Attachment Flashcards
What is attachment
A close emotional relationship between an infant and their caregiver.
Features of caregiver-infant interaction
Sensitive responsiveness- caregiver responds to signals from infant
Imitation- Infant copies the caregiver’s actions and behaviour
Interactional synchrony- infants react in time with caregivers speech
Reciprocity- interaction flows back and forth between infant/caregiver
Motherese- the slow, high pitched way of speaking to infants
The stages of attachment
The asocial stage (0-6 weeks), Indiscriminate attachments (6weeks-6months), Specific attachments (7months onwards), multiple attachments (10/11 months onwards)
The Asocial Stage (or pre-attachment)
First few weeks of life, and they tend to make bonds and recognise their carers. Behaviour is similar to human and inanimate things like a teddy bear. Babies are happier in the presence of a familiar human, traditionally mum.
Indiscriminate Attachment Stage (or diffuse)
Prefer humans to non-human objects. Observable social behaviours and they’ll accept cuddles from any adult, no signs of separation or stranger anxiety.
Specific attachments Stage (or discriminate/single)
Stranger and separation anxiety is in this stage, separation normally from mother
Multiple attachments stage
Forming multiple attachments with people they spend a lot of time with
Schaffer and Emerson (1964)
60 babies were observed in their homes in Glasgow every four weeks from birth to about 18months and interviews were conducted with families. The stages of attachment were found to occur, by the end 50 had multiple attachments and 20 had no or a weaker attachment towards their mother. Found that quality of care is important as the infant may not attach to mother if other people response more accurately to signals. They used a limited sample and evidence from interviews may be biased and unreliable, also cultural differences
The role of the father
Studies have shown that if the father partakes in care-giving activities, they are much more likely to have a secure strong attachment with their child. Geiger(1996) suggested that the roles of father and mother can be different as they found that a mother is primarily for nurturing and caring but a father is more focused around play.
Konrad Lorenz (1935)
Found that geese automatically ‘attach’ to the first moving thing they see after hatching, and follow it everywhere. This is called imprinting. He randomly divided a clutch of greylag goose eggs into two groups, he left one group with the mother and incubated the others. These goslings followed him around in the exact same way the others followed their mother
