Attachment

• What is attachment?

  A strong emotional + reciprocal bond between two people especially an infant and caregiver, characterised by a desire to maintain proximity.
• Name the 3 behaviours that display attachment

  Seeking proximity, distress if separated and secure base behaviour
• What is seeking proximity?

  Wanting to be near each other
• What is distress if separated?


  Both infant + caregiver feel distressed when separated
• What is secure base behaviour?

  Even when we are independent from our attachment figure, we tend to make regular contact with them
• Why is forming an attachment important?

  Helps communication non verbally between the baby and primary caregiver
• How conducted observation research of infants?

  Meltzoff and Moore (1977)
• What was observed in the observation research of infants?

  Babies mimicked adult facial patterns which is evidence of caregiver-infant interactions and observers noted infant behaviour in response to the adult (watched in slow mo,normal speed and sped up)
• What's reciprocity?

  One person responds to the other and they are mutual exchanges of response and a caregiver-infant interaction is reciprocal
• What did Feldman and Eidelman (2007) discover?


  Babies have an alert phase from birth where they signal when they are ready to interact and mothers will respond 2/3 of the time
• What's interactional synchrony? 


  Mother and baby will mirror each others actions 2 weeks after birth and the more mirroring, the better the attachment
• Strengths of caregiver-infant interactions

  Well controlled procedures - the procedure was filmed at many angles

  Babies won't be aware they are being observed so will behaviour normally

  No demand characteristics therefore good validity
• Weaknesses of caregiver-infant interactions

  Observations don't tell us the purpose of synchrony and reciprocity or whether they are important for development

  Social sensitivity as not everyone has the same experiences with their primary caregiver
• What's stage one of attachment called?

  Asocial stage (birth- 2 months)
• What's the asocial stage?

  Very young infants are asocial in that many kinds of stimuli, both social + non social produce the favorable reaction such as a smile
• What's stage two of attachment called?

  Indiscriminate attachment (2-7 months)
• What's the indiscriminate attachment stage?

  Infants indiscriminately enjoy human company such as getting upset when an individual doesn't interact with them or smiling when they see familiar faces
• What's stage three of attachment?

  Specific attachment (7-12 months)
• What's the specific attachment stage?

  Expresses protest when separated from a particular individual and attempt to stay close to the person and wariness of strangers
• What's stage four of attachment?

  Multiple attachment (by 1 year)
• What's the multiple attachment stage?

  Children begin to attach to others and by 18 months the majority of infants have formed multiple attachments
• Who carried out the Glasgow study?

  Schaffer and Emerson (1946)
• Explain the procedure for the Glasgow study

  • 60 participants - infants between 5-23 weeks and their mothers
  • Studied for a year
  • Mother were visited every four weeks and were reported on their infants response to separation in 7 everyday situations like leaving a room
  • Had to describe intensity of the reaction on a 4 point scale
  • Stranger anxiety was also measured by assessing the infants reaction to the interviewer
• Explain the findings from the Glasgow study

  By 32 weeks, 60% of infants had formed a specific attachment and for 57% of infants this was the mother

  By 36 weeks, 73% of infants showed a fear of strangers

  Fathers were the first specific attachment for only 3% infants
• What's sensitive responsiveness?


  Attachment with those who respond accurately to the baby's signals, not the person they spend the most time with
• Strengths of the Glasgow study

  Good external validity as it was conduced in pps own homes and the parents did most of the observations
• Weaknesses of the Glasgow study

  Biased sample as pps were from same city and social class therefore low temporal validity and culture bias

  Doesn't consider differences in children as it suggest they must go through a step to step process to form attachments

  Poor evidence of asocial stage as its hard to detect anxiety
• What's the role of the father?

  Male figure who provides a caring role, not just a biological father
• What did Geiger discover about quality of play?

  Found play interactions with father were more exciting and they focused on more fun + playing

  Mothers were more affectionate. caring and nurturing
• What did Field discover about level of responsiveness?

  Found fathers engaged in more game playing and primary caregivers engaged in more smiling, imitative facial expressions and high pitched voices
• How did Field study level of responsiveness?

  Filmed interactions between babies + their caregivers

  Group 1 = caregiver is mother, Group 2 = caregiver is father and Group 3 = caregiver is secondary father
• What did Grossman discover about distinctive role of the father?


  Studied children up to adolescence

  Found that quality of attachment to mother related to attachment in adolescence therefore father attachment is less important

  Also, found that quality of fathers play with babies relates to quality of attachment in adolescence
• Strengths of the role of the father

  Economic implications - father need to contribute to their child as much as the mothers do (paternity leave)

  Real world application - offers advice to parents about fathers as caregivers and reliving pressure of childcare
• Weaknesses of role of the father

  Fathers role as a secondary attachment figure is perhaps not important e.g. single parent family

  Findings are inconsistent
• Issue and debate for role of the father

  Social sensitivity - suggesting children might be disadvantaged by certain child rearing practices
• What's imprinting?


  To develop a strong bond with the mother which takes place during a specific time in development, probably a few hours after birth.
• Explain the procedure of Lorenz's study 


  Randomly divided a large clutch of goose eggs

  Control group : 1/2 hatched with their mother

  Experimental group : 1/2 hatched with Lorenz
• Explain the findings for Lorenz's study


  Control went to the mother first and the experimental went to Lorenz

  Identified a critical period (up to 5 days) in which imprinting must take place however the time period ranges in species
• Explain the long lasting effects of imprinting

  Peacock reared in a reptile house and the first thing it saw when it was born was a tortoise. As an adult, a peacock showed it had sexual imprinted on the tortoise as it believed they were the same species
• Explain the procedure for Harlow's study

  16 baby monkey's where put in isolation away from their mothers and given two fake mothers (wire and cloth one). They both dispensed milk but the cloth one provided comfort