Psychology

• Attachment


  When two people develop a deep and lasting emotional bonds. Both members of this emotional relationship seek closeness and feel more secure when close to their attachment figure.
• Reciprocity


  A mutual turn taking form of interaction. Each person plays close attention and responds to each other's cues.
• Interactional synchrony


  A simultaneous interaction between the infant and caregiver who appear to be acting rhythmically, with matching, coordinated behaviour and matching emotional states. E.g. infant waves hands around in time with the mother speaking.
• Sensitive responsiveness


  The adult caregiver correctly interprets the meaning of the infants communication and is motivated to respond appropriately. E.g. they provide milk or change a nappy when the baby shows distress.
• Inferences


  Guesses about internal mental state, based on behaviour.
• Meltzoff & Moore


  • Recorded infants and adults, with the adults making a series of facial gestures to the infant. The recordings were accessed by people who were blind to the experiment. Results show that infants demonstrated reciprocity, responding with expressions that matched the adults.
• Condon & Sander


  • Found evidence for interactional synchrony. They recorded infants and adults interacting, focused on the movements of the baby in responses to adult speech and analysed the video frame-by-frame. They found that the infants moved their bodies rhythmically in time with the sound of the adults' voices. Suggests that the infants are born with an instinctive ability for social interaction.
• Most research studies for caregiver infant interactions are usually very well controlled. Most will use multiple observers or record interactions so they can be analysed carefully. This focus of control shows it has high internal validity.
• Infants cannot communicate their thoughts so researchers will have to use inferences so they are not seen as completely scientific. E.g. the infant might not intend to communication but imitation might just be an automatic reflex response.
• Findings are reported in newspapers and books. Parents will adapt how they interact with their infants and define themselves as good or bad caregivers based on psychological theories and studies.
• Stages of attachment identified by Schaffer


  1. Asocial stage (0-6 weeks): Babies display behaviours such as smiling or crying to caregivers, they will also show the same behaviours to inanimate objects, can be comforted by any caregiver, showing no preference

  2. Indiscriminate attachment (6 weeks - 7 months): Can tell difference between familiar and unfamiliar adults as they are seen to smile more at caregivers they recognise, Don't show stranger anxiety or separation anxiety

  3. Specific attachment (7-9 months): Infants form a strong connection to their primary caregiver, Shows separation anxiety and stranger anxiety

  4. Multiple attachment (9-10 months): Develops additional attachments to other caregivers, e.g. fathers, grandparents and siblings
• Schaffer and Emerson: Based the four stages of attachment on the longitudinal observation that he conducted with Emerson. 60 working class mothers and infant pairs from Glassgo were studied. The babies were observed and the mothers were interviewed monthly for a year and then with an additional follow-up visit at 18 months. The infants were assessed for stranger and separation anxiety.
• Schaffer and Emerson found that separation anxiety occurs in most infants between 25-32 weeks, with stranger distress occurs around one month later. Also found that the strongest attachments where with mothers and infants where the mothers consistently interacted with the infant. The results suggests that the infant attachment happens in definable stages and as infants share these stages it is likely to be a biological development. As multiple attachments develop quickly, they are important, not just the primary attachment to the other. The results also suggest that the quality of the caregiver-infant interaction directly impacts the strength of attachment for infants and their mothers.
• The study had a high level of mundane realism because the infants and their families were observed in their own homes. The experience for the infants was normal. Strangers visiting the family home and the caregiver temporarily leaving the room are normal occurrences. This suggests the behaviour recorded was valid.
• The findings lack generalisation. The culture of working class mothers in Glassgo in the 1960s does not represent the rest of the UK or the world.
• Results lack temporal validity as childrearing practices have likely changed significantly in the last 60 years.
• Schaffer found that 65% of the infants their primary attachment figure was their mother alone, 30% both parents and only 3% of the father alone as the primary attachment system suggesting that fathers do not play a very important role in their infants lives. However at the 18 month observation they found that 75% of infants had formed an attachment with their father, showing separation anxiety from them, suggesting they do play an important role.
• The importance of active play


  One suggestion is that the fathers role is to provide active play activities rather than the caring and comforting response shown by mothers. This stimulating play is seen to encourage risk-taking behaviours.
• As a primary caregiver


  In the modern Western society, more men are taking on the role of the primary caregiver. This evidence is to suggest that when in this position the father interactional style will shift to sensitive responsiveness.
• Field


  • Observed 3 types of caregivers interactions with their infants, primary caregiver mothers, primary caregivers fathers and secondary caregivers fathers. Both groups of fathers emphasise with game playing whilst the mother group focus on holding. However, the primary caregiver fathers and mothers showed more sensitive responsive behaviour, e.g. smiling, than the secondary caregiver fathers. Shows that the primary caregiver fathers adapted their behaviour to a more sensitive responsive role.
• Verissmo


  • Observed the early interactions between infants and their mothers and fathers and then later observed the children's social interactions when they started nursery. They found that the best predictor of making friends in school was a strong attachment to their father not their mother, this suggests that the fathers role is to help with the infants socialisation.
• Research on the role of the father is socially sensitive. If findings suggests the role of the mother is unique and cannot be replaced by the father then single fathers and male gay couples may feel that they cannot fully support their infants development.
• If research shows that men can show sensitive responsiveness then the father might take on a more active role in taking care of their infants.
• There are also economic implications. If the fathers role is more important in development it could lead to legislation to equalise maternity and paternity leave in the workforce. However, this can cause problems in the work industry as more people will be taking leave. This can also be positive though as it can help reduce the gender pay gap as many women feel they need to take leave to look after their infants not the fathers.
• Lorenz's experiment on imprinting


  1. Randomly divided a clutch of greylag goose eggs, half he left to hatch naturally with biological mother, other half he hatched in an incubator making sure that he was the first thing the goslings saw

  2. The goslings hatched by the mother followed her, the goslings he hatched imprinted on him, following him closely

  3. When Lorenz mixed all the goslings in a box, when it was lifted the ones that imprinted on him, ran to him and the ones that imprinted on the mother they ran to her

  4. He also found that there was a limit of how long the goslings could go without imprinting before losing the ability to print. This was 32 hours can called the critical period
• Lorenz's research provides evidence for a biological aspect to attachment behaviour in birds, and that the process of imprinting is based on vision.
• Harlow's experiment on the cupboard love theory of attachment


  1. Removed Infant monkeys from their mother, soon after birth and placed them in a cage

  2. In the cage were two surrogate mothers, one made of wire with a bottle of milk and the other was a cloth mother that did not provide food but did provide comfort

  3. The time the monkey spent with each surrogate mother was carefully recorded

  4. He also frightened the infant monkey with a mechanical robot to see which surrogate mother they would run to
• Harlow found the infant monkeys spent the most time with the cloth mother, not the wire mother. They visited the wire mother just to feed, after they fed they went back to the cloth mother. When Harlow scared the monkeys they ran to the cloth mother.
• Harlow rejected the cupboard love theory, the monkeys had not attached the wired monkey with the food at all. Instead, Harlow argues that animals like the monkeys in the study have a need for physical contact, contact comfort.
• Animals and humans are very different biologically and socially, we have a more complex brain structure than most animals and society and culture influence our actions. Animals act more on their instincts whilst Humans plan out their actions. Although the monkeys used in Harlow's study are the closest animals genetically to humans, they are still very different from humans so findings on their behaviour should only be applied to humans very carefully.
• Harlow's findings on contact comfort have been very influential; Bowlby argued that similar to the monkeys in Harlow's research, human infants crave comfort from their mothers, attempting to form a monotropic relationship. If human infants fail to form this bond due to menstrual deprivation then he argued that humans would have poor social abilities, similar to the monkeys.
• Bowlby also argued that like the goslings in Lorenz's study, human infants have a critical period, which was 6-30 months, after this point the damage would be irreversible. However, while it's true that goslings have a critical period. Later research looking at deprived human orphans who later received suitable care, showed recovery. Indicating that humans have a sensitive, not a critical period.
• As knowledge gained from Harlow and Lorenz's studies was developed by Bowlby, and so ultimately informed childcare practice, we can argue these practical applications can be traced back to Harlow and Lorenz's work. For example, knowledge of imprinting is linked to why midwives encourage immediate physical contact between the mothers and their babies. Another example is seeing the poor outcomes of seeing the deprived monkeys is part of the reason why social service workers are so active in investigating cases in infant neglect, understanding its long-term harm.
• Biological psychologist


  Argue that attachment bond is innate, babies are primed with the need to attach to their mother figures, in turn the baby's caregivers have an innate response to care for them.
• Learning theory/Cupboard love


  Behaviourist approach. Cupboard love theory is based off learning theory; it argues that infants become attached to their caregiver because they learn that their caregiver provides food. This process is based on classical conditioning.
• Classical conditioning


  Learning due to association. When two stimuli are presented to a person or animal at the same time an association can be formed. In the case of cupboard love theory; the food is an unconditional stimulus and provides pleasure, an unconditioned response. The mother is present when the baby is fed so she becomes associated with the pleasure of being fed. The mother changes from being a natural stimulus to a conditioned stimulus. Now in the presence of the mother, the infant experiences a conditioned pleasure response.
• Operant conditioning


  Learning through patterns of reinforcement. Positive reinforcement: behaviour is made more likely when receiving a pleasurable stimulus. In attachment when a parent feeds a crying baby, the baby is more likely to repeat this crying behaviour to get food. Negative reinforcement: behaviour is made more likely when removing an unpleasant stimulus. The parents feeding behaviour is negatively reinforced by the baby stopping is crying when fed.
• Primary drives


  Based on instinct, you don't need to learn them. They are required for survival and reproduction, e.g. sleep hunger thirst and sex.
• Secondary drives


  Learnt to satisfy a primary drive, e.g. attachment is a secondary drive, infants seek attachment from their mothers because they learn the mother will satisfy so reduce the primary drive of hunger.
• Learning theory has face validity; it makes intuitive sense that babies cry more when they learn crying gains them attention and food.