Attachment Flashcards
1
Q
Care- giver interactions
A
- Relationship between main care- giver- mum- strongest bond/ most important relationship with baby
2
Q
Baby face hypothesis (7)
A
- Big eyes
- Large forehead
- Squashed up nose
- Features act as a trigger for parenting behaviours
- Most young mammals have same distinctive features
- Allows young mammals to survive
- Adaptive behaviour- ensures survival
3
Q
Attachment
A
- A strong and reciprocal emotional bond with another person
- Secure base- person makes you feel secure
4
Q
4 key behaviours that suggest an attachment has been formed
A
- Seeking to be near the attachment figure (proximity)
- Being distressed when separated from them (separation distress/ anxiety)
- Showing pleasure when reunited with them (reunion behaviour)
- Orientation towards them, being aware of their presence and frequently making contact with them (secure base)
5
Q
Infancy (5)
A
- Period of a child’s life before speech begins (first 1 or 2 years)
- Interactions between infants and caregivers tends to be laregly **non- verbal **
- Social interactions are still meaningful and are important for the child’s social development
- Interactions are important for shaping the attachment relationship
- More sensitive each is to the other’s signals, the stronger the attachment relationship
6
Q
Reciprocity
Definition
A
- Responding to the action of another with a similar action, where the actions of one partner elicit a response from the other partner
- Both mother and child initiate interactions and take turns in doing so
- Infants are learning basics of social communication
- (Learn how to have close relationships- forms attatchment)
7
Q
Reciprocity
Examples
A
- From birth, babies and their main care-givers engage in pleasurable interaction
- Babies have ‘alert phases’ that increase in duration as the baby gets older (crave social interaction)
- Babies signal that they are ready for interaction and mothers respond to these cues e.g picking up baby
- As baby gets older (3 months) the interactions involve close attention to the other’s verbal signals and facial expressions
- Infants coordinate their actions with caregivers e.g almost a conversation
8
Q
Interactional synchrony
A
- When 2 people are mirroring each other in terms of their facial and body movements
- Includes initating emotions as well as behaviours- coordinate these (caregiver and baby)
9
Q
Interactional Synchrony- Synchrony begins
A
- Meltzoff + Moore observed the beginnings of interactional synchrony in babies as young as 2 weeks old
- An adult displayed one of three facial expressions or one of three distinctive gestures
- Baby’s response was filmed and labelled by independent observers
- Babies’ expression + gestures were more likely to mirror those of the adults more than chance would predict i.e there was a significant association
- MIRRORING MUST HAVE AN IMPORTANT FUNCTION- FUNCTION IS TO BUILD RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MAIN CARE- GIVER + BABY
10
Q
Interactional synchrony- Importance for attachment
A
- (It is believed) that interactional synchrony is important for the development of care- giver infant attachment
- Isabella observed 30 mothers and babies together + assessed the degree of synchrony
- Researchers assessed the quality of mother- baby attachment
**- Found that high levels of synchrony were associated with better quality mother- baby attachment- e.g emotional intensity of relationship ** - Importance of having stronger relationship- so baby can survive
11
Q
Interactional synchrony- Practical values versus ethics
A
- Research into early caregiver- infant interaction has practical applications in parenting skills training
- E.g Crotwell found that a 10- minute parent- child interaction Therapy (PCIT) improved interactional synchrony in lower- income mothers + their pre- school children
- On the other hand, research into care- giver infant interaction is socially sensitive because it can be used to argue that when a mother returns to work soon after having a baby, this may risk damaging their baby’s development
12
Q
Schaffer and Emerson’s research- PROCEDURE and FINDINGS
A
- Involved 60 babies- working class families- in Glasgow
- Researchers visited babies and mothers in their own homes every month for the first year and again at 18 months
- Researchers asked mothers questions abou the kind of protest their baby showed in 7 everyday situations
- Measure babies’ attachment
- Researchers assessed stranger anxiety- babies’ anxiety response to unfamiliar people
- Identified 4 distinct stages in the development of infant attachment behaviour
13
Q
Evaluation of Schaffer and Emerson- External validity?
A
- Strength- good external validity
- E.g most observations apart from stranger anxiety were made by parents during ordinary activities
- Highly likely that the particiapnts behaved naturally while being observed
14
Q
Evaluation of Schaffer and Emerson- problems with mothers?
A
- Weakness- problems with the mothers being the ‘observers’
- E.g they may have been biased in what they reported or may not have noticed if their baby was showing signs of separation anxiety
- Means even if babies behaved naturally their behaviour may not have been recorded accurately
15
Q
Evaluation of Schaffer and Emerson- Kibbutz babies?
A
- Limitation- can’t generalise the findings to other cultures as there are cultural variations
- E.g Kibbutz babies were attatched to their mother and caregiver
- Shows Kibbutz babies formed multiple attachments before single attachments
16
Q
Asocial stage
A
- First few weeks
- Baby is recognising and forming bonds with its carers
- Baby responds similarly to humans and objects
- Beginning to show a preference for familiar adults
17
Q
Indiscriminate attachment
A
- Up to about 6 months
- Baby smiles at anyone and protests when being put down whoever is holding them
- No stranger or separation anxiety
- Prefer familiar adults
18
Q
Specific attachment
A
- From about 7 months to a year
- One specific attachment emerges, usually to the mother or main caregiver
- Separation anxiety and stranger anxiety develop
19
Q
Multiple attachments
A
- From about a year onwards
- Attachment to other important people in the child’s life develops
20
Q
AO1- Role of the father- Schaffer and Emerson
A
- Majority of babies became attached to their mother first and within a few weeks or months formed secondary attachments
- 75% of infants had formed an attachment with the father by the age of 18 months
21
Q
What is the role of the father?
A
- Father role is less to do with nurturing and more to do with play and stimulation
- Men are less sensitive to infant’s cues than mothers
- Men are more playful, physically active, provide challenging situations
- Difference between mothers and fathers may be due to biological factors (lack of oestrogen that leads to caring behaviors or cultural expectations.
22
Q
Role of the father- A03- Evaluation
Grossman, Frodi and Abraham study
A
- Grossman carried out a longitudinal study and found that the quality of infant attachment to mothers but not fathers was related to attachment style in quality of fathers’ play with infants was related to children’s attachment style in adolescence.
- This shows that the role of the mum and dad is different but the role of the mother is more important.
- Frodi showed videotapes of infants crying and found no differences in the physiological responses of men and women (Heart rate went up, more anxious)
- This suggests that both men and women respond in the same way to a baby crying
- Abraham- mothers and primary caregiving fathers exhibit greater parent- infant synchrony.
- Mothers and primary caregiving fathers- increased amygdala activation
- Shows no difference between mums and dads
- Since baby has been born mums amydala has been switched on- always looking for threats
- Dads amygdala only turns on when they are primary caregiver
- Shows difference between mums and dads is social
23
Q
Imprinting
A
- Imprinting occurs when an animal forms an attachment to the first thing it sees upon hatching
- Biological process which occurs in most prey animals where they are mobile from birth
24
Q
Lorenz’s research- Procedure
A
- He took a large group of goose eggs and kept them until they were about to hatch out
- He split the eggs into two groups, half of the eggs were placed under a goose mother, while Lorenz kept the other half, hatched in an incubator, with Lorenz making sure he was the first moving object the newly hatched goslings encountered
- When the geese hatched the first thing they saw was Lorenz and they began following him around
- Lorenz found that geese follow the first moving object they see, this process is known as imprinting, and suggests that attachment is innate and programmed genetically
25
Q
Lorenz’s research- Findings
A
- Incubator group followed Lorenz everywhere, control group hatched in the presence of the mother
- When released, Lorenz marked the goslings and the naturally hatched goslings went straight to their mother whereas the incubator hatched goslings went straight to Lorenz (showing no bond to their natural mother).
- Lorenz noticed how the process of imprinting occurred only a short period of time after birth (between 4 and 25 hours)- which was the** critical period.**
- If imprinting does not occur within that time Lorenz found that chicks did not attach themselves to a mother figure
26
Q
Sexual imprinting
A
- Process by which a young bird learns species-specific characteristics that enables it to find a conspecific mate when adults.
- He investigated the relationship between imprinting and adult mate preferences. He observed that birds that imprinted on a human would often later display courtship behaviours towards humans
- In a case study Lorenz described a peacock that was brought up in the reptile house of a zoo, where the first moving objects the peacocks saw after hatching were giant tortoises.
- As an adult this bird would would only direct courtship behaviours towards giant tortoises
- Lorenz concluded that this meant the peacock had undergone sexual imprinting
27
Q
Lorenz’s research- Evaluation- LIMITATION
Generalisability to humans
A
- Limitation is the generalised simplification of conclusions from birds to humans.
- It is obvious that the mammalian attachment system is a lot more complex and differentiated.
- Research displays that in mammals attachment it is a two way process as in mammals the attachment is reciprocated. (E.g It is not just the baby who is attached to the mother, the mothers display emotional attachment to their young as well).
- Which in Lorenz’s studies may not be relevant and not appropriate to be generalised to the human species.
28
Q
Lorenz’s research- Evaluation- STRENGTH
Research support
A
- Strength is that a study done by Regolin and Vallortigara supports Lorenz’s concept of imprinting.
- Here chicks were exposed to shapes in random combinations.
- The shapes were then moved in front of them and they followed the original the closest.
- This supports view that animals can imprint on a moving object.
29
Q
Contact comfort
A
- Need for physical closeness and touch to provide infants comfort
30
Q
Harlow’s research- Procedure
A
- Tested if a soft object could have similar functions to that of a mother
- In one experiment he gave 16 monkeys with 2 wired model ‘mothers’
- In one condition, milk came out of the plain wire ‘mother’ but in the 2nd condition it came out of the cloth covered ‘mother’
31
Q
Harlow’s research- Findings
A
- Found that the baby monkeys huddled up to the softer object more than the plain one
- They found comfort in the cloth one when scared regardless if milk came out of it
- When the wired one had food they would go to eat from it and return to the clothed one
- Without the clothed one, some were paralysed with fear, sucking their thumb while curled up in a ball
- It showed that ‘contact comfort’ was far more important than food when it came to forming attachments
32
Q
Harlow’s research- Evaluation- STRENGTH
Conducted in laboratory setting
A
- Strength is it was conducted in a controlled laboratory setting
- He was able to control extraneous variables such as the monkeys being taken away from their mothers straight after birth.
- This means he was measuring what he intended to measure (ie factors that can affect the formation of attachment)
- And study can be seen to have high internal validity allowing a cause and effect relationship to be established
33
Q
Harlow’s research- Evaluation- LIMITATION
Attachment of monkeys and humans
A
- This study does not tell us much about the attachment of humans because monkeys and humans are physiologically different.
- Therefore psychologists would argue that the generalisability form this research makes harlow study even more unethical.
34
Q
How can Classical conditioning explain attachment in babies?
A
- As we learn attachment through classical conditioning
- When babies eat they feel pleasure
- Mum on her own will produce pleasure response- baby feels happy when mum picks them up
- Food (UCS) > Pleasure (UCR)
- Food + Mother (NS) > Pleasure (UCR)
- Mother (CS) > Pleasure (CR)
35
Q
How does Operant conditioning explain attachment in babies?
A
- Hungry baby = discomfort
- Food (primary reinforcer) = discomfort reduced
(negative reinforcement)
food seeking behaviours repeated - Classical conditioning > food + mum
mum becomes secondary reinforcer
baby seeks mum - Attachment occurs because the child seeks out the person associated with reduction in discomfort
Food takes away uncomfortable feelings
Mum then also takes away feeling of discomfort
If the baby is in discomfort they seek mum- mum takes away negative feelings
36
Q
Learning theory- Evaluation- LIMITATION
Lack of support
A
- Limitation of L.T is that there is a lack of support from studies of human babies
- E.g Schaffer and Emerson found that babies formed a connection with their mother despite if their mother was the one to feed them
- These factors are not related to feeding
- Suggests food is not the main factor in the formation of human attachments
