Attachment

• What is attachment? 


  A strong, enduring, emotional and reciprocal bond between two people. Especially an infant and caregiver, characterised by a desire to maintain proximity
• We can recognise an attachment when people display the following behaviours: Seeking proximity , distress if separated and secure base behaviour (the infant is always aware of the caregiver and makes frequent contact)
• Observational research was conducted by Meltzoff and Moore (1997). What did they observe?

  The infants responsiveness to different stimuli (faces and hand gestures)
• The 4 stages of attachment are:

  1. Asocial stage
  2. Indiscriminate attachment
  3. Specific attachment
  4. Multiple attachments
• Asocial stage


  (Birth - 2 months) many minds of stimuli, both social and non-social, produce a favourable reaction
• Indiscriminate attachment


  (2 - 7 months) Infants enjoy human company and get upset when they are not interacted with. From 3 months they smile more at familiar faces.
• Specific attachment


  (7 months +) Infants protest when separated from primary caregiver. They show wariness of strangers (stranger anxiety)
• Multiple attachments


  (by 1 year) children begin to attach to others. By 18 months the majority of infants have formed multiple attachments
• The Glasgow Study: Schaffer and Emerson (1964)


  1. 60 infants from working class homes in Glasgow, began with infants ranging from 5 - 23 weeks

  2. Infants were studied for 1 year

  3. Mothers reported infants response to separation on a 4 point scale

  4. Mothers reported who the protest was directed at

  5. Stranger anxiety was measured by assessing the infants response to the interviewer
• Glasgow study findings

  • 4 distinct stages were found in the development of attachment
  • By 32 weeks 60% infants had formed a specific attachment
  • By 32 weeks 57% had formed an attachment to the mother
  • By 36 weeks 73% were showing a fear of strangers
  • Fathers were the first object of attachment for 3% of infants
• Signing in Please wait
• By using this website you accept these terms and conditions
• Reciprocity


  When each person responds to the other and elicits a response from them
• Reciprocal interaction


  1. Caregiver responds to baby's smile by saying something

  2. Baby responds to caregiver
• Turn-taking


  An essential part of any conversation, otherwise people talk over each other
• Alert phases


  • Babies have periodic 'alert phases' in which they signal (e.g. making eye contact) that they are ready for a spell of interaction
  • Mothers typically pick up on and respond to their baby's alertness around two-thirds of the time, although this varies according to the skill of the mother and external factors such as stress
• From around three months


  Interaction tends to become increasingly frequent and involves both mother and baby paying close attention to each other's verbal signals and facial expressions
• Active involvement


  Babies as well as caregivers actually take quite an active role, both can initiate interactions and they appear to take turns in doing so
• Interactional synchrony


  The temporal co-ordination of micro-level social behaviour, where caregiver and baby interact in such a way that their actions and emotions mirror the other
• Interactional synchrony begins as early as two weeks old, where babies' expressions and gestures were more likely to mirror those of the adults more than chance would predict
• Interactional synchrony


  Is important for the development of caregiver-infant attachment, with high levels of synchrony associated with better quality mother-baby attachment