Attachment Flashcards
what is an attachment?
a two-way enduring emotional bond that is between two individuals in which each individual sees the other as essential for their own emotional security - separation can cause issues in attachment, weakening the bond.
what is the baby-face hypothesis?
baby face features act as a trigger for parenting behaviour, which is necessary for young animals survival - they elicit our desire to look after and care for babies.
what are the caregiver-infant interactions?
meaningful social interactions between infants and caregivers - these help a child’s social development, particularly caregiver-infant attachment; attachment begins with interaction and the responsiveness of a caregiver has profound effects.
what are the two types of caregiver-infant interactions?
reciprocity and interactional synchrony.
what is reciprocity?
reciprocity is responding, it refers to the process in which a behaviour is responded to during an interaction (turn-taking) - an intense interaction where infants have ‘alert phases’ to signal their caregivers for attention (infants usually around 3 months and hold an active role).
what is interactional synchrony?
interactional synchrony is mirroring, it is where an infant mirrors the actions of their carer (mother) - carrying out the same actions and emotions simultaneously leading to them being synchronised with their actions and emotions.
what is the research into interactional synchrony?
meltzoff and moore (1977) found that babies’ interactions to carers started mirroring from as young as two weeks old (filmed observation).
isabella et al (1989) found that the quality of attachment was related to synchrony (observation).
what are the strengths of research into caregiver-infant interactions?
there is high validity and reliability, filmed observations are in controlled conditions and analysed later so it is unlikely to miss key behaviours, inter-rater reliability can be established and no change in behaviour as babies are unaware of being observed.
there is real-world application, crotwell et al (2013) found that parent-child interactions therapy improved interactional synchrony in low-income mothers and their pre-school children.
what are the weaknesses of research into caregiver-infant interactions?
there is a difficulty observing babies, it is hard to interpret baby’s behaviour as they have a lack of co-ordination, small movements and subtle expression changes.
it can be socially sensitive as it can be used to argue that when a mother returns to work after having a baby may risk damaging the baby’s development.
the observation of behaviour does not tell us about the importance in development (purpose of behaviours).
what is a primary attachment figure?
the person to whom the baby has the strongest attachment to.
what is the traditional view/research of the role of the father?
- men are not equipped to form an attachment biologically, psychologically and socially.
- biological evidence suggests: oestrogen (caring/sensitive) hormone allows women to develop caring behaviours - forms close attachments, not the same with men.
- cultural/social expectations view child rearing as stereo-typically feminine (not suited to men).
- fathers provide a different role to a nurturing role e.g. as a play mate.
what is the recent view/research of the role of the father?
- fathers can form secure attachments with their children.
- fathers can demonstrate sensitive responsiveness to the needs of their children and can form a strong bond.
- research: testosterone (aggression) lowers when becoming dads.
- leads to increase of dopamine (happy) and oxytocin (love) released when interacting.
- now more common for a man to be more involved in bringing up children.
who conducted a study on attachment to fathers and when?
schaffer and emerson, 1964
what did schaffer and emerson find in their study?
they found that the majority of babies first become attached to their mother at around 7 months.
- 3% = when fathers are the first object of attachment
- 27% = when fathers were joint first objects of attachment with their mother.
- 75% = attachment formed with fathers by 18 months.
this suggests that fathers are less likely to become babies’ first attachment figure and go on to become more important figures.
what did hrdy do his study on and when?
1999, conducted a study on fathers’ attachment.
what did hrdy find in his study?
he found that fathers were less able to detect low levels of infant distress in comparison to mothers, the lack of oestrogen in men means that fathers are not equipped innately to form close attachments with children so this suggests that hrdy’s research supports the biological explanation.
who conducted research for distinctive role of fathers and when?
grossmann et al, 2002.
what did grossmann et al do?
they carried out a longitudinal study: babies’ attachments studied until their teens, researchers looked at parents’ behaviour and relationship to quality of later attachments.
what did grossmann et al find in their study?
they found that the quality of fathers’ play with babies was related to the quality of adolescent attachments and the baby’s attachment to mothers, this suggests that attachment to fathers is less important than to mothers and fathers have a different role from mothers.
what did brown conduct their study in and when?
father involvement, 2012.
what did brown do?
he investigated father involvement, paternal sensitivity and father-child attachment security at 13 months and 3 years.
what did brown find in his study?
the results showed that involvement and sensitivity influenced father-child attachment security at age 3 - involvement was a greater predictor of secure attachment when fathers were rated as less sensitive.
what did field conduct his study on and when?
1978, fathers as primary attachment figures.
what did field do in his study?
he filmed 4 month old babies in face-to0face interaction with primary caregiver mothers, secondary caregiver fathers and primary caregiver fathers.
what did field find and conclude in his study?
they found that primary caregiver fathers spent more time smiling, imitating and holding babies (reciprocity and synchrony), this suggests that fathers can have the potential to be a more emotion-focused primary attachment figure.
what are the strengths for research into the role of the father?
there is RWA, research can be used to give reassuring advice to parents - heterosexual parents can be advised that fathers are capable of being a primary-attachment figure and lesbian-parent / single-mother families can be informed that not having a father around does not affect a child’s development, parental anxiety about the role of the father can be reduced.
what are the weaknesses of research into the role of the father?
there is research bias, preconceptions of fathers’ behaviour may lead to observer bias and may affect some studies.
findings on the role of the father have been inconsistent - some studies showing fathers have a nurturing role, some suggesting they have a different role, therefore, it is hard to make a conclusion on what the role of the father is.
who conducted a study on the development of attachment and when?
schaffer and emerson, 1964.
what was the aim of schaffer and emerson’s study?
to discover and understand how babies’ attachments develop, they believed that human attachments took longer than animals.
what did schaffer and emerson do in their study?
- they conducted an observational study with 60 babies (31 male, 29 female) from glasgow and skilled working class families.
- they visited the babies in their homes at monthly intervals for the first 18 months of their life (longitudinal study).
- interactions with their carers were analysed and questioned mothers to establish if and when babies displayed separation and stranger anxiety.
what was the IV in schaffer and emerson’s study?
age of infant.
what was the DV in schaffer and emerson’s study?
stranger and separation anxiety.
what did schaffer and emerson find in their study?
the babies’ attachment behaviour progressed, which led them to identify 4 stages.
what were the 4 stages that schaffer and emerson identified?
asocial stage, indiscriminate attachment, specific attachment and multiple attachments.
what is the asocial stage?
0-6 weeks, their behaviour is the same towards everything (humans and objects) and for attention but start to show signs that they prefer to be with other people e.g. primary attachment figure.
what is the indiscriminate attachment?
2-7 months, start to show a clear preference for being with humans rather than objects and are more strongly responsive to familiar people, they do not show stranger/separation anxiety as are happy to receive attention from anyone.
what is the specific attachment?
7-9 months, they begin to experience and show separation anxiety from their primary caregivers and stranger anxiety.
what is the multiple attachments?
10 months +, they become interested in and attached to other people, such as grandparents, siblings, etc, so they start forming several attachments.
what did schaffer and emerson conclude?
that infants go through each of the attachment stages and that infants’ mothers are still the most crucial attachment figures at 18 months of age.
what are the strengths of schaffer and emerson’s stages of attachment?
there is external validity as most of the observations were made by the parents so the babies were not stressed (no stranger anxiety) which means that it is highly likely that the babies’ behaved naturally while being observed, however, it can be considered that the mothers may have been biased or not noticed key behaviours so the external validity is affected.
there is practical application as in infants can stay at day care during the asocial/indiscriminate stage, babies can be comforted by any skilled adult but problematic starting day care in specific attachment stage.
what are the weaknesses of schaffer and emerson’s stages of attachment?
there is poor evidence for the asocial stage as young babies have poor co-ordination and are immobile so if they experienced anxiety it is hard to observe which suggests that there may be a lack of validity in the measures used to assess attachments.
there is lack of generalisability as even though the study can be generalised due to its large scale study, the data gathered is only from glasgow and the working class which is not fully representative of other populations and cultures, the study was also conducted in the 1960s suggesting that it is outdated as well.
what is imprinting?
an innate readiness to develop certain behaviours during a critical/sensitive period of development.
who conducted a study investigating imprinting and when?
lorenz, 1952.
what did lorenz do in his study?
he conducted a classic/field experiment and randomly divided goose eggs; one half hatched with mother (control group), 1/2 hatched with lorenz in an incubator (experimental group).
what was the IV in lorenz’s study?
where the goslings hatched.
what was the DV in lorenz’s study?
who the goslings hatched to.
what did lorenz find in his study?
the control group followed their mother everywhere while the experimental group followed lorenz everywhere, even when the group were mixed (they imprinted onto him).
what did lorenz conclude?
he identified a critical period in which imprinting needs to take place - depending on the species, this can be brief as a few hours after hatching (or birth).
what is the critical period?
a window of opportunity in which a stage of development occurs.
what did lorenz also investigate?
sexual imprinting, the relationship between imprinting and adult mate preferences.
what did lorenz find in his sexual imprinting research?
he found that birds who imprinted on a human displayed courtship rituals towards humans.
what are the strengths of lorenz’s research?
there is research support, regolin and vallortigara (1995) observed chicks imprint on the first moving objects they see and found that they did, suggesting young animals are born with an innate mechanism to imprint in critical period.
there is real-world application, seebach (2005) suggested that computer users exhibit ‘baby duck syndrome’ which is the attachment formed to their first computer operating system, leading them to reject others.
what are the weaknesses of lorenz’s research?
there is research conflict, guilton et al (1966) found that chickens who had imprinted on yellow rubber gloves showed courtship behaviour towards gloves at first (and tried to mate) but then learned to mate with other chickens which suggests lorenz overstated the effects of imprinting.
there are ethical issues as it can be argued that the use of animals in research can be questioned on ethical grounds, it could be argued that animals have a right not to be researched/harmed.
there is lack of generalisability as the attachment in humans is more different and complex than animals so it is hard to generalise the findings to humans.
what is contact comfort?
the sense of ease that an infant experiences when they are in physical contact with their mother or other parental figure.
who conducted a study investigating the importance of contact comfort and when was it?
harlow, 1958.
what did harlow do in his study?
he conducted a lab experiment and tested the effect of contact comfort in attachment formation with 16 baby rhesus monkeys, he reared them with two wire model ‘mothers’ with a feeding bottle and divided them into 2 conditions; 1=plain (without a cloth), 2=cloth covered.
what did harlow find in his study?
baby monkeys cuddled the cloth-covered mother and sought comfort from her when frightened regardless of which mother dispensed milk.
what did harlow conclude in his study?
that ‘contact comfort’ was of more importance to the monkeys than food when it came to attachment behaviour.
what did harlow also investigate?
he followed monkeys who had been deprived of a ‘real’ mother into adulthood to see if this early maternal deprivation had a permanent effect.
what did harlow find in his study on maternally deprived monkeys?
monkeys reared with plain-wire mothers only were the most dysfunctional and even monkeys reared with a cloth-covered mother did not develop normal social behaviour.
what did harlow conclude from his study on maternally deprived monkeys?
the deprived monkeys were more aggressive and less sociable and bred less often (unskilled at mating), when they became mothers they neglected and some even attacked or killed their children. harlow also concluded that there was a critical period when attachment must be formed (90 days for monkeys) or they never formed.
what are the strengths of harlow’s research?
there is real-world application as his research helps professionals e.g. social workers to promote bondings as lack of can be risky in a child’s development, the research has also been applied to zoos and breeding programmed which means that harlow’s research has practical value.
there is research support, green (1994) states that biologically, all mammals have the same brain structure as humans meaning that harlow’s research is reliable.
what are the weaknesses of harlow’s research?
there are ethical issues as it can be argued that the use of animals in research can be questioned, it could be argued that animals have a right not to be researched/harmed and harlow also caused severe and long-term distress to the monkeys.
monkeys are much more similar to humans than lorenz’s goslings and they share common attachment behaviours but there is lack of generalisability as the human brain is much more different and complex than animals so it is hard to generalise the findings to humans.
what is the learning theory and attachment?
it states that attachment occurs because children learn to love whoever feeds them.
what can the learning theory also be recognised as?
the ‘cupboard love theory’.
what is the ‘cupboard love theory’?
as the infant attached to the caregiver who provides the food, they learn to love whoever feeds them.
what is classical conditioning?
learning through association.
how does classical conditioning occur in attachment?
once the caregiver (neutral stimulus - NS) is associated with food (unconditioned stimulus - UCS) they become the conditioned stimulus:
UCS -> UCR
NS -> NR
UCS + NR -> UCR
CS -> CR
what is operant conditioning?
learning through reinforcement (consequences).
