Attachment

• Maintaining proximity - characteristic of a secure attachment


  Infants seek to be physically close to their primary care giver. They seek involvement by wanting to include their carer in their activities.
• Separation anxiety - characteristic of a secure attachment


  Intense distress shown by the infant when the primary care giver is not present.
• Joy on reunion - characteristic of a secure attachment


  Securely attached infants show visible pleasure on being reunited with their primary care giver after a period of separation. They are easily comforted and will quickly resume play when the primary caregiver is close.
• Stranger Anxiety - characteristic of a secure attachment


  Intense distress shown by the infant in response to strangers.
• Attachment


  A close emotional bond between 2 people, characterised by mutual affection and a desire to maintain closeness.
• Sensitive Responsiveness


  Intense distress shown by the infant in response to strangers.
• Stage 1 of attachment - Asocial stage


  0-6 weeks - initially infants show similar responses to both people and objects. They very rapidly begin to show a bias towards human-like stimuli by attending more to faces and eyes. They quickly then learn to discriminate between familiar and unfamiliar people trough smell and voice.
• Stage 2 of attachment - Indiscriminate attachment


  6 weeks to 6 months - infants become more sociable, preferring people to objects. They begin to distinguish between different people but do not yet show signs of separation or stranger anxiety.
• Stage 3 of attachment - Specific attachment


  7 months onwards - infants develop a specific attachment with their primary care giver. This stage starts with the development of separation anxiety and then one month after this approximately, stranger anxiety develops.
• Stage 4 of attachment - Multiple attachments


  10-11 months onwards - infants begin to show attachment towards several different people, including siblings, grandparents and childminders
• Schaffer and Emerson Glasgow babies: Procedure:


  60 infants, between the age of 5 and 23 weeks old at the start of the investigation, and their mothers from a working class area of Glasgow were studied.. The infants were assessed every 4 weeks at their home until the child was 1 and then again at 18 months.

  Used structured interviews on the mothers to rate their infants response to various situations on a 4 point scale from 0 (no protest) to 3 (Cries loudly).
• Separation anxiety


  The distress shown by the infant when the primary care giver was not present.
• Stranger anxiety


  The distress shown by the infant when a stranger was present.
• Schaffer and Emerson Glasgow babies: Findings:


  separation anxiety - by 6-8 months, most infants showed signs, suggesting that they had formed an attachment.

  Stranger Anxiety - generally develops one month after the development of Separation anxiety.

  Primary attachment - at attachment was first formed with the parent who was most responsible for the infants care (primary care giver). 65% of these attachments was with the mother, 3% with the father and 30% both mother and father simultaneously.

  Multiple attachments - most infants form multiple attachments by 18 months old.
• Strength of Schaffer and Emerson's Glasgow study


  (P) High external validity

  (E) the results can be generalised to wider settings.

  (E) most of the observations were made by the parents during ordinary activities in their own home

  (L) Therefore, it is unlikely that the infants would be affected by the presence of the observers and therefore would have shown natural behaviour.
• Limitation of Schaffer and Emerson's Glasgow study

  (P) sample used is biased to a particular group and time.

  (E) meaning the study lacks population validity, reducing the external validity.

  (E) This is because the research focused on 60 babies and their carers from a working class area of Glasgow over 50 years ago.

  (L) This makes it unable to generalise findings to other social and historical contexts.
• Limitation of Schaffer and Emerson's Glasgow study


  (P) There may be problems assessing multiple attachments

  (E) This is because the distress a baby shows when an individual leaves the room does not signify an attachment to that person.

  (E) For example, Bowlby said that children may become upset when a playmate leaves the room but that doesn't signify an attachment.

  (L) This is a problem for Schaffer and Emerson's stages of attachment as it is not clear how we should distinguish between behaviour shown towards playmates and secondary attachment figures.
• Mother's provide


  Nurturing, affectionate and emotional care

  Educational or imaginative play, such as counting or colour games, or dressing.

  A source of comfort when distressed

  Caretaking activities, such as brushing hair or cleaning teeth

  This supports infants in their emotional, social and cognitive development
• Father's provide


  Although fathers are less likely to provide the type of care more often provided y the mother they do provide:

  Active, physically stimulating, rough-and-tumble play, such as chasing, wrestling, swinging and bouncing

  This supports infants in the development of confidence and their ability to assess risks.
• Strength of the role of the father


  (P) supporting research evidence from

  (E) Verissimo

  (E) who found that the quality of attachment between infants and father positively correlates with the number of friends the child has at pre-school. In this respect, fathers attachment are more important than the mothers.

  (L) This suggests that the father has a unique influence on an infants development.
• Limitation of the idea of the role of the father

  (P) There is supporting evidence that the role of the father is not important in children's development.

  (E) McCallum and Golombok

  (E) found that children in same sex or single parent families develop no differently to those in traditional households.

  (L) This suggests that the father is not a unique influence on an infant's development or can be substituted by another 'father figure' who is not necessarily a man.
• Reciprocity


  Refers to the process in which a behaviour is responded to with a corresponding action during an interaction. Infants coordinate their behaviours with caregivers in a kind of conversation. It allows the caregiver to anticipate the baby's needs and respond appropriately, helping to form an attachment.
• Interactional synchrony


  Refers to how a parent's and infant's behaviour become finely synchronised; mirroring each other. Infants imitate specific facial and hand gestures to mirror their caregiver. This includes mirroring emotions as well as behaviours. It has been suggested that it serves a critical role in developmental outcomes in terms of self-regulation, symbol use and the capacity for empathy.
• Strength for reciprocity


  (P) Compelling evidence

  (E) Papousek et al

  (E) who found that parents in China, America and Germany all used a 'rising tone' to show an infant that it was their turn in the interaction.

  (L) As this evidence was shown cross-culturally in many different cultures, it suggests that a shared sense of timing may be an innate ability to aid the formation of attachments.
• Strength for interactional synchrony


  (P) Strong evidence

  (E) from Melzoff and Moore

  (E) who found that infants aged 2-3 weeks mimicked 3 adult facial expressions and one hand movement.

  (L) This suggests that imitation may be an innate ability to aid the formation of attachments
• Strength of interactional synchrony


  (P) Evidence to support it

  (E) from Isabella et al

  (E) who observed 30 mothers and their babies to assess the degree of synchrony and the quality of the attachment between them.

  (L) They found that high levels of synchrony weer associated with a better quality mother-infant attachment.
• Strength of research into infant-caregiver interactions


  (P) used well controlled procedures

  (E) This is because interactions between infants and their caregivers are usually filmed, often from multiple angles, meaning very fine details can be recorded and analysed later.

  (E) Also, babies don't know they are being observed, so their behaviour does not change in response to observation.

  (L) This is a strength of this line in research because it means that studies are high in validity.
• Strength of research into infant-caregiver interactions

  (P) Research is potentially valuable to society

  (E) The identification of interactional synchrony and reciprocity could have practical applications that benefit society.

  (E) Crotwell et al found that a 10 minute parent-child interaction therapy improved interactional synchrony in 20 low income mothers and their pre-school infants compared to a control group.

  (L) The findings suggest that research on interactional synchrony could lead to valuable methods for improving and developing infant-caregiver interactions.
• Limitation of infant-caregiver interactions


  (P) Hard to know what is happening when observing infants.

  (E) This is because what is being observed is merely hand movements or changes in expressions. it is hard to define if the infants imitation is deliberate or conscious.

  (E) Feldman points out that interactional synchrony and reciprocity only describe behaviours that occur at the same time and tell us nothing about their purpose.

  (L) This means we cannot be certain that behaviours seen in caregiver-infant interactions have a special meaning
• Limitation of mother-infant interactions

  (P)Socially sensitive

  (E) This is because it suggests that children may be disadvantaged by certain child-rearing practices. Specifically mothers who return to work shortly after a child is born restrict opportunities of interactional synchrony.

  (E) They found levels of synchrony were associated with better quality mother-infant attachment

  (L) This suggests that mothers should not return to work so soon, which has obvious socially sensitive implications
• Learning theory of attachment - Classical conditioning

  Attachments are initiated through classical conditioning. This is because an infant forms an attachment with the person who feeds them as they associate the primary caregiver with the pleasure of being fed and so will maintain proximity.

  The unconditioned stimulus (food) produces an unconditioned response (pleasure). PAF is a neutral stimulus because it doesn't provide any innate pleasure. The infant now associates the primary attachment figure with pleasure. PAF has becomes a conditioned stimulus and the pleasure a conditioned response.
• Learning theory of attachment - Operant conditioning


  Attachment is based on learning to repeat a behaviour. If a behaviour produces a pleasant consequence then it is likely to be repeated as it has been reinforced. If a behaviour produces unpleasant consequences then it is unlikely to be repeated. Operant conditioning can explain why babies cry for comfort. For example, reinforcement is a 2 way process as when a baby is reinforced for crying, the caregiver received negative reinforcement as the crying stops - avoiding the unpleasant consequence.
• Learning theory - Attachment as a secondary drive


  Looks at the concept of drive reduction. Hunger can be thought of as a primary drive as this is a biological motivator.
• Limitation of learning theory


  (P) Research against the idea of food as the basis of attachment from both animal and human studies.

  (E) Lorenz's geese maintained their attachments regardless of who fed them, whilst Harlow's monkey's attached to a soft cloth mother for comfort.

  (E) Schaffer and Emerson showed that babies primary attachment figure was not the person who fed them.

  (L) These studies show that attachments do not develop as a result of feeding and so they contradict learning theory because food is not the key element.
• Limitation of learning theory

  (P) Ignores other factors that are linked to attachment..

  (E) Research has shown that the quality of attachment is associated with developing reciprocity and interactional synchrony.

  (E) Other research has shown that the best quality attachments are formed with carers who are sensitive to infants signals and respond appropriately.

  (L) Therefore, if attachments developed primarily as a result of feeding, then these interactions would have no purpose and so we would not expect to find relationships between them and the infant-caregiver attachment.
• Strength of learning theory


  (P) It can explain some aspects of attachment

  (E) including how infants learn through reinforcement.

  (E) Infants do learn through reinforcement and association, but food may not be the most positive reinforcer, as parental attention may be better.

  (L) This shows that even though learning theory doesn't provide a complete explanation of attachment, it still has some value.
• Strength of learning theory


  (P) There is an alternative explanation based on SLT

  (E) Hay and Vespo suggest that parents teach children to love them by modelling attachment behaviours e.g. hugging them and other family members.

  (E) Parents also reward children with approval when they display their own attachment behaviours e.g. that is a lovely smile.

  (L) Therefore, babies could have learned attachment behaviour as a result of their interactions.
• Harlow's study: procedure:


  16 baby monkeys were taken from their mothers at birth and reared in isolation. They were placed in a cage with 2 mock-mothers, a wire mock mother and a cloth mock mother. In one condition, the wire mother dispensed milk to feed the monkeys whilst in the other the milk was dispensed by the cloth mother. The time spent with each mock mother was recorded. When the monkeys were deliberately frightened by a toy drumming bear, their behaviour was observed. Learning theory predicts the monkeys would spend most time with the wire mock mother as it feeds them.
• Harlow's study: Findings:


  On average, the infant monkeys spent 17-18 hours per day with the cloth mock mother, only going to the wire mock mother to feed. The baby monkeys sought comfort from the cloth mock mother and cuddled it when they were frightened, regardless of which mother fed them. This demonstrates that contact comfort is more important to the monkeys than food when it comes to attachment behaviours
• Harlow's study: Conclusions:


  Provides strong evidence against learning theory. Believes that attachments are not formed through association but that contact comfort is more important as well as sensitive responsiveness.