, Behaviour is not directed at anything or anybody in particular
• Stage 2 - indiscriminate


  6 weeks to 7 months, Happiest when receiving attention - show sociability, Not directed at any one person
• Stage 3 - specific attachments


  7 to 11 months, Attachment to 1 person - stranger anxiety & separation protest, 65% specific attachment at 7month
• Stage 4 - multiple attachments


  After 9 months, The baby becomes increasingly independent and forms several attachment
• evaluation

  • High ecological validity, especially if the observer is hidden (studied in infants home)
  • Cannot infer cause & effect as there is no control over confounding variables
  • Some studies raise ethical issues like invasion of privacy
  • Data collected from observations of mothers - prone to bias and inaccuracy
• attachment

  a close two way emotional bond between two individuals in which each individual sees em the other as essential for emotional securitiy
• reciprocity

  carer and infant can produce responses from each other
• interactional synchrony

  infant moves in time with carers voice - creating a form of turn taking
• mimicking

  infants imitate the facial expressions of the care giver - suggesting an innate biological drive to form an attachment
• aim of study

  find at which age attachment starts and how intense they were
• variable - separation anxiety

  how distressed the child became when seperated from main caregiver
• variable - stranger anxiety

  distress shown when the child was left alone with unfamiliar person
• findings

  attachment formed by 50% of infants by 25 to 32 weeks - intensity period in first month

  multiple attachment - by 18 months 31% had 5 or more attachments