Attachment Flashcards
Meltzoff and Moore
Wanted to investigate whether interactional synchrony was present in babies as young as 3 weeks old.
Three images of adults were displayed with 3 different facial expressions. They found an association between the facial expressions displayed and the facial expressions made by the infant.
Interational synchrony
Caregiver interacts and infant mirrors. For example, mother sticks her tongue out and baby also sticks their tongue out
Reciprocity
Caregiver interacts and infant responds. For example, mother makes silly face and baby laughs.
Meltzoff and Moore Strengths
A strength to Meltzoff and Moore’s study is that the observations were filmed, meaning that the study can be rewatched as many times as need be. Inter-rater reliability can be therefore established by the researcher who can compare their findings with another researchers’ findings.
Lab Experiment- Controlled environment means that extraneous variables can be limited, such as noise or temperature which may also affect babies’ behaviour. Overt studies can also be carried out without the normal affects which cause a change in behaviour.
Meltzoff and Moore limitations
Difficulty observing babies can be an issue. Babies’ facial expressions may not be a direct effect of synchrony itself or rather actually just the baby’s movement. Afterall correlation does not mean causation. Babies are immobile and lack co-ordination. Do not know from a baby perspective.
A further limitation is simply observing behaviour does not tell us about developmental importance.
Feldman points out that ideas such as synchrony are simply just patterns and behaviours. A phenonium.
Russella Isabella Study
A counterpoint to Felman’s argument is Isabellas study which followed 30 mothers and children and level of synchrony also assessed. They found that higher degrees in synchrony led to better quality of attachment.
4 Stages of attachment according to Shaffer
Asocial
Indiscrimitive
Specific
Multiple
Asocial Stage
0-6 weeks.
Babies are immobile and lack co-ordination, they show little stranger and separation anxiety.
Easily comforted by people
Indiscriminate stage
6 Weeks- 6 Months
Babies become more aware of their surroundings; they have a similar preference to certain people but now show stranger and separation anxiety yet
Specific Stage
7 months-11months
Babies now have a clear preference to a caregiver (65%), typically the mother. They begin to show stranger and separation anxiety
Multiple Stage
12 months+
Babies form secondary attachments such as father and grandparents.
29% of babies form multiple attachments within the same month as specific
Shaffer and Emersons stages of attachment
wanted to study the change in attachment as a baby grows
Study was carried out on 60 babies in Glasgow, mostly working-class families. 29 females and 31 males. Researchers visited monthly and at 18 months. They asked the mother a series of questions, a measure of separation anxiety.
Shaffer and Emersons stages of attachment strengths
Good external validity as most of the observations were made by parents in Everday activities. Unlike in a lab, the tasks are not artificial and do not therefore cause artificial behaviour. Researchers are not present which also could affect validity of the results because babies’ behaviour may change.
Real life application may also be used in day-care because knowledge of the asocial and indiscrimative stage has found that babies are easily comforted but when babies grow could become problematic
Shaffer and Emersons Weaknesses
There is firstly a lack of knowledge on the asocial stage which means that we assume that anxiety levels are low when actually from a baby’s perspective we do not know this. It is also hard to observe the asocial stage as an objectively. Also, the fact parents carry out the observation is also a limitation because they could easily lie or become bias, affecting the validity further.
Lastly, the study is highly ethnocentric meaning that findings generalized, and study was carried out on very specific people
Animal studies- (Harlow)
Harlow anted to study if monkeys referred food or comfort i.e., which was the most important in forming an attachment?
Procedure: 16 baby monkeys were used. ‘2 mothers’, one cloth and one wire monkey, the wired monkey provided food and the cloth monkey provided comfort.
Harlow found that monkeys preferred the cloth monkey, even though the wired monkey provided food.
Found that maternal deprivation is a thing, these monkeys were anti-social, aggressive and not good at attracting potential mates
Harlow A03
One weakness to Harlow’s study is that it has many ethical issues attached to it. Most of the monkeys involved in the study died or became maternally deprived. Some even died. It physically and psychologically harmed the monkeys.
A strength of Harlow’s monkeys is that it was conducted as a lab experiment meaning extraneous variables were limited and cause and effect can be established. External Validity is poor however because of factors such as ecological validity and the environment was artificial causing monkeys’ behavior to be too.
Can be put into practice- zoos- social workers and clinical- Howe and importance of attachment in child development
Animal studies-Lorenz
Lorenz wanted to investigate imprinting and attachment on baby geese.
He separated geese eggs into 2 groups, incubated and a group in which naturally hatched with the mother. The group in which hatched with the mother followed her but the other group, which saw Lorenz first, followed Lorenz. This is called imprinting, an attachment in animals, Lorenz found a critical period of 90 days in which imprinting needed to occur.
Lorenz A03 Strength
Lorenz’ research was very influential to other researchers such as Bowlby, who went onto investigate the critical period in more depth (monotropic theory). This means that Lorenz’ research further expanded the field of attachment in psychology. A supporting piece of research Regolin et al. chicks were exposed to shapes combinations in which moved, shows there is an innate mechanism to imprint ion the moving object.
Lorenz A03 weakness
A study from Guiton where chicks imprinted ion yellow washing up gloves showed that imprinting is not a permanent phenomenon but rather temporary because as chicks grew older, they sexually imprinted on the yellow gloves first. Lorenz concluded sexual imprinting when a peacock only showed courtship behaviour towards giant tortoise in a reptile house.
Another weakness is that cannot generalise findings because animals and humans are psychologically different.
The Role of the father A01
There has been debates on what the father’s role is in attachment, in Shaffer’s and Emmerson’s stages of attachment study they only found 3% of fathers became the Primary attachment figure and more over only 27% of cases was this equal to the mother. Grossmann’s research was a longitude study on babies into their teens, he found that fathers were mostly there to play and stimulate and therefore have a different role. However, the role of the father as a primary attachment figure is arguably the same because in Tiffany fields study where she filmed 4-month-old babies face to face, she found fathers to undertake primary role typically adopted by mother.
The Role of the father Weaknesses
One limitation to the role of the father is that there is a lack of clarity over the research question, most research focuses on fathers as a secondary attachment figure, however this may not be the case as it is proven, in Tiffany Fields research as an example, that the role of the father can be based on a primary attachment as well. This means that there is not enough clarity on research and counts as anomalies for fathers who primary attachment figures. A further limitation is that it does not take account for different scenarios, for example Grossman suggested play and stimulation but what about for gay and lesbian couples? McCallum et al. shows that these children consistently do not develop any different from heterosexual couples’ children.
Role of the Father strengths
A counterpoint to McCallum’s argument is that whether which gender parents are, the parents adapt to one of each role but when the father is present, he has a distinct role. Families without fathers can simply adapt to not having a father. A real-life application can also be brought from this, mothers in particular may feel that they do not want to have children because of stereotypical views surrounding the fact that they may have to stay at home, research has shown that this does not affect child’s development ultimately reducing anxiety
Learning Theory of attachment (Dollard and Miller)
It is a behaviourist view, learn by classical and operant conditioning, through association and reinforcing. In this example is food. That is why sometimes referred to as ‘cupboard love’
Learning Theory of attachment (Dollard and Miller) A03 weaknesses
In Harlow’s study on animal comfort or food, finding contradict this theory as monkeys preferred comfort over food. Lorenz also found that imprinting was the main cause of attachment.
In human studies this can be argued the same, Shaffer and Emmerson founnd that multiple attachments were formed regardless of who fed them. Isabella et al… Babies aren’t seen to have an active role, research shows active role in interactants
