Attachment Flashcards
(14 cards)
Caregiver - infant interactions
- Knowledge
Reciprocity - Interaction is reciprocal when each person responds to each other which then elicits a response from the baby - important in every conversation as otherwise people will be talking over eachother - “turn - taking”
alert phases - when the baby signals that they are ready for interaction - mother usually picks up on it 2/3 of the time but depends on skill and external factors
- after 3 months it becomes more frequent including close attention to each other, facial expressions and verbal signals
- active involvement - when baby and mother can initiate interaction and take turns, Brazelton et al stated its like a dance - one person responds to the moves of the others
interactional synchrony - temporal coordination of micro level social behaviors
- achieved when mother and baby can mirror each others emotions and actions
meltzoff and moore :
- observed beginnings of interaction synchrony from 2 weeks old
- adult would show 1 out of 3 expressions or gestures and a significant association was found - more than could be predicted by chance as baby mirrored adult
- importance in attachment is that interactional synchrony is important for development of caregiver and baby attachment
- also isabella et al studied 30 mothers and babies and assessed degree of synchrony and quality of attachment
- found that higher levels of synchrony led to better quality caregiver and baby attachment
Caregiver - infant interactions
- Evaluation
- filmed observations
- conducted in lab settings
- controlled activities - minimizes distractions
- babies also dont know that they are being observed so they cant change their behavior based on observation
- less than one observer = inter-rater reliability
- focus on more finer details and analyse more accurately as it can be picked up
- increases reliability and validity - difficulty observing babies
- hard to interpret their behavior
- young babies lack coordination and are immobile
- certain behavior doesn’t mean certain things
- difficult to understand babies pov - developmental importance :
- observing babies doesnt tell us the developmental important
- Feldman stated that synchrony just gives a name to patterns of observable behavior
- Robust phenomenon - babies can be reliably observed but it doesnt tell us the purpose of their behaviors
- synchrony and reciprocity dont tell us anything about childs development but counterpoint is isabella et al
Schaffer’s stages of attachment
- Knowledge
research:
- aim was to investigate the formation of early attachments
- procedure : 60 babies from glasgow all from skilled middle class working families and the mothers and babies were visited every month for a year
- mothers were asked about babies protest and their separation and stranger anxiety
- found that from 25-32 weeks around 50% of babies showed separation anxiety to particular adult and specific attachment to adult with most reciprocity
- at 40 weeks 80% of babies showed specific attachment and 30% showed multiple
stages :
1. asocial stage
- first few weeks
- recognise and form bonds with their carers
- show similar behavior towards inanimate objects and humans
- have some pref over adult who can comfort them most
- happy in presence of others
- indiscriminate attachment
- around 2-7 months
- show more sociable and observable behavior
- prefer humans over inanimate objects
- prefer company of familiar people / adults
- will accept comfort from others and dont show separation and stranger anxiety - specific attachment :
- around 7 months
- show classic signs of attachment
- show separation and stranger anxiety from 1 adult
- paf - this is the specific A
- to person who responds to baby signal most - multiple attachments :
- extends to people that the baby spends time with
- secondary A formed - 29% formed within one month of paf
- developed by 1 year
Schaffer’s stages of attachment
- Evaluation
- good external validity :
- the observations were carried out by the parents in ordinary activities and reported back to researcher so the child would not be affected by the presence of an observer - not anxious or distracted so more natural behavior
- increases external validity
- counterpoint of this is that the mothers as observes are unlikely to be objective
- they may also be more biased in what they notice and record
- may also not remember to note when the baby is showing signs of separation anxiety
- so even if baby is behaving naturally it may not have been recorded accurately - poor evidence for asocial stage :
- young babies lack coordination and are quite immobile
- not much observable behavior
- hard to pick up on the babies signs of anxiety
- babies may be social but due to flawed methods they appear asocial - real world application
- can be used to plan daycare - indiscriminate and asocial stages allow baby to be comforted by anyone but it may be more difficult to do this during a babies specific attachment stages - generalizability :
- sample characteristics - same class and background babies used in study
- however there are variations in how attachments are formed in different cultures and historical contexts
Role of the father
- Knowledge
attachment to father :
- most babies form an attachment to mother at around 7 months old
- however they begin to form secondary A’s and this will include the father
- only in 3% of cases were fathers the main PAF and joint w mother in 27% of cases
- 75% of attachment to father is formed after 18 months - tested by separation anxiety
distinct role of father :
- grossman et al conducted a longitudinal study of parents behaviors and its relationship with attachment in children into their teens
- found that quality of infant A related to quality of adolescent attachments
- fathers attachment not as important
- however quality of play with fathers related to the quality of adolescent attachments which shows that fathers have a distinct and different role to mothers
- more to do with play and stimulation rather than emotional development
fathers as PAF :
- fathers adopt the emotional role when given role of PAF
- Field conducted a study where she filmed 4 month old babies face to face interactions with paf mother, paf father and saf father
- found the paf father like mother imitated the baby, smiled more and held them
- fathers have potential to have emotional focus but only when actually given role of paf
Role of father
- Evaluation
- confusion over research questions
- lack of clarity as people are answering different questions
- some answer role of father as paf and some as saf
- some answer the distinct role of father separate from mother and some see if fathers can take on a maternal role
- so role of father is difficult to be answered as its based on specific role being discussed - conflicting evidence :
- depends on methodology used
- grossman suggested that father has distinct role in two parent household as saf
- however u would expect that in single mother homes and same sex parent homes that the children would develop differently, however this is not the case proven by multiple studies
- counterpoint of this is that these single / same sex households adapt to role of father - real world application
- offer reassuring advice to parents as some argue over who should have a primary caregiving role
- some straight parents will be informed that father is capable of being a paf but other households told that the development of their child will not be altered if there was no father role / figure
- reduces parental anxiety
Animal studies of attachment
- Knowledge
Lorenz research :
- discussed imprinting - divided a large clutch of goose eggs into 2 conditions
1. hatched with the mother in a natural environment
2. hatched in incubator and first moving object they saw was lorenz
- findings :
- when mixed the groups together the control group continued to follow the mum and experimental group followed Lorenz around everywhere
- birds are mobile from birth so they print of the first moving object they see
- found a critical period - few hours after being born - if imprinting doesn’t occur within this time than attachment cant be formed
sexual imprinting :
- found that the birds had courtship behavior towards humans when older as they imprinted on a human
- supported by study of the peacock and tortoise - reared in reptile house and fmo was tortoise so when older displayed this courtship behavior towards tortoise
harlows research :
- wanted to see importance of contact comfort
- reared 16 baby monkeys with two wire model mothers in 2 conditions
1. milk dispensed by cloth covered mother
2. milk dispensed by plain wire model mother
findings :
- monkeys preferred ccm over pwm
- sought comfort from ccm regardless of who dispensed the milk
- found that contact comfort was more important than food
monkeys suffered maternal deprivation :
- as adults the monkeys suffered greatly as a result of maternal deprivation in the study
- the pwm were most dysfunctional
- ccm - less sociable and displayed more aggressive behavior
- as mothers themselves they bred less, were unskilled at mating, more violent and often attacked their young and sometimes even killed them.
Animal studies
- Lorenz Evaluation
- Research support
- research support which supported the idea of imprinting
- study done with chicks who were shown a simple shape combo that moved and then showed a range of these that moved infront of them
- was found that the chicks followed original one most closely
- shows that baby animals are born with the innate mechanism to imprint of the fmo they see present in critical window of development - generalizability to humans :
- mammalian attachment system is much more complex than humans and it is a two way process for them - young attach and the mothers showed emotional care
- cant generalize findings of his birds to humans - imprinting impact not as permanent
- study was conducted with chickens who imprinted on a yellow washing glove and mated with it when they were older
- but through experience realized that they prefer mating with other chickens which suggests that the imprinting impact is not as permanent as suggested by lorenz
Animal studies
- Harlow Evaluation
- real world application
- allows psychologists and social workers to understand that a lack of bonding experience may be a risk factor in child development
- this means that they can intervene and prevent it while it is early
- also understand importance of attachment in breeding programmes and zoos for monkeys
- has practical and theoretical value - generalisability to humans
- monkeys are more similar to humans than lorenz geese as mammals share similar common attachment behaviors
- however the human brain and attachment system is much more complex than monkeys so cant generalise to humans - ethical issues
- monkeys suffered as a result of maternal deprivation in later life and so the ethics of the research is questioned such as long term stress and they are considered similar enough to humans to conclude their suffering was human like
- but it has important practical value
Explanations - Learning Theory
- Knowledge
operant conditioning- idea that we learn through experience and that behavior is reinforced
- for example a baby may cry and want a correct response from cg
- crying is reinforced
- baby cries again and cg responds through comforting with social suppressor behaviour
- cg recieves negative reinforcement - escaping from disturbance and crying
- mutual reinforcement is necessary to strengthen attachment
classical conditioning
- when caregiver gives baby food there is now an association
- every time baby sees cg there is an expectation of food but learning theorists see this response as conditional pleasure response of love
- attachment is formed and cg becomes attachment figure
attachment as secondary drive :
- drive reduction - for example take the idea of hunger it is an innate biological motivator - when we eat hunger drive is reduced
attachment = secondary drive because it is the association between the caregiver and satisfaction of the primary drive
Explanations - Learning Theory
- Evaluation
- some conditioning may be involved
- can be an explanation for infant attachment behavior
- for example babies may associate the feeling of being warm and comfortable with a particular person or paf
- influences babies choice of main attachment figure
- counterpoint - babies play a passive role and are simply just responding to receive comfort and reward
- feldman states that there is an active role in interaction for an attachment to be produced and that conditioning is not an adequate explanation - counter - evidence from animal studies
- lack of support from animal studies such as lorenz geese who didnt display importance of food as they attached to the fmo they saw
- also harlows monkeys show that they will prefer company of ccm over pwm regardless of who dispensed milk
- so it shows that there is no relation to feeding in both of these - limits - counter - evidence from human studies
- isabella et al found that higher levels of interactional synchrony were more important and that it produced a better quality of attachment
- schaffer and emerson babies all preferred company and were attached to their mothers even though other people were feeding them
- so food is not important in attachment making as suggested
Bowlby’s Monotropic Theory
- Knowledge
- idea that attachment is innate and that it provides survival knowledge
- idea of monotropy :
- a child has one main attachment figure hence the word monotropic and that this is the most important one regardless of the others - usually a mother
- two principles :
- law of continuity - the more continued and predictive care provided to a child leads to a better quality of attachment
- law of accumulated separation - there will be greater effect on the child if there is more often separation between mother and baby
social releasers and critical period :
- social releasers are innate cute behaviors that babys do such as smiling or cooing which trigger and activate the adults attachment system
- critical period is the idea that there is a certain amount of times - 2 years - in which the babies attachment system is active and it is harder to form an attachment after this time
internal working model :
- idea that children form a mental representation of their rl with their paf and this is a model for later rls
- loving = later loving rls and vice versa with poorer
- been found that when children grow up and become parents themselves they will act similarly to how their rl was with their paf in childhood - why functional families go on to build the same
Bowlbys Monotropic Theory
- Evaluation
- support for social releasers
- brazleton et al conducted a study where he asked mothers to ignore their babies social releasers and it was found that these babies showed signs of distress and eventually curled up in a ball and lay motionless
- the fact that they originally produced a response supports the idea of infant social behavior in elicit caregiving and that social releasers are important for emotional dev - mixed evidence for monotropy
- mixed evidence suggests that schaffer and emersons babies could form multiple attachments to other people they were close with although the paf was stronger but not necessarily different
- challenges idea of monotropy and that one attachment is most important - support for iwm
- found that rl with paf does have influence on later rls in childs life
- bailey et al conducted a study with mothers and their 1 year old babies aswell as the mothers attachment to their own parents
- those with poorer attachment to their parents had poorer rl with their child in terms of observations
- counterpoint of this is that there are some genetic factors which may influence childs attachment abilities and parents ability
- so bowlby overstated importance
