Attachments Flashcards
(16 cards)
What is an attachment?
A close reciprocal emotional bond in which each person sees the other as essential for their own emotional security. In 1969 Bolwby said that an attachment can be seen by proximity, separation distress and secure-base behaviour (need to contact each other regularly)
What is reciprocity?
A description of how two people interact. Mother-infant interaction is reciprocal in that both infant and mother respond to each other’s signals and each elicits a response from the other.
What is interactional synchrony?
Mother and infant reflect both the actions and emotions of the other and do this in a synchronised way.
How long does it take for an attachment to form?
A few months.
What did Feldman and Eidelman discover in 2007?
Babies have periodic alert phases and signal that they’re ready for interaction–>mothers usually respond to them two times out of three.
What approach did Dollard and Miller (1950) take?
BEHAVIOURIST. They suggested that attachment is a set of learned behaviours-provision of food-through process of classical conditioning came to find mother comforting.
Why is Dollard and Miller’s theory good?
It is a behaviourist approach so can be applied to all people of all cultures.
Who’s experiment disputes Dollard and Miller’s theory?
Harlow’s monkeys. Found that the monkeys preferred skin-to-skin contact from their surrogate mother than the food giver (shown by the monkeys having a closer attachment to the skin-to-skin contact mother). However it might not be that viable as it was tested with monkeys, not humans.
What did Meltzoff and Moore observe in 1977?
observed beginnings of IS from two weeks. Videoed children’s response to different expressions–>association found between the expression the adult had displayed and actions of babies. The experiment might have been weakened as the adult could acted differently due to the fact it was being observed.
What was Schaffer and Emerson’s experiment?
It was on reciprocity. Parents took it in turn to leave the room to measure infant’s attachment through separation anxiety. Attachment tended to be the caregiver who was most sensitive to infant signals and facial expressions.
How can the interactional synchrony theory be disputed?
Most of the research is on Western countries and the little research done on Eastern cultures show no IS, ergo it’s a futile theory as it doesn’t apply to all cultures.
What did Brazleton et al. (1975) describe the interaction between mother and child?
A dance because it’s just like a couple’s dance where each partner responds to each other’s moves.
What did Isabella et al. (1989) discover?
Observed 30 mothers and infants together and assessed the degree of synchrony. The researchers also assessed the quality of mother-infant attachment. They found that high levels of synchrony were associated with better quality mother-infant attachment.
What did Schaffer and Emerson (1964) find out about parent-infant attachment?
They found that the majority of babies became attached to their mother first (around 7 months) and within a few weeks or months formed SECONDARY ATTACHMENTS to other family members, including the father. In 75% of the infants studied an attachment was formed with the father by the age of 18 months (shown through separation anxiety).
What did Grossman (2002) find out about the role of the father?
Carried out a longitudinal study looking at both parents’ behaviour and its relationship to the quality of the children’s attachment into their teens. Quality of infant attachment with mothers but not fathers was related to children’s attachments in adolescence, suggesting that father attachment was less important. However the quality of fathers’ 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 Tiffany Field’s findings?
There is some evidence to suggest that when fathers do take on the role of being main caregiver they adopt behaviours more typical of the mother. Tiffany Field (1978) filmed 4 month old babies in face-to-face interaction with primary caregiver mothers, secondary caregiver fathers and primary caregiver fathers. PC fathers, like mothers, spent more time smiling,imitating and holding infants than the SC fathers. This behaviour appears to be important in building an attachment with the infant. So it seems that fathers can be the more nurturing attachment figure. The key to the attachment relationship is the level of responsiveness not the gender of the parent.
