Attachment Flashcards
(44 cards)
What is reciprocity?
Caregiver- infant interaction is reciprocal in that both caregiver and baby responds to each others signals and each other signals and elicits a response from each other. Like a dance
What is interactional synchrony?
Caregiver and baby reflect both the actions and emotions of the other and do this in a co ordinated/ synchronised way
Evaluating caregiver-infant reactions.
+filmed in laboratory. Highly controlled
-difficulty observing babies, e.g. it may be difficult noticing whether a baby is smiling or passing wind.
- doesn’t tell us developmental importance, they can be observed but doesn’t give us reasoning
Outline Schaffer’s stages or attachment.
stage one- (first few weeks) asocial, treat objects and humans equally
stage two- ( 2 to 7 months) indiscriminate attachment,
now attach to humans not objects and prefer familiar people
stage three- ( around 7 months) specific attachment-
attach to the primary caregiver.
Stage four- (shortly after) multiple attachments-
baby’s start attaching to multiple people.
Outline schaffer and emerson’s research.
An observational study of the formation of early infant adult attachments.
P- 60 babies from Glasgow. Researchers went into the house every month for the first year and again at 18 months.
Researchers asked mothers questions about separation anxiety.
the researchers also tested stranger anxiety.
f- the four stages shown above
evaluate Scaffers stages of attachment
+good external validity, used observations which their parents did, as if researchers did it, may cause anxiety
+Real world application- have practical application within child care centres
-ungeneralisable, as all used babies all from Glasgow
explain the attachment to father.
A father is less likely to become a Childs primary caregiver. Despite this evidence has suggested that fathers have their own distinctive role within being just a secondary care giver
outline research into fathers have distinctive roles
Grossman et al.
Longitudinal study into babies attachments from intimacy into teen life.
they found that a mothers role was more important within adolescence.
Despite this they found the the quality of a father play wads important, suggesting that fathers have a distinctive role for babies, not emotional, but stimulation.
evaluate Grossman et al. research into fathers.
+can be used in real life to comfort fathers who feel not needed
-conflicting evidence
suggesting that fathers play a distinctive role for children would suggest that single household children would grow up differently to hetro-households, whilst evidence suggest there is no difference between the two.
-may be socially sensitive
outline Fields research into the role of fathers.
Fathers as primary caregivers
-filmed 4 month old babies interactions with
primary caregiver mothers
secondary caregiver fathers
primary cargiver fathers
Found that primary caregiver fathers, like primary caregiver mothers spend more time smiling, imitating and holding babies (reciprocity and international synchrony)
Therefore father have the potential for more of an emotional bond with a child, but perhaps this is only expressed when given the role of primary caregiver.
Evaluate Fields research into fathers being primary attachment figures
+real world application
+gives confidence to single fathers
-hard to observe babies as we don’t know why they are making expression
Outline Lorenz research into animal attachments.
Lorenz was researching imprinting.
P- split up a clutch of goose eggs. Half the clutch was brought up naturally, by the mother goose. The other half were hatched in an incubator where they only saw Lorenz
F- he found that the incubator group followed Lorenz around everywhere, whereas the Normal group followed around their mother. Even when mixed together again these conditions still applied.
He described this as imprinting, whereby a goose will attach to the first thing that they see. There is a critical period where this takes place, even just a few hours.
Sexual imprinting- also found that the gooses who had attached to a human had sexual preferences for humans.
Evaluate Lorenz research into imprinting.
+Research support, researchers replicated his experiment but used shapes combinations. the chicks followed the original shape.
-ungeneralisable to humans
mammal attachment is much different from bird attachment.
Outline Harlows research into animal attachment
-Harlow observed that monkeys in cages often died, but often survived if they were given a piece of cloth to cuddle
P- reared 16 baby monkeys with two wire model mothers.
in one condition, milk was dispensed from a plain wire mother, whilst another milk was distanced from a cloth covered wired mother. Harlow then would try and scare the monkeys
F- the baby monkeys cuddled the and sought comfort from the cloth covered monkey, despite which one was dispensing milk.
This shows that contact comfort was most important when it came to attachment.
Additionally, he found that these maternally deprived monkeys often had many problems when going into adult life. they were dysfunctional, highly aggressive, often bread less, even when becoming mothers themselves left their babies to fend for themselves.
Found the critical period was 90 days
evaluate Harlows research into Animal attachment.
+real world value
helped sociologists to discover the effects of maternal deprivation on children
-monkey are not humans, findings may be hard to generalise
-unethical, caused long term stress for monkeys
Outline explanations of attachment: learning theory.
Dollard and Miller-
proposed that attachment can be explained through learning theory, whereby it can be said to be ‘cupboard love’- the importance of food.
Classical conditioning- the caregiver is a neutral stimulus, the food acts as a unconditioned stimulus, and the conditioned response is crying.
the caregiver becomes a conditioned stimulus as the baby associates being fed by the caregiver.
operant conditioning- if a behaviour causes a pleasant reponse, the baby is likely to do it again. The baby will cry, and become associated with crying meaning food, so now will cry for the caregiver as they associate the caregiver with being fed.
attachment as a secondary drive- hunger is the primary drive (biological) but attachment is the secondary drive and made through association.
evaluate the learning theory of attachment.
-counter evidence from animal studies
Lorenz found that animals attached to who ever they first saw, not depending on food
+some conditioning may be involved, babies start to associate food with crying and baby learn through association how to ask for food
Outline Bowlbys theory of monotropy.
-Bowlby rejected the learning theory of attachment, instead made an evolutionary approach, identifying that attachment is an innate concept.
Monotropy- Emphasised the importance of an attachment to a singular caregiver, which would be different to any other caregivers.
This would bar the primary attachment figure.
-the law of continuity
-the law of accumulated separation
Social releasers- babies where born with a set of innate, cute behaviours such as smiling, cooing and gripping that encourage attention from adults.
Critical period- around 6 months a Childs critical period is most sensitive, up to two years and if an attachment is not found before then, s child will find it difficult to attach in later life.
Internal working model-
our mental representations of our primary caregiver will have an affect on our future relationships
Evaluate Bowlbys monotropic theory of attachment.
+evidence supporting social releasers
Researchers Brazelton observed babies using social releasers with caregivers. Adults were told to ignore the babies. Babies would then become distressed and curl up.
+support for internal working model
researchers Bailey measured babies attachments and questions the mother attachment to their own mother. often is a mother had a poor attachment to their mother, they would have a poor attachment to their child.
-validity of monotropy challenged
Schaffer and Emerson found that whilst babies did attach to one person, they also formed other attachments
What was the strange situation designed to test?
deigned to test attachment security. Babies were tested on their response with playing in a unfamiliar room, being left alone, being left with a strange and then reuniting with the caregiver .
describe the procedure of Ainsworths strange situation
-took place in a controlled area, using a controlled observation
took place in a two way mirrored lab
-it was testing
proximity-seeking
exploration and secure place behaviour
stranger anxiety
separation anxiety
responce to reunion
seven episodes, each three minutes
1. baby encouraged to explore
2. a stranger comes in, talks to caregiver and approaches the baby
3.the caregiver leaves
4.the caregiver returns and the stranger leaves
5.the caregiver leaves the baby alone
6.the stranger returns
7.the caregiver returns and is reunited with the baby
Outline the findings of Ainsworth strange situation, discussing the three types of attachment.
Found there was three distinct patterns in the way babies behaved.
type B- Secure attachment
explore happily, but regularly go back to their caregiver. Show moderate separation and stranger anxiety. Require comfort at reunion. About 60-75% of babies in England are this.
type A- Insecure avoidant
explore freely, not showing any secure base behaviour or seeking proximity. Show little to no reaction when caregiver leaves and show littles stranger anxiety. Make no reaction in the reunited stage.
20-25% of English babies are this.
Type C- insecure resistant
seek greater proximity and explore less. show high levels of stranger and separation distress, and resist comfort when reunited with the caregiver. 3% of English babies are this.
Evaluate Ainsworths strange situation.
+good at predicting the future
research has shown type B children tend to have better outcomes than others when tested as children and adults. Researches found that type B were less likely to be involved in bullying
+good reliability
Bick et al. re-did the storage situation and found the same results on 94% of tests.
-may be culture bound
developed in the Uk and the USA, which are individualistic cultures. results may differs in different culture (collectivist)
Define ‘cultural variations’
exist when there are differences of norms and values between people in different groups.
