Attachment

• Reciprocity is when an infant responds to the actions of another person in a form of turn taking
• Feldman (2007) stated reciprocity increases with frequency as the infant and caregiver pay increasing attention to each others communications.
• Interactional synchrony takes place when infants mirror the actions or emotions of a caregiver. This is essentially copying.
• Meltzoff and Moore (1977) used a controlled observation with an adult model who displayed facial expressions or hand gesture. They found a clear association between infants and adults behaviour, which shows the imitative behaviour is learnt.
• Reciprocity and synchrony is flawed due to the questionable reliability of the infant's responses, as they may be not have been influenced by the caregiver but the response occurred by chance.
• Shaffer and Emerson found that 31% of infants in stage 4 had 5 or more secure attachments, this supports that the fathers role can be equal to the mother.
• Field found that primary father caregivers elicit more imitative behaviour that 2nd caregiver fathers, but held the child less and was more of a playmate.
• Bowlby argued that the role of the father relied on the fathers attachment with his father and that the father was more of a play mate. However, this is hard determinism.
• Grossman (2002) found that the quality of mother-child attachment was important when assessing the quality of attachment into adolescence, but this was not the case for father-child attachment, suggesting the role of the father is less important.
• Hardy found that fathers were less likely to detect infants low level stress.
• Kagan's theory of temperament refutes Bowlby's theory of attachment as he focuses on genetic traits that can shape attachment and the nature of the child.
• Shaffer and Emerson refute Bowlby's theory with the 4th stage (being multiple attachments) which contradicts the monotropy theory.
• In Ainsworth's study 66% of the infants were securely attached, 22% were insecure-avoidant and 12% were insecure-resistant.