attachment

• infant-caregiver interaction


  how infants communicate with their parents
• reciprocity


  a two-way mutual process where infants coordinate their actions with caregivers like a conversation
• interactional synchrony


  infant and caregiver mirror each other's emotions and behaviours at the same time
• meltzoff and moore


  selected 4 different stimuli and observed the infants response to an adult model

  showed interactional synchrony in babies as young as 2 weeks, implying imitation is innate

  
  

  inter-observer reliability: infants responses videotaped and observed by two observers and compared their findings
• the development of attachment


  Schaffer and Emerson studied 60 Glaswegian babies mainly from working-class homes at monthly intervals for the first 18 months of life

  
  

  studied in their own homes and visited monthly for a year
• stages of attachment


  Asocial (0-6wks): infants produce similar response to all objects. show preference for social stimuli at end of stage.

  
  

  Indiscriminate(6wk-6mnth): prefer human company over objects and can distinguish between familiar and unfamiliar objects

  
  

  Discriminate(7- 9mnth): preference of one caregiver and show separation and stranger anxiety

  
  

  Multiple (9mnth+) : attachment behaviours displayed towards several different people (siblings, grandparents)
• cultural variation in stages of attachment


  - individualistic cultures more selfish and prioritise self-actualisation as each person in the society is primarily concerned with their own needs or the needs of immediate family

  - collectivist cultures prioritise community are more focused on the needs of the group

  - research into attachment, such as Emerson and Schaffer, is primarily conducted in individualistic cultures

  - the sample in Emerson and Schaffer's study were working class Glaswegian families meaning that the results cannot be generalised to collectivist cultures of other societal classes
• stages of attachment lack temporal validity


  Emerson and Schaffer carried out their study on working class families in the 1960's

  - norm for women to stay home and care for their children whilst the fathers worked to support the family

  - parental care has evolved with society and more women go back to work after childbirth and men stay at home and care for their children

  - if a similar study was conducted today that the results may differ to the original study
• issues with Schaffer and Emerson's methodology


  - mother's reported on their own infants

  - social desirability bias may influence the results as the mothers don't want to report behaviour that may make them seem like they're bad parents

  - some infants may have been less sensitive to the mother's process and less obvious behaviour is less likely to be reported - systematic bias which

  - challenges the validity and reliability of the data
• monotropy as a criticism of attachment stages


  Bowlby opposes the idea that multiple attachments can be significant- an infant forms one special emotional bond to their primary caregiver and then the secondary attachments they form act as an emotional safety net to meet other needsHowever,Rutter believes that all attachment figures are equivalent
• issues with stage theories


  not all infants will develop in the same way

  - can be dangerous as children may be classed as abnormal if they don't follow the stages predicted
• what is said to be the role of the father

  to be a playmate and actively stimulate children to complement the role of the mother
• role of the father - Grossman


  - longitude study looking at both parents behaviour and it's relationship with the quality of children's attachment until their teens- quality of infant attachment with the mother was related to the child's attachment during adolescent suggesting the father is less importantHowever, the quality of the fathers play with the child was related to their quality of attachment suggesting the fathers role is more to do with play and stimulation rather than nurture
• role of the father - fathers are less sensitive


  - evolutionary: males obtain and defend resources whilst females care for off-spring

  - women have more oestrogen therefore more caring

  - societal expectations: men are 'tough' and go out to work and support family and shamed for being sensitive
• role of the father - Ross et al.


  - the number of nappies changed by the father was positively correlated with the strength of their attachment

  - several factors identified in the relationship between fathers and their children:

  - degree of sensitivity: sensitive fathers develop more secure attachments

  - marital intimacy: a strong marital relationship is correlated with a strong attachment with infant

  - supportive co-parent: fathers who assist in childcare develop stronger attachments

  - type of attachment with own parents: single parent fathers form similar attachments with their children as they had with their fathers
• fathers as primary attachment figures


  evidence suggests that when fathers do take on the primary caregiver role they adopt behaviours more typical of mothers

  
  

  Field filmed 4 month old babies in face-to-face interactions and found that primary caregiver fathers, like mothers, spent more time smiling, imitating and holding babies than secondary caregiver fathers. Concluded that the level of responsiveness is key to attachment.
• economic application of role of the father


  allows women to return to work w/o concern infant will not form healthy attachments

  - highest earning parent return to work

  - paternity leave allows father to stay home

  - positive impact on economy as more money being earned by highest earner returning
• children in single-sex families (role of father AO3)


  children growing up in single or same-sex parent families don't develop any differently from those in two parent heterosexual families

  - fathers role as a secondary attachment figure isn't important
• Lorenz


  investigated imprinting in baby geese:

  divided geese eggs into two groups - one was left with their natural mothers and the others placed in an incubator, lorenz was the first moving object the incubator geese saw

  > incubator geese followed him whereas, the naturally hatched followed their mother.

  concluded that goslings are programmed to imprint onto the first moving object they see, highlighting the rapid formation of attachment in animals
• Harlow


  investigated the nature of attachment in 8 baby rhesus monkeys

  - halved and put in cages with 2 surrogate mothers

  - one made of wire and one from cloth

  - food attached to the wire mother for half of the monkeys and attached to the cloth mother for the other half

  > all the monkeys spent most of their time w cloth covered mother, concluding that monkeys develop attachments based on contact comfort and not food
• research support for imprinting


  - chicks were exposed to simple moving shape combinations, such as a triangle with a rectangle in front

  - a range of shape combinations were then shown and they followed the original combination the most closely

  - animals are born with an innate mechanism to imprint on a moving object present in the critical window of development as predicted by Lorenz

  
  

  - Guiton reared leghorn chicks wearing a yellow glove

  - chicks became imprinted on glove and even tried to mate w it
• issues extrapolating data from animal studies


  humans are more complex than animals

  - higher cognitive functions and have free will

  - difference in nature and complexity of bond formed by human baby

  - mammalian attachment system is a two-way process compared to one in birds

  - Harlow more appropriate than Lorenz as they have abilities closely linked to those of humans but findings still lack generalisability
• methodological issues w Harlow's study


  - faces of surrogate mothers acted as confounding variables

  - cloth mother had features that resembled those of a monkey more closely than the wire mother

  - time spent w cloth mother may be bec resembled real monkey rather than contact comfort
• ethical issues w Harlow's study


  - monkeys suffered greatly during and after the experiment- as monkeys are similar to humans it’s widely believed that the suffering they experience would have been very human-like- monkeys suffered as a result of the experiment, violating the ethical aim of protection from harmHowever,a cost-benefit analysis would conclude that the suffering endured is outweighed by the findings- as they are thought to be very human-like, the findings help us gain deeper understanding of human attachments and the implications of deprivation and the critical period in human development
• Harlow's study has theoretical validity


  study was extremely important in helping Psychologists to understand mother-infant attachment in humans

  - important finding that attachment developed through contact comfort as opposed to being fed by a mother figure

  - highlighted the importance of early, high quality attachment on social development and the quality of future relationships

  - Harlow's research aids and contributes to understanding human attachment
• critical period


  the time within 0 - 2 1/2yrs where an attachment must be formed if it to form at all (suggested by Bowlby)
• critical period of monkeys

  90 days
• maternal deprivation and evidence from Harlow


  prolonged separation from mother can lead to dysfunctional behaviour in adulthood

  > monkeys raised w/o a mother showed dysfunctional behaviour (more aggressive and less sociable) as adults and when they became mother's themselves they would attack and neglect their young.
• sensitive period


  an attachment can still form if one hasn't in the critical period, up to the age of 5yrs however it'll take longer
• learning theory of attachment


  attachments are formed through experience/conditioning:

  the theory that infants become attached to their mothers because they provide them with food > children learn to love whoever feeds them
• classical conditioning in attachment


  Caregiver (ns) associated with food (us). Caregiver becomes conditioned stimulus and the sight of them a conditioned response because they're associated with food (pleasure)
• operant conditioning in attachment


  explains why babies cry for comfort: crying leads to a response from the caregiver and as long as the caregiver provides the correct response, crying is positively reinforced bec it produces a pleasurable consequence of the baby being happy

  
  

  the caregiver receives negative reinforcement bec the crying stops. the interplay of positive/negative reinforcement strengthens an attachment.
• drive reduction


  - hunger is a primary drive(an innate biological motivator), we are motivated to eat to reduce the hunger drive

  - attachment is a secondary drive learned by an association between the caregiver and the satisfaction of a primary drive

  - as caregivers provide food, the primary drive of hunger becomes generalised to them
• Bowlby's monotropic theory


  rejected the learning theory of attachment and suggests that attachments are biologically pre-programmed through evolution meaning babies are born with an innate instinct to form attachments.

  > imprinting and attachment evolved bec they ensure that young animals stay close to their caregivers as a from of protection
• internal-working model


  a child's attachment to their caregiver acts as a template for their future relationships with other people
• social releasers


  babies are born with a set of innate cute behaviours like smiling, cooing and gripping that encourages attention from adults. they activate adult social interaction (make an adult attach to the baby)
• Ainsworth's Strange Situation


  a method to assess the quality of a baby's attachment to a caregiver
• secure attachment


  displays safe base, happy reunion behaviour, high anxiety
• insecure-avoidant


  doesn't use safe base, shows indifferent reunion behaviour, little anxiety
• insecure-resistant

  unwilling to explore, passive reunion behaviour, high anxiety