Psychology

• Caregiver-infant interactions


  Deep and lasting emotional bonds between infants and caregivers, where both feel more secure when close
• Reciprocity


  • Mutual turn-taking form of interaction, where both caregiver and infant contribute by responding to each other's signals and cues
• Interactional synchrony


  • Simultaneous interaction between infant and caregiver, with matching coordinated behavior and emotional states
• Imitation


  • Infant directly copies the caregiver's expressions
• Sensitive responsiveness


  • Adult caregiver correctly interprets and appropriately responds to the infant's communication
• Meto and mo study

  • Experimenter displayed facial gestures, and found infants could observe and reciprocate through imitation
• Cohn and Tronick study

  • Videotaped interactions between adults and neonates, finding evidence of interactional synchrony and coordination
• Limitations of caregiver-infant interaction research

  • Inferences about infant's internal mental states, social sensitivity around caregiver techniques, and concerns about generalizability
• Stages of attachment


  1. Stage 1: Asocial (0-6 weeks)

  2. Stage 2: Indiscriminate attachment (6 weeks-7 months)

  3. Stage 3: Specific attachment (7-9 months)

  4. Stage 4: Multiple attachment (9-10 months+)
• Schaffer and Emerson study

  • Longitudinal observation of 60 working-class babies, finding separation anxiety, stranger anxiety, and multiple attachments
• Role of fathers


  • Fathers encourage active play, and their interactional style becomes more sensitive if they are the primary caregiver
• Theories arguing the mother's role cannot be replaced by the father may lead to negative implications, such as single-father families feeling they cannot fully provide for infants
• Research on caregiver-infant interactions could lead to legislation ensuring equal paternity and maternity leave, which may reduce the number of males in the workforce but also help address the gender pay gap
• Animal studies of attachment

  • Lorenz's research on imprinting in geese, and Harlow's research on contact comfort in rhesus monkeys
• Limitations of generalizing animal behavior to human psychology

  • Humans and animals have very different biology and social/cultural experiences
• Learning theory


  Infants become attached to their caregiver because they learn the caregiver provides food (classical conditioning) and responds to their crying (operant conditioning)
• Limitations of learning theory

  • It is environmentally reductionist and does not fully capture the complexity of human attachment
• Bowlby's monotropy theory


  Infants have an innate instinctual drive to form a strong attachment to their mother, which is vital for survival. Lack of monotropy can lead to permanent negative consequences.
• Internal working model


  • A blueprint for future relationships, formed through the child's monotropic attachment to the mother
• Limitations of Bowlby's theory


  • It is highly deterministic, not accounting for the role of conscious control and responsibility in relationships
• Ainsworth's Strange Situation and attachment types


  • Behaviors indicating attachment strength, categorizing infants into secure, insecure-avoidant, and insecure-resistant types
• Rationality


  (in classical economic theory) economic agents are able to consider the outcome of their choices and recognise the net benefits of each one
• Rational agents will select the choice which presents the highest benefits
• Producers act rationally by


  Selling goods/services in a way that maximises their profits
• Workers act rationally by

  Balancing welfare at work with consideration of both pay and benefits
• Governments act rationally by


  Placing the interests of the people they serve first in order to maximise their welfare
• Rationality in classical economic theory is a flawed assumption as people usually don't act rationally
• Demand curve shifting right

  Increases the equilibrium price and quantity
• If you add up marginal utility for each unit you get total utility
• e to think that they have complete conscious control over their relationships including responsibility for the success of relationships not that this is set in infancy
• Bobby argues the father's role is to provide resources for the family while the mother's monotropic role is crucial
• This is likely a reflection of 1940s worldview that is likely correct in its time but now lacks temporal validity
• Ainsworth identified behaviors that indicated attachment strength: proximity to the mother, exploration safe based Behavior, stranger anxiety, separation anxiety, reunion response and sensitive responsiveness
• Ainsworth's attachment types


  • Insecure avoidant type A
  • Secure type B
  • Insecure resistant type C
• Insecure avoidant type A infants


  • Explore freely not using their mother as secure base, has low stranger anxiety and separation anxiety, mothers Show Low sensitive responsiveness
• Secure type B infants

  • Use their mother as a safe base, have a moderate level of stranger anxiety and show separation anxiety, caregivers show sensitive responsiveness
• Insecure resistant type C infants


  • Are clingy and have high stranger and separation anxiety, when the mothers return the infants appear ambivalent with mixed emotions, mothers are inconsistent with sensitive responsiveness
• The strange situation is a highly controlled observational research study with standardized procedures and clear behavioral categories
• The strange situation has resulted in precise replications and has predictive validity
• Children classified as securely attached tend to have better social emotional and academic outcomes in later childhood and adulthood