Psychology - attachment

• Reciprocity


  Two-way; the child has to bond with the mother, and the mother has to bond with the child for an attachment to form successfully. They must both be able to contribute to the relationship and generate a response
• Interactional synchrony


  When the infant and primary caregiver become synchronised in their interactions, with the way the two interact changing slightly according to the rhythm, pitch, volume etc of the adult's speech
• Reciprocity is important in teaching the child to communicate and allows the parent to better care for the child as they can detect certain cues from the baby and respond to their needs sooner and more effectively
• Condon and Sander (1974) said that children can synchronise their movements with the sound of an adult's voice, and Brazleton et al demonstrated that young infants can copy the displayed distinctive facial expressions or gestures
• Many of these studies used controlled observations, with Brazleton et al even filming the interactions from different angles, ensuring a high level of detail and accuracy and allowing valid conclusions to be drawn through inter-rater reliability
• The main issue with observations of such young children is that we do not know whether their actions are meaningful, especially since children as young as 2 weeks old have little or no motor coordination
• Bremner drew the distinction between behavioural response and behavioural understanding: just because an interaction appears to be reciprocal, does not mean that the child understands the purpose of either reciprocity or interactional synchrony
• Aim of Schaffer and Emerson's study


  To identify stages of attachment/find a pattern in the development of an attachment between infants and parents
• Schaffer and Emerson's study


  • Participants: 60 babies from Glasgow, all from the same estate
  • Procedure: Analysed interactions between infants and carers, interviewed carers, mother kept diary tracking infant behaviours
  • Longitudinal study lasting 18 months, visiting infants monthly and once at the end
• Schaffer and Emerson found that the babies of parents/carers who had 'sensitive responsiveness' - who were more sensitive to the baby's signals - were more likely to have formed an attachment
• Schaffer and Emerson found that sensitive responsiveness was more important than the amount of time spent with the baby, so infants formed more attachments with those who spent less time with them but were more sensitive to their needs than those who spent more time with them but were less sensitive
• Schaffer and Emerson found that infants who had parents who responded to their needs quickly and spent more time interacting with the child had more intense attachments, while those who had parents who did not interact with their child at all had very weak attachments
• Schaffer and Emerson found that attachments seemed to form when the carer communicates and plays with the child rather than when the carer feeds or cleans the child
• Stages of attachment identified by Schaffer and Emerson


  1. Asocial stage (0-6 weeks)

  2. Indiscriminate attachments (6 weeks – 6 months)

  3. Specific (7 months +)

  4. Multiple (10/11 months +)
• Schaffer and Emerson found that many of the infants reached the multiple attachments stage by 10 months, forming attachments not only with their mothers, but their fathers, siblings, extended family members and family friends, with the attachments varying greatly in strength and value/importance to the child
• Evaluation of Schaffer and Emerson's study


  • Lacks population validity as infants were all from Glasgow and working class families, small sample size reduces strength of conclusions
  • Cannot be generalised, limited explanation of attachment development
  • Lacks temporal validity as parenting techniques have changed since 1950s
  • May lack internal validity due to self-report method and potential social desirability bias
  • Asocial stage cannot be studied objectively as 6 week old infants lack motor coordination
• Schaffer and Emerson found that 75% of the infants in their study formed a secondary attachment to their father by the age of 18 months, with 29% doing so within a month of forming a primary attachment, as demonstrated by separation anxiety
• Tiffany Field observed that primary caregivers, regardless of gender, were more attentive towards the infant and spent more time holding and smiling at them, suggesting that although mothers are often expected to become primary attachment figures, this does not always have to be the case
• MacCallum and Golombok demonstrated that children growing up in homosexual or single-parent families were not different compared to children with two heterosexual parents, suggesting that the exact role of the father is still disputed
• The gender of the primary caregiver may be largely dictated by social and biological constraints, where women are expected to be caring and sensitive, and have higher levels of oestrogen and lower levels of testosterone compared to men
• Research into the importance of primary attach figures is socially sensitive, as later abnormalities in development are often blamed on the parent(s), meaning a single father or mother may be pressured to return to work at a later point
• Imprinting


  Where animals will attach to the first moving object or person they see directly after birth
• Lorenz demonstrated that imprinting occurred in a clutch of goose eggs, where half attached to and followed Lorenz after seeing him as the first moving person after birth
• Imprinting/the formation of an attachment must occur within the critical period of attachment development, which is usually the first 30 months of life, after which an attachment is not possible and the consequences of a failure to form an attachment are irreversible
• There are significant issues associated with trying to generalise findings from Lorenz's studies, as mammalian attachment systems are different to that of birds, and sexual imprinting is not as permanent as Lorenz theorised
• Harlow's research with rhesus monkeys


  • Found that when the monkeys were scared, the baby monkeys would always seek comfort from the cloth-bound mother, rather than the wire mother dispensing milk, leading to the conclusion that contact comfort was more important than food in the development of attachments
  • Found that such monkeys were less skilled at mating, were aggressive towards their own children and would be socially reclusive, demonstrating the importance of a secure attachment to a primary attachment figure within the critical period
• Harlow's research has significant practical value, especially in the design of zoos and the care of animals in shelters, demonstrating the importance of attachment figures and intellectual stimulation, alongside contact comfort
• There were significant ethical breaches in Harlow's research, with long-term psychological harm inflicted upon the monkeys, which Harlow most likely envisioned, though a cost-benefit analysis may have justified the research
• Learning theory of attachment


  Views children as being born with blank slates, where everything is learned through experiences, so a baby has to learn to form an attachment with its mother through classical and operant conditioning
• Classical conditioning of attachment


  Baby forms an association between the mother (neutral stimulus) and the feeling of pleasure that comes with being fed (unconditioned response), until the mother becomes a conditioned stimulus that also causes pleasure
• Operant conditioning of attachment


  Child carries out an action like crying, which triggers a response like the mother coming to comfort or feed the baby, reinforcing the action and leading the child to associate the mother with those rewards
• There is contradictory evidence from animal studies, like Harlow's finding that contact comfort was more important than food in the development of an attachment, and from human studies, like Brazleton et al's findings, that suggest learning theory cannot fully explain attachment formation

  
• Bowlby's monotropic theory views attachment as an innate, biologically-based drive towards forming a strong emotional bond with a primary caregiver, in contrast to the learning theory approach
• Stimulus


  Event that causes a response
• Response


  Action that happens as a result of a stimulus
• Innate


  Natural, from birth
• There is contradictory evidence from animal studies. For example, Harlow demonstrated that contact comfort was more important than food in the development of an attachment, where the baby monkeys formed a primary attachment to the cloth-bound mother, regardless of which mother was dispensing milk. This suggests that there is no unconditioned stimulus (of food) and even if there is, it has very little influence upon the formation of attachments.
• There is also contradictory evidence from human studies! For example, Brazleton et al emphasised the importance of interactional synchrony and reciprocity in the secure formation of attachments between a primary caregiver and infant - these are universal features of attachment. Attachments form not to the person who spends the most time with the infant, but rather the person who is most attentive to the infant and deals with their signals most skilfully. This means that the unconditioned stimulus of food is irrelevant in most cases!
• The focus on unconditioned and conditioned stimuli means that there is a loss of focus. Interactional synchrony and reciprocity are both universal features of attachment and should be treated as such, as demonstrated by Feldman and Brazleton. Learning theory does not account for these aspects and so is a limited explanation of only some aspects of attachment formation.
• Bowlby's Monotropic Theory of Attachment


  Evolutionary theory that attachments are innate