Attachment Flashcards
What is attachment?
A close two-way emotional bond between two people.
What is reciprocity?
When each person responds to the other and seeks to elicit a response in the other.
What is interactional synchrony?
When the behaviours of a caregiver and infant mirror eachother.
Describe Schaffer and Emerson’s study on attachment
Schaffer and Emerson studied babies up to 18 months old. Mothers reported on the behaviour of their babies with themselves, strangers and other known adults. Schaffer and Emerson also observed the babies. They studied 60 infants from mainly working class families.
From Schaffer and Emerson’s research, what are the 4 stages of attachment each baby passes through as they mature?
- Asocial stage
- Indiscriminate attachment
- Specific attachment
- Multiple attachments
Explain stage 1, Asocial stage.
Infants at 0-8 weeks old are asocial. Many kinds of stimuli, both social and non social, produce a favourable reaction such as a smile. They react similarly to humans and objects but happier in the presence of other humans.
Explain stage 2, Indiscriminate Attachment.
Infants at 2-7 months have a clearer social behaviour by preferring people to objects and preferring familiar adults to strangers. Anyone can cuddle them and they do not show separation anxiety.
Explain stage 3, Specific attachment.
Infants at 7 months form a preference for one person (65% of the time this was the biological mother). They experience anxiety with strangers and separation anxiety from primary attachment figure.
Explain stage 4, Multiple attachments.
Infants a month and onwards from stage 3 (around 8 months old), form secondary attachments to other adults with whom they have regular contact. By 18 months, almost all infants have formed multiple attachments.
What were the findings of Schaffer and Emerson’s study?
Within one month of forming a primary attachment, 29% of infants had multiple attachments. By 1 year this had risen to the majority of infants having multiple attachments, 75% were to the father.
What are the strengths of Schaffer and Emerson’s study?
High ecological validity - babies were observed in their own homes.
Control of participant variables (high internal validity) - the same babies were observed at each stage.
What are the limitations of Schaffer and Emerson’s study?
Lack of internal validity - babies in the asocial stage do not present much behaviour to be observed, so our assumption that we are measuring attachment may therefore be wrong. Lack of internal validity - much of the data collected was based on mother's reports of their infants which may not be reliable as they may lie or be bias. Findings lack generalisability - the participants were mainly working class mothers from Glasgow so not representative of the target population.
What is the role of the father?
The father is usually the secondary attachment figure and has the role to play with the child, stimulate and encourage exploration and risk taking through play.
What is the evolutionary explanation in attachment?
The tendency to form attachments is innate and is both present in infants and mothers.
What is the Learning theory explanation in attachment?
Infants have no innate tendency to form attachments and they only learn attachments because of food.
How did Lorenz carry out his study?
In condition 1, Lorenz was the first thing that the goslings saw when they hatched in an incubator.
In condition 2, the goose mother was the first thing the goslings saw when they hatched in their natural environment.
The chicks were mixed up and released. Lorenz observed and recorded who the chicks followed and recorded their adult mating behaviour.
What were the findings of Lorenz’s study?
Chicks in condition 1 followed Lorenz and did not mate with other geese as adults.
Chicks in condition 2 followed the goose mother and performed mating displays with other geese as adults.
What did Lorenz find was the critical period for imprinting for geese?
A few hours after hatching.
What is the strength of Lorenz’s study?
Support from other research. Chicks imprinted on rubber gloves.
What is the limitation of Lorenz’s study?
The animals under the study were birds. Cannot be directly linked to humans as human attachments are more emotional and complex than imprinting in birds.
What happened in Harlow’s study?
8 rhesus monkeys were separated from their mothers shortly after birth and they were kept in cages and studied for 165 days. Food was either available from a wire mother or cloth mother. The monkeys were also frightened to see who they ran to.
What were the findings of Harlow’s study?
All 8 monkeys spent most of their time on the cloth mother (around 18 hours a day). They only went to the wire mother for milk around 1 hour a day. They clung to the cloth mother when frightened. All the monkeys developed abnormally, they were frightened easily and could not make normal relationships.
What was the critical period for the monkeys in Harlow’s study?
3 months.
What are the strengths of Harlow’s research?
Supports Schaffer and Emerson’s findings of the idea of contact comfort rather than food.
Supports evidence for critical period.
Evidence for effect of early attachment on later relationships.
Has practical value for human health and social work, telling us about the importance of contact care.
What are the limitations of Harlow’s research?
There was a confounding variable that undermines the validity - the wire monkey did not really look like a monkey.
The study for monkeys may not be accurate for humans.
The monkeys experienced extreme suffering and lifelong difficulties.
