Attachment Flashcards
What is attachment
A close two-way emotional bond between two individuals in which each sees the other as essential for emotional security.
What are the three behaviours demonstrated by attached individuals
Proximity - staying physically close to attached individual
Separation distress - being upset when an attachment figure leaves
Secure-base behaviour - babies leave the attachment figure regularly but return to them when playing
What are the two types of interaction between caregivers and infants
Reciprocity - taking turns to respond
Interactional synchrony - simultaneous imitation
How is reciprocity achieved
When baby and caregiver respond to and elicit responses from each other, e.g caregiver responds to baby smile by saying something, and baby responds by making sounds.
What is the babies role in reciprocity
An active role, both caraegiver and baby initiate interactions and take turns doing so
How is interactional synchrony achieved
When actions are carried out simultaneously.
Baby and caregiver ‘mirror’ each other
What was Isabella et als study (1989)
Observed 30 babies and mothers together and assessed degree of synchrony.
What were the findings of Isabella et al
Found high levels of synchrony were associated with better quality mother-baby attachments
What is a strength of caregiver-infant interactions study
Use of filmed observations
Filmed, often from multiple angles, allowing very fine details to be recorded and analysed later.
As babies do not know they are being observed, their behaviour does not change (no Hawthorne effect).
Means studies have good reliability and validity
What is a limitation of caregiver infant observations
Difficult observing babies
Not very co-ordinated, so can just observe small gestures and expressions
Hard to interpret meaning of babies’ movement e.g deciding if hand movement is in response to to caregiver or random twitch.
Means we can’t be certain that any particular interactions are due to caregiver interactions.
Who theorised the 4 stages of development
Schaffer and Emerson (1964)
What were the stages of attachment
Stage 1: Asocial stage
First few weeks
Stage 2: Indiscriminate attachment
2-7 months
Stage 3: Specific attachment
From around 7 months
Stage 4: Multiple attachments
By one year
What is the asocial stage
Baby’s behaviour towards people and inanimate objects quite similar.
Some preference for familiar people (more easily calmed by them).
Babies happier in presence of other people.
What is indiscriminate attachment stage
Display more observable social behaviour
Prefer people to inanimate objects
Recognise and prefer familiar people
Don’t show stranger or separation anxiety
Attachment indiscriminate because its the same towards all.
What is multiple attachment stage
Secondary attachments with other adults form shortly after
In Schaffer and Emersons study, 29% of babies had secondary attachments within a month of forming primary attachment.
By age of one year majority of infants had multiple secondary attachments.
How was separation anxiety measured
Asking mothers about childrens behaviour during everyday separations (e.g adults leaving the room)
What is specific attachment stage
Stranger and separation anxiety when separated from one particular person.
Baby said to have formed attachment with one specific attachment figure.
In most cases, the person who offers most interaction becomes this figure. (Mother in 65% of places)
How was stranger anxiety measured Glasgow baby study
Measured by asking mothers questions about childrens anxiety response to unfamiliar adults.
What was the procedure of Schaffer and Emerson (1964)
60 babies from Glasgow, working class families.
Researchers visited babies and mothers at home every month for a year, and again at 18 months.
Measured separation anxiety and stranger anxiety.
What were the findings of the Glasgow baby study
Babies developed attachments through a sequence of stages, from asocial to multiple attachments.
The specific attachment tended to be most interactive and sensitive to baby’s signals.
Not necessarily the person spending most time with the baby.
What are 2 strengths of Schaffer and Emersons research
RWA in childcare
In first 2 stages, babies can be comforted by any skilled adult.
But if child starts day care at a later stage, care from unfamiliar adult can cause distress.
Means Schaffer and Emersons research can help parents making decisions.
External validity
Most observations made by parents during everyday activities, rather than researchers.
This means it is likely all participants behaved naturally while being observed.
What are 2 limitations of Schaffer and Emersons study
Culture bias
Only studied parenting in working-class Glasgow, an individualist culture.
In collectivist cultures, multiple attachments are seen as the norm.
This means results are hard to generalise to other countries.
Self-report
Parents may have lied or over/under exaggerated baby response to put them in better light.
What is the difference between primary caregiver and attachment figure
Primary caregiver spends most time with the baby.
Primary attachment figure is person whom baby has strongest attachment.
Often the same person.
What did Schaffer and Emerson find regarding attachment to the father
In only 3% of cases were fathers the first sole object of attachment,
In 27% of cases father was joint first.
75% of babies formed secondary attachment with father by 18 months.
Who studied the role of the father and how
Grossmann et al (2002)
Longitudinal study looking at parents behaviour and its relationship to the quality of child’s attachments into their teens.
What did Grossmann et al (2002) find about attachment with fathers effects in adolescent years
Quality of attachment to father was far less important for adolescent attachment than quality of attachment with mother.
Therefore fathers may be less important for long-term emotional development.
What did Grossmann et al find is the role of the father
Found quality of fathers play with babies was related to quality of adolescent attachments.
This suggests fathers have a different role in attachment, one that is more to do with play and stimulation and less to do with emotional care.
What is a limitation to research results about the role of the father
Conflicting evidence from different methodologies
Grossmann et al suggests fathers have a distinct role in childrens development, with play/stimulation, while McCallum and Golombok (2004) found children without a father do not develop differently.
This means question whether fathers have a distinctive role remains unanswered.
What is a strength of the role of the father
RWA - Parenting advice
Mothers may feel pressured to stay at home while fathers do the work.
Information about the flexibility of the role of the father can reduce parental anxiety and make parenting decisions easier.
Who conducted the imprinting experiment
Lorenz (1952)
“Lorenz’s Geese”
What was Lorenz’s procedure
Divided a large clutch of goose eggs
One half hatched with mother goose in natural habitat
Other half hatched in incubator where first moving object they saw was Lorenz.
When hatched, mixed all goslings together to see whom they would follow.
What were the results of Lorenz’s geese
Incubator group followed Lorenz, control group followed mother.
Found a critical period in which imprinting needs to take place, e.g a few hours after hatching
If imprinting did not happen in that time, chicks did not attach to mother figure,
Who studied Rhesus monkeys
Harlow (1958)
What was the procedure of Harlow’s monkeys experiment
Harlow reared 16 rhesus monkeys with two wire model ‘mothers’
Condition 1 - milk was dispensed by a plain wire mother
Condition 2 - milk was dispensed by cloth-covered mother
Observed how monkeys reacted when frightened.
Studied the monkeys into later life.
What were the results of Harlow’s monkeys
Baby monkeys cuddled the cloth covered mother over the plain-wire one regardless of which dispensed milk, showing preference for tactile comfort.
Suggests contact comfort was more important than food in attachment behaviour.
As adults, the deprived monkeys were more aggressive, less sociable and less skilled in mating than other monkeys
What is 2 strengths of Lorenz’s findings (1 research support)
Research support
Regolin and Vallortigara (1995)
Exposed chicks to simple moving shape combinations.
When shown a range of moving shapes, chicks followed the original moving shapes in preference to others.
Suggests animals are born with an innate mechanism to imprint on a moving object.
Introduced idea of a critical period
What is 2 limitation of Lorenz’s findings
Difficult to generalise
Mammal attachment processes are different to birds.
Humans more sophisticated than birds, with more complex mental processes.
e.g, mammalian mothers show more emotional attachment to their young.
This means it may not be appropriate to generalise Lorenz’s findings to humans.
Unethical
Lorenz ‘played God’ in a sense.
Did not know whether geese would be damaged in later life
What is a strength of Harlows monkeys
RWA
(Howe 1998)
Helps social workers understand risk factors in child abuse and intervene to prevent it.
Also understand importance for attachment in monkeys for breeding programmes.
Means Harlow’s experiments benefitted both humans and animals
What are two limitations of Harlows monkeys
Hard to generalise
While monkeys are more similar than geese, humans still very different and more emotionally complex.
Ethical issues
Caused severe long-term distress to the monkeys, emotionally scarring them for life, despite the benefits to society it brought about.
