attachment

• Attachment


  A two-way, enduring, emotional bond between two individuals
• Behaviours displayed in attachment


  • Seeking proximity, especially at times of stress
  • Distress on separation and pleasure when reunited
  • Secure base behaviour-so infants are happy to explore but regularly return to attachment figure
• Caregiver-infant interactions in humans


  • Reciprocity
  • Interactional synchrony
• Reciprocity


  Any behaviour that is produced as a response to the other person's behaviour. It is always two-way, like a conversation (often without words) between the infant and caregiver.
• Interactional synchrony


  The timing and pattern of the interaction. The infant and caregiver's behaviours are synchronised because they are moving in the same, or a similar, pattern and so interactional synchrony does tell us about the quality of the interaction.
• Reciprocity and interactional synchrony overlap but are distinct concepts
• Research on caregiver-infant interactions


  • Meltzoff and Moore (1977)
  • Isabella et al (1991)
• Good interactional synchrony


  Leads to secure attachments
• Minimally involved, unresponsive or intrusive and over stimulating mothers


  Lead to insecure attachment
• Stages of attachment identified by Schaffer


  • Pre-attachment (Birth-3 months)
  • Indiscriminate attachment (3 months to 7/8 months)
  • Discriminate attachment (Usually 7/8 months onward)
  • Multiple Attachments (9 months onwards)
• Bushnell (1989) found that 2/3 of 2 day old infants preferred their mother's face over a stranger's face, contradicting the pre-attachment stage
• Schaffer's stages are based on longitudinal research evidence
• Schaffer's sample was limited to 60 working class babies from Glasgow, so the stages may not generalise to all babies
• There is an increasing recognition that fathers play a much greater role in the emotional development of their children than in previous years
• tset (so from the pre-attachment stage) and so for these children then the stages would not apply
• This then supports the suggestion that the stages and do not in fact generalise to all babies and families and so makes us question the universality of Schaffer's stages of attachment
• Role of the father


  What is the role of the father in today's society?
• Traditionally research has looked at mother-child interactions de-emphasising the father's role, for example Bowlby's concept of monotropy (included in the 1950s World health organisation report) suggested that babies needed constant care of the mother for healthy social development and that fathers should provide an economic rather than an emotional functional
• However, there is an increasing recognition that father's play a much greater role in the emotional development of their children than in previous years
• Why this change?


  • Increase in mothers with dependent children in work, up from 3.7million in 1996 to 4.9 million in 2017
  • Cultural expectations in many western cultures are changing to expect fathers to play a bigger part
• Fathers


  • More likely to foster risk taking behaviour in their children than mothers by engaging in more physical play and enjoyable games
  • Preferred when children are in a positive emotional state and want stimulation, whereas mothers are preferred when children are distressed and seeking comfort
  • Less able than mothers to detect low levels of infant distress
• All of these findings would suggest that they are key differences in the roles and capabilities of mothers and fathers however other research suggests this is not because fathers aren't as capable as mothers just that they aren't given the opportunity to develop these skills
• If fathers are given the chance

  They can be just as sensitive as mothers
• Field (1978) filmed 4 month old babies in face to face interactions with primary caregiver mothers, secondary caregiver fathers and primary caregiver fathers. They found that primary caregiver fathers like mothers spent more time smiling, imitating and holding infants than the secondary caregiver fathers and that this behaviour is important in the building of attachments
• This is suggesting the father is as capable as the mother of being a sensitive and caring primary caregiver if given the chance and that it is the level of responsiveness and not the gender of the parent that is the key to the attachment relationship
• Father's don't tend to be in this primary care-giver role then not because they aren't capable but perhaps because of traditional gender roles in society
• How important is the role of fathers in a child's development?


  Lamb (1997) said that the characteristics of individual fathers (e.g., masculinity, intellect) are much less important than the quality of the relationship established; children who have secure, supportive, reciprocal, and sensitive relationships with their fathers (or mothers) do better on every measure of child development
• However other research (see evaluation) section disagrees and questions the importance of the role of the father
• Evaluation


  • There's not enough research to make a firm conclusion!
  • Some research suggests maybe Dads aren't that important!
  • Socially sensitive?
  • Extended issues and debates evaluation
  • Psychology and the economy
• A weakness of the research is that there are inconsistent findings as to the role of the father in attachments
• Research has left unanswered questions such as if fathers have a distinct role then why aren't children without fathers different. MacCallum and Golombok (2004) have found that children growing up in single or same-sex parent families do not develop any differently from those in two parent heterosexual families
• Some of the research into the role of the father can have serious positive and negative implications for all mothers and fathers and so can be seen to be socially sensitive
• Research that tends to show greater differences between mothers and fathers can have negative implications. Bowlby's monotropy concept suggests that fathers can't play the role of the primary caregiver which has led to the idea that mothers should stay at home
• More recent research however has shown that it is not gender but sensitivity that is the key and is going some way to reducing these ideas and has led to important changes in Government policy. As of 2015 mothers and fathers can now share the mothers maternity leave which can lead to improving the economic potential of families
• Multiple attachments are attachments to two or more people. Research has shown that most babies are able to form multiple attachments once they have formed a specific attachment to their main caregiver
• Schaffer (1964)


  • 29% of infants develop multiple attachments within a month of developing specific attachments (by 40 weeks)
  • By the age of one 78% of children have multiple attachments
  • By the age of one 33% of the 78% have 5 or more attachments
• Schaffer's stages


  Multiple attachment is the last stage in a child's development of attachment and it occurs from 9 months onwards. He believed that a child had to go through the other 3 stages in order to reach the multiple attachment stage
• Bowlby's research


  Bowlby developed the idea of monotropy – babies have one key attachment figure. This figure is usually, but does not have to be, the mother. Secondary attachments then follow, such as to the father and siblings but that these multiple attachments are not as important as the attachment with the primary caregiver
• Fathers are one of the key multiple attachments that children form and this attachment seems to be important for a child's development although research differs as to what extent
• Evaluation


  • Unclear when multiple attachments occur
  • Disagreement as to the importance of multiple attachments
  • Economic implications
  • Animal studies of attachment