Care-giver infant interactions

Question 1

What is an attachment bond?

Answer 1

A strong, long lasting emotional bond formed between a baby and their main caregiver.

Question 2

What are the three behaviour that babies show when the have a strong attachment with their caregiver?

Answer 2

Safe base

Separation anxiety

stranger anxiety

Question 3

What is safe-base behaviour?

Answer 3

When children treat their caregiver as someone they can quickly return to whenever they are scared or anxious.

Children who see humans as a safe base, explore their surroundings only if their caregiver is near by.

Question 4

What is separation anxiety?

Answer 4

When children become distressed when they are separated from their attachment figure.

Question 5

What is stranger anxiety?

Answer 5

When children display distress in the presence of unfamiliar people and prefer the company of their attachment figure.

Question 6

What are the two methods used in attachment research?

Answer 6

Natural experiments- observational techniques ( longitudinal studies), frame-by-frame video analysis.

Animal studies

Question 7

Evaluation of natural experiments.

Answer 7

• Researchers cannot control extraneous variables so can’t directly test cause and effect.

Question 8

Evaluation of longitudinal studies.

Answer 8

+ Deeper insights into behaviour by seeing how it changes over time.

+ Gives insights into how early experiences shape behaviour.

+ More reliable results

• Attrition

Question 9

Evaluation of animal studies.

Answer 9

• Results may not generalise to humans
• Unethical as they can cause distress to animals.

Question 10

What is reciprocity?

Answer 10

The infant and caregiver take turns in interacting with each other.

Question 11

What is interactional synchrony?

Answer 11

The infant and caregiver perform similar actions in time with each other.

Question 12

What was Shchaffer and Emersons stages of attachment?

Answer 12

Pre-attachment (0-3months)- babies don’t show any preference to one person.

Indiscriminate(3-7 months)- Babies recognise familiar people.

Discriminate (7-9 months)- Babies form a strong attachment with just one caregiver.

Multiple (9+ months)- babies form attachments with multiple people.

Question 13

Explain Schaffer and Emersons research into the stages of attachment.

Answer 13

They conducted a longitudinal observation of 60 babies and their families.

They found that the attachments followed the 4 main stages, and babies formed multiple attachments.

The main attachment figure was not always the main caregiver and strong attachments were formed when caregivers were sensitive and responded to the needs of their baby.

It suggests a biological influence in the formation of attachments as babies go through the same staged at around the same time.

Question 14

Evaluation of Schaffer and Emersons research.

Answer 14

• Research may have been prone to observer bias because the observational design.
• May suffer from social desirability bias

+ Results had a high ecological validity- because it was a naturalistic observation.

Question 15

What did Codon and Sander show about baby and caregiver interactions ?

Answer 15

They showed that babies and mother displayed reciprocity and interactional synchrony.

But it is difficult to establish a causal relationship between the interactions and the strength of the attachment.

Question 16

What did Isabella show?

Answer 16

That babies and mothers that display more reciprocity and interactional synchrony had stronger attachments.

But it is difficult to establish a causal relationship between the interactions and the strength of the attachment.

Question 17

What is a father in a child’s development?

Answer 17

A father is anyone who takes on the role of the main male caregiver.

Question 18

What is Schaffer and Emerson find out and conclude about fathers and attachment?

Answer 18

They found that the majority of babies first became attached to their mothers at about 7 months. In only 3% of the case the father was the first attachment.
In 27% of the cases, the father was the joint first attachment.

75% of the babies had formed an attachment to their father within the first 18 months.

Question 19

What is the role of the father?

Answer 19

Grossmann carried out a longitudinal study where babies attachment was studied until they were into their teen.
The researchers looked at both parents behaviour and its relationship quality of their baby’s later attachments.

Grossmann found that the quality of fathers play with babies was related to the quality of adolescent attachments.

So fathers are important for play and stimulation.

Question 20

Explain fathers as a primary attachment figure.

Answer 20

A baby’s relationship with their primary attachment figure forms the basis of all later relationships.

Tiffny Field filmed 4-month old babies in face-face interactions with primary caregiver mothers, secondary caregiver fathers and primary caregiver fathers.

Primary caregiver fathers spent more time smiling, imitating and holding the baby than secondary attachments.

This shows that fathers have the potential to be the more emotion-focused primary attachment figure.

Question 21

Strengths of Role of the Father.

Answer 21

Research can be used to help parents.

Mother may feel pressured to stay at home because of stereotypical views of mother and father roles.

Research can be used to offer reassurance to the parents.

Question 22

Limitations of Role of the Father.

Answer 22

There is conflicting evidence as the findings vary according to the methodology used.
Longitudinal studies such as Grossman have suggested that fathers as secondary attachment figures have an important role in child’d development, involving play and stimulation.

However, if fathers have a distinctive role in a child’s development we would expect children from a single-mother home and lesbian families would turn out different to those in two-parent heterosexual families.

McCallum found that children do not develop differently with one or tow parents.