Attachment Flashcards
Define attachment
A close 2 way emotional bond between 2 individuals where individuals see the other as essential for their own emotional security. It endures our time and serves to protect the infant.
What signs display attachment?
Proximity
Separation distress
Secure base behaviour
Define care giver infant interactions
Refers to the communication between a caregiver and infant. It is believed that these interactions have important functions for the child’s social development and form the basis of the attachment between the two.
Describe Interaction 1: Reciprocity
It is a caregiver infant interaction. It is two-way or mutual process where each party responds to the others signals to sustain the interaction.
Describe Interaction 2: Interactional Synchrony
It is when a caregiver and infant reflects the actions and emotions of the other in a coordinated way. They mirror each other in terms of facial expressions and body language.
Primary attachment figure
Is the person to whom an infant is most intensely attached. They are the person a child responds to most intensely at separation. This is usually the mother, but other people can fulfil this role.
Secondary attachment figure
Is a person that an infant receives additional support from. They provide an emotional safety net.
Describe Schaffer and Emerson’s research
Found that the majority of babies did become attached to their mother’s first. Therefore, the primary attachment figure is more likely to be the mother than the father. They found that within a few weeks or month of the primary attachment, the infants formed secondary attachments to other family members, including their father. In 75% of the infants studied, an attachment was formed with the father which was determined by the fact that the infants protested when their father walked away. Therefore, father are more likely to be secondary attachment figures.
Why are mother and father roles might be different?
- Possible men are not psychologically equipped because they lack the emotional sensitivity that women offer. This could be due to biological or social factors
- Traditional gender roles
- Female hormones create higher levels of nurturing and therefore women are biologically predisposed to be the primary attachment figure.
Describe Grossman’s research
He carried out a longitudinal study looking at both parents behaviour and its relationship to the quality of children’s attachment in their teens. Quality of infant attachment to mother’s but not fathers, was related to children’s attachments in adolescents, suggesting that father attachment was less important.
However, the quality of father’s play with infants was related to the quality of adolescent attachments. This suggests that fathers have a different role in attachment- one that is more to do with play and stimulation, and less to do with nurturing
What are Schaffer and Emerson’s stages of attachment?
- Asocial attachment
- Indiscriminate attachment
- Specific attachment
- Multiple attachment
Asocial Attachment
0-6 weeks
Infants respond to both humans and non-humans in a positive way, such as with a smile
Indiscriminate Attachment
6 weeks-7 months
Infants respond equally to all caregivers and are upset when you cease to interact with them.
Specific Attachment
7 months-9 months
Infants have a special preference for a single attachment figure and show signs of separation and stranger anxiety.
Multiple Attachments
10 months- onwards
Infants are increasingly independent and have formed several attachments.
By 18 months they have formed multiple attachments.
What are the animal studies of attachment?
Animal studies on attachment look @ the formation of early bonds between non human parents and their offspring.
Imprinting
Is an innate readiness to develop a strong bond with the mother
Sexual imprinting
Is the idea that imprinting can affect adult male preferences. Animals will choose to mate with the same object they imprinted on.
Name 2 main animal studies of attachment
Harlow’s monkeys and Lorenz’s geese
Harlow’s Monkey’s
Harlow investigated secure attachments using rhesus monkey’s.
He placed two wire monkeys in a cage with a baby monkey.
One wire monkey had a cloth covered body but not the ability to feed.
And the other wire monkey was had a wire covered body but had the ability to feed.
Harlow found that the monkey’s spent more time with the cloth covered wire monkey for contact comfort/ chose security over food.
Lorenz’s Geese
Lorenz, using gosling eggs, divided them into two groups; one hatched by their mother and the other in an incubator, seeing Lorenz as their first moving object.
Even when Lorenz put all the ducklings together, they quickly divided themselves up; going either to the Goose mother or Lorenz depending on who they imprinted on.
Lorenz found that the ducklings followed the first moving objects they saw in the first 12-17 hours critical period. This process is known as imprinting and shows that attachment is innate and genetically programmed.
Learning Theory of Attachment: ‘Cupboard Love’
Suggests that children learn to love whoever feeds them
Learning Theory
Is a set of ideas from the behaviour approach.
Dollard and Miller suggested that attachment is a learned behaviour, acquired through classical and operant conditioning.
Classical Conditioning
Food (US) - Happy Baby (UR)
Mother (NS) + Food (US) - Happy Baby (UR)
Mother (CS) - Happy Baby (CR)
