Attachment Flashcards
Talk about Caregiver-Infant Interactions
the communication between a caregiver and infant. It is believed that these interactions have important functions for the Childs social development and form the basis of attachment between the two,
Define Attachment
2 way, emotional bond where each individual sees the other as essential for their own emotional security.
How can we recognise attachment
- Proximity, physically close
- Separation Distress.
- Secure based behavior’s, tend to make regular contact and regularly return to them
- Joy on reunion
Define Reciprocity
A two-way or mutual process where each party responds to the others signals to continue the interaction (turn- taking).
As an infant, the signals are regular, this enables the caregiver to anticipate the behavior and respond appropriately, this sensitivity lays the foundation for later attachment.
Talk about Tronik and Brazelton- still face experiment.
A baby was places Infront of its mother, when the mother was interacting with her child, the child was reciprocating and being visually active and responsive and all around happy. Once the mother denies her child for 2 mins, the baby shows emotional distress, this show’s the need for reciprocity. It gives an incite into how a parents reaction can effect emotional development.
Define Interactional Synchrony
When a caregiver and infants reflect the actions and emotions of the other in a coordinated way. They mirror each other.
What is the difference between reciprocity and interactional synchrony?
In Interactional Synchrony, the responses can be different whereas in reciprocity they are mirrored and copied.
Talk about Meltzoff and Moore’s Experiment
An adult displays a facial expression Infront of a two week old baby, the response was identified by observers. They proposed that the infants imitations were intentional. Through interactional synchrony, infants begin to acquire an understanding of what people are thinking or feeling which is fundamental for social relationships.
Evaluate the research into caregiver-infant interactions
High internal Validity- both experiments were done in lab conditions therefore variables are controlled like things that may distract babies.
Filmed therefore they can be analyzed later and the observers dont miss anything, therefore high reliabilty by reducing the likelyhood of human error.
Simply observing behaviour dosent tell us about future development, only patterns of behaviour so we cant draw accurate conclusions
Hard to interpret babies behaviour as they lack coordination or could be called immobilee, therefore its hard to be sure
Talk about the Procedure and Aim of Schaffer and Emersons Research into attachment.
Aim- To assess whether there was a pattern of attachment formation common to all infants. To identify the distinct stages by which attachment develops.
Procedure- Conducted a longitudinal study on 60 new born babies and their mothers from a working-class area of Glasgow. They were studied at monthly intervals for the first year and again at 18 months.
Babies were studied in their own homes, interactions with carers were observed, and the carers were interviewed about responses.
Talk about the results to Schaffer and Emersons Study.
Results- 65% had Mum as the first attachment, 3% had the Dad, 30% had a joint first attachment. Strongly attached Infants had mothers who responded to their needs quickly and gave more opportunities for interaction.
This catalysed the idea of Schaffers stages of attachment
What are the Stages of Attachment?
ASOCIAL- 0-3 months- begin to respond equally to any caregiver ie smiling or gurgling
INDISCRIMINATE- 4 months- Infants can distinguish between familiar and unfamiliar people but is happy with anyone
SPECIFIC- 7 months- exhibits distress or anxiety when left alone or without single attachment figure (first emotional bond between a specific person) and looks at that person for comfort or security
MULTIPLE- after 9 months- develop attachments with others, and becomes increasingly independents
Evaluate Schaffer’s Stages of Attachment
Good external validity- as the study was carried out in the families own homes and most of the observations was done by parents, so the children behaved naturally while being observed.
Longitudinal Study- studied the same baby overtime rather than different children at the same time, so there is no confounding variables which increases accuracy.
Limited Sample- 60 babies was good as its a large volume of data, however, the fact that all the families were from the same district and social class, and the experiment took place 50 years ago is a limitation as childcare changes between cultures, historical periods ect. so these practices dont necessarily generalize well.
Asocial- Its hard to measure this time as infants are immobile, so observations may be hard to make.
Multiple- Its not entirely clear when a child starts to make multiple attachments, like other cultures where its common to have 2 caregivers. Its also hard to measure as just because a baby shows distress when someone leaves a room, doesn’t necessarily mean they have formed an attachment, for example Bowlby pointed out children also have playmates
Talk about attchment to fathers
Available evidence shows that fathers are less likely able to become the babies first attachment figure in comparison to a mother. For example, in Schaffer and Emersons research, they found that the majority of babies first became attached to their mothers around 7 months while in only 3% of cases the father was the first attachment. However, it appears that most fathers go on to become important attachment figures with 75% of babies forming an attachment to their father by 18 months.
Talk about research into the role of the father
Grossman et al. carried out a longitudinal study where babies attachments were studied until they were into their teens by looking at their parents behaviour and its relationship to the quality of their babies later attachment. They found only mothers attachment rekated to attachment in adolescents, however, they found that a Fathers play related to the quality of adolescense. This suggests fathers have a different role from mothers- one of play and stimulation.
Talk about Fathers as Primary Attachment Figures
There is evidence to suggest that when fathers do take on the role of a primary attachment figure, they are able to adopt the emotional role typically assosiated with women.
For example, an experiment was done filming a 4 month old babies interaction with their primary caregiver mother, secondary fathers and primary fathers.Both primary role models spent more time smiling and imitating than secondary fathers.
Evaluate the role of the Father
Conflicting Evidence- Grossman et al. concluded that fathers have distinct roles in development for play and stimulation. However, McCallum found that children without a father didnt develop any differently. - VALIDITY
Talk about how Harry Harlow Investigated Attachment?
THE NATURE OF LOVE EXPERIMENT:
Aim- To test the theory that food is dominant to comfort in the formation of attachment between animals.
Method- Two types of surrogate mother was constructed, A harsh wire mothers and a soft toweling mother and was tested under 4 conditions with 16 monkeys, one condition being A cage with a wire monkey with milk and a toweling mother without milk. The monkeys were frightened to see who they ran too, measured on the amount of time spent with each mother, and a larger cage with exploration.
Talk about Harlows Results.
Findings- Monkeys preferred contact with the towelling mother when given a choice regardless of weather she produced milk or not. Monkeys with only a wire mother had diarrhoea, a sigh of stress. When frightened, monkeys clung to the towelling monkey. In larger cages, monkeys with towelling mothers explored more and visited the surrogate mother more.
Harlow concluded that there was a critical period for this behaviour- a mother figure had to be introduced to an infamant monkey within 90 days for attachment to form. after this it’s impossible and the damage done became irreversible
Talk about Harlows Conclusions on the long-lasting effects.
The long- lasting effects
Harlow continued to study the monkey who had been deprived of a real mother into adulthood to see if this early deprivation had a permanent effect. He reported that the motherless monkeys, even those who did have comfort, developed abnormally, they were socially abnormal i.e they froze or fled around other animals, less social and more aggressive and sexually abnormal. Some deprived monkeys also neglected their young.
Evaluate Harlows Monkey Study.
reliability- Schaffer and Emerson found that young children formed an attachment with a person who was most sensitively responsive. This supports the evidence that animals prefer comfort over food
ethical- This study has been criticised ethically as the monkeys suffered greatly as a result of the procedures
Validity- The two mothers differed in ways other than being soft i.e the heads are very different which can be a confounding variable. meaning the monkeys could be more attracted to her head therefore lacks validity
Real world applications- The insight into attachment from the research has had important applications in numerous contexts. For example, it has helped social workers understand risk factors in child neglect and abuse, and to intervene to prevent it. The research is also important for the care of captive monkeys - we now understand the importance of proper attachment figures for baby monkeys in zoos, and in breeding programmes in the wild.This supports the external validity of Harlow’s conclusions as they can be applied to different practical settings to improve the quality of life for infants.
Talk about how Lorenz investigated Attachment.
Aim- To investigate the mechanisms of imprinting where the youngsters follow and form an attachment to the first moving object they meet.
Method- Lorenz split a large clutch of graylag goose eggs into two batches, one of which was hatched naturally by the mother and the other half in an incubator. Lorenz then marked all the goslings so he could determine weather they were natural or incubated, and placed them in an upturned box and removed to see who they would run to.
Talk about what Lorenz found?
When released from the box, the natural goslings ran to the mother while the incubated ran to Lorenz, showing no bond with their natural Mother, these bonds showed to be irreversible. Lorenz noticed how there was a critical period of when birds would imprint, being 4→25 hours after birth. He also reported that birds who imprint on humans would attempt to mate with humans as adults
Evaluate Lorenz’ research
Reliability- Later experiments replicated Lorenz’s findings i.e. the experiment where a rubber glove was imprinted on by chickens and was seen as an object of sexual interest once mature. It also supports Lorenz’s findings that imprinting is long lasting.
Regolin and Vallotigara exposed chicks to similar size and shaped things that moved. The chicjs followed them in preference to shape. This proves the idea that young animals are born with innate mechanisms to imprint of moving objects.
Generalizability- To humans (extrapolation), as the attachment systems of mammals is different from birds. its in a birds nature to imprint whereas humans take 7 months and is based on sensitive responsiveness.
Also: the idea that imprinting has a permanent effect on mating behaviour has been questioned i.e. Guiton (1966)-found the chickens who imprinted on gloves would try to mate with the gloves but eventually learned to prefer other chickens.
