Attachment

• Attachment


  A close 2-way emotional bond between 2 individuals in which each individual sees the other as essential for their own emotional security
• Proximity


  • People try and stay close to their attachment figure
• Separation distress


  • People show signs of anxiety when the attachment figure leaves their presence
• Secure-base behaviour


  • We tend to make regular contact with our attachment figure
• Reciprocity


  • Caregiver and baby respond to each other's signals and elicits a response from each other, also known as turn-taking
• Alert phases


  1. Babies have alert phases in which they signal that they are ready for a spell of interaction

  2. Mothers typically pick up and respond to their baby's alertness ⅔ of the time

  3. This tends to become more frequent as the baby and mother pay close attention to each other's verbal signals and facial expressions
• Active involvement


  • Babies have an active role, caregiver and baby initiate interactions and take turns, like a dance
• Interactional synchrony


  • Caregiver and baby reflect both the actions and emotions of each other and do this in a coordinated way
• Interactional synchrony begins as early as 2 weeks old
• High levels of interactional synchrony


  Associated with better quality mother-baby attachment
• Caregiver-infant interactions research


  • Filmed in a laboratory to control for distracting behaviour
  • Observers can use inter-rater reliability
  • Babies don't know they are being observed so their behaviour does not change
• It is hard to interpret a baby's behaviour due to their lack of coordination and subtle movements
• Observing a behaviour does not tell us the developmental importance
• However, research shows how early interactions are important for attachment development
• Stages of attachment


  1. Asocial stage

  2. Indiscriminate stage

  3. Specific attachment

  4. Multiple attachments
• Schaffer and Emerson's study involved 60 babies from Glasgow working-class families
• Schaffer and Emerson's research


  • Observations made by parents and reported to researchers
  • Avoids distractions and making the babies more anxious
• Validity of asocial stage is questionable as subtle signs of anxiety may have been missed
• Practical application in daycare: starting day care with unfamiliar adults may be problematic during the specific attachment stage
• Primary caregiver


  The person who spends the most time with a baby, and cares for their needs
• Primary attachment figure


  The person who the baby has the strongest attachment to
• Fathers are much less likely to become babies' first attachment figure compared to mothers
• Distinctive role for fathers


  • More to do with play and stimulation, and less to do with emotional development
• When fathers do take on the role of primary caregiver, they are able to adapt to the emotional role more associated with mothers
• No suggestion that having a single parent or 2 same sex parents has any negative impact on a child's development
• The role of the father varies according to the methodology used
• The role of the father can offer reassuring advice to parents
• Imprinting


  The idea that when birds are immobile from birth, they attach to and follow the first moving object they see
• Critical period for imprinting


  • A brief period in which imprinting needs to take place, if it does not occur then chicks do not attach to a mother figure
• Sexual imprinting


  • The relationship between imprinting and adult mating preferences
• Imprinting research supports the view that young animals are born with an innate mechanism to imprint on moving objects within a critical period
• Mammal attachment is more complex than in birds, so unable to fully generalise from birds to humans
• Harlow's monkey experiments


  • Tested the idea that a soft object serves functions of a mother
  • Monkeys reared with the plain mother were the most dysfunctional as adults
• Critical period for attachment in monkeys


  • A mother figure had to be introduced within 90 days, after this attachment was impossible and damage was irreversible
• Harlow's research had practical real-world applications
• Unable to fully generalise from monkeys to humans due to the greater complexity of the human brain and behaviour
• Classical conditioning


  Involved associating 2 stimuli together so we begin to respond in the same way as we responded to the other
• Cupboard love


  Emphasises the importance of an attachment figure as a provider of food
• After attachment was impossible and damage was irreversible
• Real-world application


  • It has helped social workers and psychologists understand that a lack of bonding may be a risk factor in child development, allowing them to intervene to prevent poor outcomes
  • It shows that Harlow's research was practical