attatchment

• what is attatchment


  infants and caregivers develop deep and lasting emotional bonds
• what is reciprocity


  both caregivers and infants contribute to the interaction by responding to each others signals and cues
• what is international synchrony 


  when caregiver infant signals synchronise
• A03: infant interactions

  • Meltzoff and Moore - experimenter displayed features such as sticking tongue out and opening mouth in shock. Infants can observe and reciprocate through imitation.
  • Social Sensitivity - a concern whilst investigation childrearing techniques.
• what is Bowlbys theory of attatchment - monotropic

  evolutionary perspective as he argued that children are born with innate tendancys to attach with their parents to increase their chances of survival
• what are social releasers

  • infants posses these which unlock an innate tenancy in adults to care for them
  • physical releases - ’baby face’ big eyes as cute
  • behavioural releases - crying, cooing, smiling
• what isa critical period

  infants must form an attachment with caregiver up to 2.5 years, formation of attatchment after is possible however difficult
• what does monotropy mean


  infants form one very special attatchment with their primary caregiver
• through the monotropic attatchment, the infant forms an internal working model. this is a template for all future relationships and attatchments. healthy first attachment = healthy future attatchment 


  monotropic theory
• what is the monotropic theory backed up by

  Lorenz, geese 12-17 hour critical period for imprinting
• how is the internal working model backed up

  Hazan and Shaver love quiz backs up IWM as it found a positive correlation between early attatchment types and adult relationship
• what is the learning theory of attatchment

  how infants learn to become attached to their primary caregiver through either classical or operant conditioning
• what is ‘cupboard love’


  suggests infants focus on food for attachment
• classical conditioning (learning theory)

  • ucs (food) - ucr (happy baby)
  • ucs (food) + ns (mum) - ucr (happy baby)
  • cs (mum) - cr (happy baby)
• operant conditioning (learning theory)

  • skinner - rats - Dollard and Miller - food is given to the baby when it cries (hungry) so it repeats the action (positive) reinforcement is recipricle as caregiver gets reward when baby stops crying (negative)

  operant conditioning
• A03: learning theory

  • undermined by Harlow - baby monkeys spent more time with soft towelling monkey which provided comfort rarther than food
  • refuted by Lorenz - geese immediately imprinted on him, having no time to learn this behaviour
  • ethical issues as animals cannot consent and results cannot be extrapolated as humans are different to animals
  • reductionist as they reduce a complex behaviour - attachment to a simple stimulus - response association
• what was Van Lijendoorn and Kroonerbergs cultural variations study

  • method - meta analysis of 32 studies from 8 different countries, which used Ainsworths strange situation, over 1990 infants in the analysis
  • results - secure attachment is the most common, japan and israel showed higher levels of secure-resistant attatchment, germany showed higher levels of insecure-avoidant attachment
  • conclusion - global trend of data collected, reflects the US norm of secure attachment being most common, adds weight of argument that secure is the optimal attachment type for healthy development
• A03: Van Lijendoorn and Kroonerberg

  • comparing countries not cultures, different ways of reading children in cultures within countries
  • meta-analysis has large sample size
• what are the stages of attachment

  • asocial (birth to 2 months) infant shows similar responses to objects and people
  • indiscriminate attachments (2-6 months) shows perforation for human over non human company
  • discriminate attachments (9-12 months) shows perforation for one caregiver, separation anxiety shown
  • multiple attachments (one year+) attachment is now displayed towards several different people
• Schaffer and Emerson's forming of early attachment study

  1. 60 Glaswegian babies from working class families, 5 to 23 weeks old

  2. Researchers visited babies every month for the first 12 months, once more at 18 months

  3. Researchers observed mother and observed the children seeing separation anxiety and stranger anxiety in a range of every day activities
• Schaffer and Emerson's forming of early attachment study

  • Provided some support for stages of developing attachment
  • At around 25 to 32 weeks 50% of children showed separation anxiety towards their mothers, discriminate style
  • By 40 weeks 80% of children had specific (discriminate) attachment and 30% had started forming multiple attachments
• A03: Schaffer and Emerson early attachment study

  • high external validity - act naturally
  • lacks population validity - all working class from glasgow
  • social desirabilaity bias - better mothers

  a03
• what is the traditional role of the farther

  would provide resources while mothers stay at home
• what is Schaffer and Emerson’s role of the farther study

  found babies became attached to the mother at around 7 months first. with this they form secondary attachments with others around the next few weeks. 75% of babies are attached to the dad by 18 months
• what is Grossmans study on the role of a farther

  • Longitudal study
  • found farther attachment quality at infancy not related to quality of attachment in adolescence - mothers class
  • however, they found farthers play with the child was important to development of attachment bonds in adolescence - suggests that farther is playing not nurture
• Ainsworth's strange situation

  1. stranger enters room, sits on chair and talks to mother - stranger anxiety
  2. stranger approaches infant and tries to play with it - stranger anxiety
  3. mother leaves room and stranger comforts and plays with baby - stranger anxiety + separation anxiety
  4. mother returns, stranger leaves - reunion behaviour
  5. mother leaves infant alone - separation anxiety
  6. stranger re enters and comforts baby - stranger anxiety
  7. mother returns and stranger leaves - reunion behaviour
• Ainsworths strange situation findings

  • secure (66%) explores + mum is safe space, moderate stranger and separation anxiety, joy on reunion
  • insecure-avoidant (22%) explores + doesn’t return, low separation anxiety, low stranger anxiety, little reaction during reunion
  • insecure-resistant (12%) does not explore + clingy, high separation anxiety, high stranger anxiety, resists affection during reunion
• A03: Ainsworths strange situation

  • lacks ecological validity as done in a lab
  • high reliability as there were several observers
  • overt observation so mothers may have been over affectionate
  • culture bias as based on western ideas