Attachment

Question 1

What is a bond

Answer 1

A set of feelings that tie one person to another

For example, parents often fell very strongly ‘bonded’ with their new born babies.

Question 2

What is an attachment

Answer 2

It is different to bond as it involves both the baby and their parent, who have an emotional link between each other which ties them together.

It also takes longer to develop than a bond. We can see this when we observe behaviours.

Question 3

What are the 4 Maccoby characteristics of attachment

Answer 3

• seeking proximity
• Distress on separation
• Joy on reunion
• Orientation of behaviour

Question 4

What is Reciprocity

Answer 4

The behaviour of each party elicits a response from the other. Each party responds to the action of another’s signal to sustain interaction (Turn taking).

The responses are not necessarily similar as interaction synchronicity.

Smiling is an example of reciprocity - when a smile occurs in one person it elicits. Response in the other

Question 5

Name the 4 psychologists who carried out studies supporting reciprocity

Answer 5

Feldman

• from birth babies move in rhythm with adults.
• at three months interaction becomes increasingly frequent

Brazelton
- basic rhythm is a precursor for later communication

Trevathan
- taking turn in infant interaction is important for the development of social and language skills

Tronick
- mothers interacted with the baby and to stopped, babies would then try to tempt mother into interaction

Question 6

What is synchrony

Answer 6

When two people interact in a mirror pattern in terms of their emotional and facial and body

Question 7

What are the two psychologists that have supporting studies for synchrony

Answer 7

Meltzoff and Moore

• observed synchrony as young as two weeks
• child’s response to facial expressions was filmed and independently observed. A correlation was observed in both two weeks and three day olds

Isabella

• found high levels of synchrony were associated with better quality mother infant attachment
• Suggests that strong emotional attachments are associated with high levels of synchrony

Question 8

Attachment

Answer 8

An emotional bond that develops early in an infants life that develops a communication between the infant and its caregiver

The infant will show distress when taken away from the caregiver

Question 9

International synchrony

Answer 9

From a. Early as 2 weeks adults and babies respond in time to sustain communication, for example when a mother makes a soothing noise the bay moves gently in response. Emotional responses reflect each other.

Question 10

Reciprocity/turn taking

Answer 10

Interaction is continuous and flows both ways between adult and infant. Both res[ond to each others actions and can initaiate communication

Question 11

What are the types of interactions

Answer 11

Interaction also synchrony
Reciprocity/ turn taking
Imitation
Sensitive responsiveness
Cargiverese
Body contact

Question 12

Imitation

Answer 12

Infant mimics/copies the adults behaviour exactly

Question 13

Sensitive responsiveness

Answer 13

Adult pays careful attention to infants communication and responds in an appropriate manner e.g. feeding or changing

Question 14

Cargiver ease

Answer 14

Adult modulates their voice, slowing it down, raising the pitch and making a song like tone

Question 15

Bodily contact

Answer 15

Physical contact, often skin to skin is seen as important in bonding especially in the first few hours of life

Question 16

Positive Evaluative research on caregiver- infant interactions

Answer 16

Melzoff and Moore - imitation of facial and manual gestures by human neonates

• the baby’s responded to gestures such as sticking tongue out, matched the experimenter that was being imitated
• imitation happens early on in infants between 12 and 21 days

Papusek- cross cultural research on caregivereese
- showed that a tendency to produce a special high pitched baby talk is common across America, china and German mothers

Suggests some care giver interactions are not culturally bias

Question 17

Positive Evaluation on care giver- infant interaction

Answer 17

• modern studies use multiple observers + cameras. Therfore can slow down footage and analyse it more effectively

Question 18

Negative Evaluation on care giver- infant interaction

Answer 18

• infants are unable to communicate their thoughts or emotions, findings depend on inferences about internal mental states based on observation
• very difficult to claim intentionality that the baby deliberately copied the caregiver and it was not just an accidental reaction
• social sensitivity, mothers may feel criticised and judged. This criticises those who go back to work early and do not have as strong of an attachment. Guilt ma be felt

Question 19

Schaffers stages of attachment

Answer 19

• identified by Schaffer and Emerson from a longitudinal observation study

4 phases of attachment

1. Asocial
2. Indiscriminate
3. Specific
4. multiple

An infant sucks mum

Question 20

Asocial stage

Answer 20

Schaffers stages of attachment

Asocial (or pre attachment stage) 0-6 weeks:
For the fist few weeks they respond t humans in the same way as they do to object

Question 21

indiscriminate stage

Answer 21

Schaffers stages of attachment

Indiscriminate (or disuse attachment stage) 6 weeks- 7 month

Can be handled by strangers and without distress, however discriminates between familiar and unfamiliar individuals, with a preference for familiar adults
No separation or stranger anxiety

Question 22

Specific attachment

Answer 22

Schaffers stages of attachment

Specific (or discriminate attachment stage) 7+ months

Separation and strangers anxiety develops. Demonstrates preference to primary care givers such as mum

Question 23

Multiple attachment stage

Answer 23

Schaffers stages of attachment

Multiple attachment stage 9+ months

Attachment is observed towards a number of individuals, such as brothers, sisters and grandparents. Fear of strangers decreases

Question 24

Evaluative research for schaffers stages of development

Answer 24

Schafer and Emerson Glaswegian babies study

Data collected over a year in monthly obersavtion

Observed 60, Glaswegian babies for 18 months, mostly fro kills working class families.

Researchers  asked parents t o observe their children in different circumstances, keep a diary of their observations and report back to researchers. For example separation anxiety ano stranger anxiety. 
Circumstances included 
left alone in a room 
Left with a stranger 
Left alone in their cot 

Found separation anxiety in the majority of babies by 25 -32 weeks with stranger distress colouring in most babies approximately one month later.

In the 18 month follow up 87% had developed multiple attachments.
Strongest attachment to primary care givers

Suggests ther might be a biological stages

Question 25

Evaluation of Schaffer and Emerson Glaswegian baby study of the stages of attachment

Answer 25

- sample group was working class mothers in 1960s Glasgow - lacked temporal validity as parenting techniques have changed dramatically in the last 50 years - culture is not representative of the Uk or the rest of the world - external validity + high levels of mundain validity ecological validity, wa sin theor own homes and used self report . Process called triangulation

Question 26

Role of the father according to Schaffer

Answer 26

Primary attachment figure - Found that most children’s primary attachment figure was mum 65% - 30% mum and another person (often dad) - 3% primary attachment figure was dad Changing cultural roles - could be argues that in western society the role of the mother and father has changes - mothers are more likel to go pout to work - will have an impact of attachment patterns Importance of Play - Fathers are seen to be more consistently engaged in baby’s play activities than mothers - mothers tend to take a more comforting style Primary care givers - evidence suggests that if the men take the role of primary care givers their interaction also style changes to be more like mothers with sensitive responses

Question 27

Evidential research t5hat highlights fathers roles in the development in children

Answer 27

Verissimo et al (2011) - observed pre school children’s relationships with mothers an fathers - compared with follow up interactions at nursery - a strong attachment with the father was a strong predictor of the ability to make friends in school, suggesting an important role for fathers in the socialisation process

Question 28

Further evaluation of the role of the father

Answer 28

+ research on the importance of the father in social development, and finding that males can effectively take on a more maternal role could provide confidence to fathers taking on the role of primary care givers and single gender families becoming more common in modern societies - infants can’t communicate their thoughts and emotions - Schaffer and Emerson is based on inferences from observation - only used one observer at a time on home visits in Glasgow - social sensitivity some people may find that their life choices may be criticised in some way.

Question 29

Imprinting

Answer 29

When an animal (such a s birds) will strongly attach to the first object (usually the mother) they encounter The infant animal will then follow the object L

Question 30

What was the Lorenz (1935) reasearch

Answer 30

Researching Imprinting in Greylag Geese Procedure - half of the greylag geese were taken and hatched by Lorenz using an incubator - the other half were hatched normally by the mother Findings - goslings hatched by Lorenz followed him wherever he went rather than the mother goose - the goslings that hatched natura;Lou, imprinted on the mother and followed her - even if they were placed together they followed the person they sa first Suggests Suggests that imprinting is a strong biological feature via sight rather than another cue such as smell/sound Critical period - around 32 hours - goslings must see a large moving object to why will not imprint on anything

Question 31

What did Harlow’s (1958) study sate

Answer 31

Contact comfort - geese evolutionarily very different to humans compared to monkeys, Harlow tested ‘cupboard love’ - babies love mothers because they feed them Procedure - attachment behaviour studied in 16 new born monkeys - removed from bio0logical mothers and place in cages with surrogate mothers. - range of different conditions used included wire or cloth mothers and mothers that provided milk or did not Findings - monkeys that had access to a cloth mother, proffered to stay. With them Evan if the wire mother provided the milk - showed more confidence in new situations - only the ones with a wire mother showed later stress Suggesting - that we will attach to comfort and not just the providing of food - bodily contact is needed for attachment Maternal deprivation - monkeys that had deprivation had long term emotional and social problems - when mating had issues raining offspring occasionally spilling them

Question 32

Evaluation of Harlow’s study of attachment

Answer 32

- conditions of the experiment when the monkey was stressed, this caused the primate to suffer and bec caused stress - not ethical - helped to change ethical research - although monkeys are similar they are still to different, both biologically, socially and societally + has been applied to areas of early childhood + contact time in birth in hospitals has been given higher priority {+ shown in long term neglect, influenced other research of Bowlby and Ainsworth + long term benefits may be in part by Harlow’s research

Question 33

Cupboard live theory

Answer 33

Diolland and Miller (1950) The reason children become attached to their care giver they learn the caregivers provide food and meets their physical needs Through classical conditioning and operant conditioning

Question 34

Primary and secondary drives

Answer 34

Primary drives are instinctive, such a as eating for hunger, sleep for tiredness are based on a biological need. Secondary drives such as attachment develop due to a learnt process, in which they are associated with the satisfaction of a primary drive (food) E.g. money, does not satisfy any biological need but can help to satisfy needs such as hunger

Question 35

Evaluation points for cupboard love theory

Answer 35

Dolland and Miller (1950) + learning theory is a clear and believable explanation for attachment, backed up by research. Makes sense that babies would cry more if they learnt it gained them attention - too simplistic - learning theory that is applied to human feelings of attachment is seen as environmentally reductionist. Too simplistic to describe a whole relationship in terms of S-R links and patterns of reinforcement - a lot of other theories provide evidence against cupboard love - Harlows experiments on moneys shows that the babies attached to the cloth mother rather than the mother that provides milk -

Question 36

Bowlines monotropic theory

Answer 36

- an evolutionary explanation - babies have an innate attachment drive because they want to survive, if the attachment is secure they are more likely to stay close to one care giver

Question 37

Monotrophy

Answer 37

Unique strong attachment to a single care giver, the mothe r

Question 38

Bowlby’s monotropic theory - critical/ sensitive period

Answer 38

- attachment must happen within 2/3 years of birth for it to be strong - if this does not happen then it will result in long lasting neagative social consequences Bowlby based this on Lorenz’s work

Question 39

Bowlby’s monotropic theory - internal working model

Answer 39

- first strong attachment the child has with its mother provides a blueprint fo future relationships - based on both Freud and Harlows work

Question 40

Bowlby’s monotropic theory - safe bias behaviour

Answer 40

- infants with good attachments will use mum as a base to explore their environment. - but will show distress is mum disappears to is a stranger approaches

Question 41

What are the 6 points of Bowlby’s monotropic theory

Answer 41

1 evolutionary explanation 2 critical / sensitive period 3 Internal working model 4 strength of attachment 5 safe base behaviour 6 social releasers

Question 42

Bowlby’s monotropic theory - strength of attachment

Answer 42

Bowlby suggests stronger attachment s will form if care is consistent and weaker attachments will form with frequent/ long periods of separation

Question 43

Social releases

Answer 43

- babies instinctively use signals to attract caregivers attention -

Question 44

Evaluation of Bowlby’s monotropic theory of attachment

Answer 44

+ based on work by Lorenz’s imprinting studies - may not be able to be generalised to humans - beta bias, gender bias, suggest that the role of the father is not important and therfore lacks temporal (time) validity - socially sensitive as this may offend working mothers in the m0dern day - ther are alternate explanations for attachment, vocal argue that it is based on patterns of reinforcements + very deterministic -+ continuity hypothesis + the internal working model