What is an interaction?
Babies have frequent and important interactions with their caregiver.
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 co-ordinated way.
Caregiver-infant interactions evaluation - Hard to know what is happening
Observe simple gesture and expression, and assume infants intentions.
Caregiver-infant interactions evaluation - Controlled observations
Capture fine detail of interactions.
Caregiver-infant interactions evaluation - Purpose of synchrony and reciprocity
Feldman: just observations, purpose not entirely understood.
Parent-infant
Traditionally mother-infant, other attachment figures like the father may also be important.
The role of the father
Grossman et al: attachment to fathers less important but fathers may have a different role - play and stimulation.
Fathers as primary carers
Field: fathers as primary carers adopt attachment behaviour more typical of mothers
Evaluation of attachment figures - inconsistent findings
Different research questions overall picture unclear.
Caregiver-infant interactions evaluation - children without fathers aren’t different
Suggests the father role is not important
Caregiver-infant interactions evaluation - fathers not primary attachments
May be due to traditional gender roles or biological differences
Caregiver-infant interactions evaluation - evaluation extra
Socially sensitive research: working mothers
The aim of Schaffer and Emerson’s study
To investigate the age of attachment formation and who attachments are formed with
The method of Schaffer and Emerson’s study
Mothers of 60 Glasgow babies reported monthly on separation anxiety
The findings of Schaffer and Emerson’s study
Most babies showed attachment to a primary caregiver by 32 weeks and developed multiple attachments soon after this
Evaluation of Schaffer and Emerson - good external validity
Observations were in participants’ natural environments
Evaluation of Schaffer and Emerson - longitudinal design
Same participants were observed at each age, eliminating individual differences as a confound
Evaluation of Schaffer and Emerson - limited sample characteristics
All families were from the same area and over 50 years ago, so may lack generalisability
Schaffers stages of attachment
- Asocial stage
- Indiscriminate attachments
- Specific attachments
- Multiple attachments
What is the asocial stage
Little observable social behaviour
What is the indiscriminate attachment
More observable attachment behaviour, accept cuddles from any adult
What is the specific attachments
Stranger anxiety and separation anxiety in regard to one particular adult
What is multiple attachments
Attach behaviour directed towards more than one adult (secondary attachments)
Evaluation of stages of attachment - asocial stage
Social behaviour is hard to observe in the first few weeks but this doesn’t mean the baby is ‘asocial’
Evaluation of stages of attachment - conflicting evidence
Van IJzendoorn et al: research in different contexts has found multiple attachments may appear first
Evaluation of stages of attachment - measuring multiple attachments
Just because a child protests when an adult leaves does not necessarily mean attachment
Evaluation of stages of attachment - evaluation extra
Schaffer and Emerson used limited measures of attachment
Lorenz’s procedure
Goslings saw Lorenz when they hatched
Lorenz’s findings
Newly hatched chicks attach to the first moving object they see (imprinting)
Lorenz sexual imprinting
Adult birds try to mate with whatever species or object they imprint on
Evaluation of Lorenz - generalisability
Birds and mammals have different attachment systems so lorenz’s results may not be relevant to humans
Evaluation of Lorenz - some observations questioned
Guiton et al: birds imprinting on rubber gloves did later prefer their own species
Harlow’s procedure
Baby monkeys given cloth or wire ‘mother’ with feeding bottle attached
Harlow’s findings
Monkeys clung to cloth surrogate rather than wire one, regardless of which dispensed milk
Harlow’s maternally deprived monkeys
Grew up socially dysfunctional
Harlow the critical period
After 90 days attachments wouldn’t form
Evaluation of Harlow - theoretical value
Demonstrated that attachment depends more on contact comfort than feeding
Evaluation of Harlow - practical value
Howe: informs understanding of risk factors for child abuse
Evaluation of Harlow - ethical issues
Suffering of the monkeys would be human-like
Classics conditioning
Caregiver (neutral stimulus) associated with food (unconditioned stimulus)
Caregiver becomes conditioned stimulus
Operant conditioning
Crying behaviour reinforced positively for infant and negatively for caregiver
Attachment as a secondary drive
Attachment becomes a secondary drive through association with hunger
Evaluation of learning theory - animal studies
Lorenz and Harlow showed that feeding is not the key to attachment
Evaluation of learning theory - human research
Schaffer and Emerson: most primary attachment figures were the mother even when others did most feeding
Evaluation of learning theory - ignores other factors
Cannot account for the importance of sensitivity and interactional synchrony
Bowlby’s explanation - Harlow’s research: monotropy
One particular attachment is different in quality and importance than others
Bowlby’s explanation - Harlow’s research: social releases and the critical period
Innate cute behaviours in the first two years
Bowlby’s explanation - Harlow’s research: internal working model
Mental representations of the primary attachment relationship are templates for future relationships
Evaluation of Bowlby’s explanation of Harlow’s research - mixed evidence for monotropy
Some babies form multiple attachments without a primary attachment
Suess et al: other attachments may contribute as much as primary one
Evaluation of Bowlby’s explanation of Harlow’s research - support for social releasers
Brazleton et al: when social releasers ignored babies were upset
Evaluation of Bowlby’s explanation of Harlow’s research - support for internal working model
Bailey et al: quality of attachment is passed on trough generations in families
Ainsworths strange situation procedure
7-stage controlled observation
Assessed proximity seeking, exploration and secure base, stranger and separation anxiety, response to reunion
Ainsworths findings
Infants showed consistent patterns of attachment behaviour
Ainsworths types of attachment
Secure: enthusiastic, greeting, generally content.
Avoidant: avoids reunion, generally reduced responses.
Resistant: resists reunion, generally more distressed.
Evaluation of ainsworth - support for validity
Attachment type predicts later social and personal behaviour e.g bullying
Evaluation of ainsworth - good reliability
Different observers agree 90%+ of the time on children’s attachment types
Evaluation of ainsworth - culture-bound
Attachment behaviour may have different meanings in different cultures so the strange situation may be measuring different things
Study of cultural variations - van IJzendoorn
Compared rates of attachment type in 8 countries
Found more variation within than between countries
Study of cultural variations - simonella et al
Italian attachment rates have changed, may be due to changing practices
Study of cultural variations - Jin et al
Korean attachment rates similar to Japan, could be due to similar child-rearing styles
Study of cultural variations - conclusions
It appears that attachment is innate and universal and secure attachment is the norm
Bieber cultural practices affect rates of attachment types
Evaluation of cultural variations - large samples
Reduce the impact of anomalous results so improve internal validity
Evaluation of cultural variations - samples unrepresentative of culture
Countries do not equate to cultures not to culturally special methods of child rearing so can’t make generalisations
Evaluation of cultural variations - method of assessment is biased
Research using the strange situation imposes a USA test on other cultures
Bowlby’s theory of maternal deprivation - separation versus deprivation
Physical separation only leads to deprivation when the child loses emotional care
Bowlby’s theory of maternal deprivation - critical period
The first 30 months are critical and deprivation in that time causes damage
Bowlby’s theory of maternal deprivation - effects on development
Goldfarb: deprivation causes low IQ
Bowlby: emotional development e.g affectionless psychopathy
Bowlby’s theory of maternal deprivation - 44 thieves study (Bowlby)
Many more affectionless psychopaths than controls had a prolonged separation
Evaluation of maternal deprivation theory - evidence may be poor
Orphans have experienced other traumas
Bowlby may have been a biased observer
Evaluation of maternal deprivation theory - counter-evidence
Lewis: sample of 500, no link between early separation and later criminality
Evaluation of maternal deprivation theory - a sensitive period
Bowlby exaggerated the importance of the critical period
Romanian orphan studies - Rutter’s ERA study
165 orphans adopted in Britain
Some of those adopted later show low IQ and disinhibited attachment
Romanian orphan studies - Bucharest early intervention project
Random allocation to institutional care or fostering
Secure attachment in 19% of institutional group versus 74% of controls
Romanian orphan studies - effects of institutionalisation
Disinhibited attachment and intellectual restarts room of institutionalisation is prolonged
Evaluation of Romanian orphan studies - real life application
Both institutional care and adoption practice have been improved using lessons from Romanian orphans
Evaluation of Romanian orphan studies - fewer extraneous variables
Romanian orphans had fewer negative influences before institutionalisation than e.g war orphans
Evaluation of Romanian orphan studies - Romanian orphanages not typical
Conditions were so bad that results may not generalise to better institutions
Attachment and later relationships - internal working model
Bowlby’s idea that the primary attachment relationship proves a template for later relationships
Attachment and later relationships - relationships in later childhood
Kerns: securely attached children have better friendships
Myron - Wilson and smith: securely attached children less likely to be involved in bullying
Attachment and later relationships - relationships with romantic partners
McCarthy: securely attached adults have better relationships with friends and partners
Hazan and Shaver: secure responders had better and longer-lasting relationships, avoidant responders had fear of intimacy
Attachment and later relationships - parental relationships
Bailey et al: mothers’ attachment type matched that of their mothers and their babies
Evaluation of attachment and later relationships - evidence is mixed
Zimmerman et al: found little relationship between quality of attachment and later attachment
Evaluation of attachment and later relationships - low validity
Most studies assess infant attachment by retrospective self-report which lacks validity
Evaluation of attachment and later relationships - association does not mean causality
A third factor like temperament might affect both infant attachment and later relationships