Introduction to Attachment Flashcards
(25 cards)
Define attachment.
A close two-way emotional bond between two individuals in which each individual sees the other as essential for their own emotional security.
What 3 behaviours allow us to recognise attachment?
- Proximity seeking, when people try to stay physically close to their attachment figure
- seperation distress, when people show signs of anxiety when an attachment figure leaves their prescence
- secure-base behaviour, when we tend to make regular contact with our attachment figures even though we are independent of them.
Define reciprocity.
When both caregiver and infant respond to each other’s signals and each elicits a response from the other, eg. caregiver might respond to baby smiling by saying something, causing the baby to smile more. It is often called turn-taking.
Outline the alert phase.
Babies have periodic alert phases where they signal that they are ready for a spell of interaction. Feldman and Eidelman (2007) found that mothers typically pick-up on and respond to this behaviour 2/3 of the time, although this can vary according to the skill of the mother and external factors eg. stress (Finegood 2006). From roughly 3 months this behaviour becomes increasingky frequent and involves both the mother and baby paying close attention to each others verbal signals and facial expressions (Feldman 2007).
Outline active involvement.
It seems that babies as well as caregivers take an active role in recieving care from an adult. Both baby and caregiver can initiate interactions and they appear to take turns in doing so. Brazelton (1975) described this interaction as like a ‘dance’ because it is like a couple where each partner responds to the other person’s moves.
Define interactional synchrony.
Caregiver and baby reflect both the actions and emotions of the other and do this in a co-ordinated (synchronised) way.
Outline when synchrony begins.
Meltzoff and Moore (1977) observed the beginnings of interactional synchrony in babies as young as 2 weeks old. An adult displayed one of 3 facial expressions or one of 3 distinctive gestures. The baby’s response was filmed and labelled by independent observers. Babies expressions and gestures were more likely to mirror those of the adults more than chance would predict.
Outline the importance of intractional synchrony in attachment.
Isabella (1989) observed 30 mothers and babies together and assessed that degree of synchrony. The researchers also assessed the mother-baby attachment. They found high levels of synchrony were associated with better quality mother-baby attachment.
Outline the strengths of caregiver-infant interactions.
They are usually filmed in a labatory. This means that other activity that might distract the baby can be controlled. Also using films in observations can be recorded and analysed later meaning that researchers are less likely to misss key behaviours. It also means that more than one observer can record data and establish inter-rater reliability. Finally babies don’t know they are being observed so there are less chances for demand characteristics. This means the data should have good validity and reliability.
Outline the limitations of caregiver-infant interactions.
- It is hard to interpret a baby’s behaviour. Young babies lack co-ordination and much of their bodies are almost immobile. The movements being observed are just small hand movements or subtle changes in expression. It is difficult to be sure whether a baby is smiling or passing wind. It is also difficult to determin what is taking place from the baby’s perspective. This means we cannot be certain that the behaviours seen in caregiver-infant interactions have a special meaning.
- Simply observing a behaviour does not tell us the developmental importance. Feldman (2012) points out that ideas like synchrony simply give names to patterns of observable behaviour. These are robust phenomena in the sense that they can be reliably observed, but they may still not be particularly useful in our understanding of child development as it does not tell us the purpose of these behaviours. This means that we cannot be certain from observational research alone that reciprocity and synchrony are important for a child’s development.
Who came up with the stages of attachment and when?
Schaffer and Emerson in 1964
List the 4 stages of attachment.
Asocial, Indiscriminate, Specific, Multiple
Outline the asocial stage.
In a baby’s first few weeks of life it’s observable behaviour towards humans and inanimate objects is fairly similar (asocial). However, Schaffer and Emerson didn’t believe that this is entirely asocial because even at this stage babies tend to show signs that they prefer to be with people. Babies also tend to show a preference for the company of familiar and are more easily comforted by them. At this stage the baby is forming bonds with certain people and these form the basis of later attachments.
Outline the indiscriminate stage.
From 2-7 months babies start to display more obvious and observable social behaviours. They now show a clear preference for being with other humans rather than inanimate objects. They also recognise and prefer the company of familiar people. However at this stage babies usually accept cuddles and comfort from any person (indisciminate). They don’t normally show seperation anxiety when caregivers leave their presence nore stranger anxiety in the presence of unfamiliar people.
Outline the specific stage.
From around 7 months babies start to display the classic signs of attachment towards one particular person. These signs include anxiety directed towards strangers and anxiety when seperated from their attachment figure. At this point the person with whom the child has formed the attachment is called the primary attachment figure. This person is not necessarily the individual with whom the child spends the most time but the one who spends the offers the most interaction and responds to the baby’s signals with the most skill. This is the mother in 65% on cases.
Outline the multiple stage.
Shortly after babies start to show attachment behaviour towards one person they usually extend this behaviour to multiple attachments with other people whom they regularly spend time with. These relationships are called secondary attachments. Schaffer and Emerson observed that 29% of the children formed secondary attachments within a month of forming a primary attachment. By the age of 1, the majority of babies had developed multiple attachments.
Outline Schaffer and Emerson’s research into the stages of attachment.
Procedure - 60 babies (31 boys and 29 girls) all from Glasgow and the majority were from skilled working-class families. Researchers visited mothers and babies in their homes every month for the first year and again at 18 months. The researchers asked the mothers questions about the kind of protests their babies showed in 7 everyday seperations. This was designed to measure the babies attachment. The researchers also assessed stranger anxiety.
Findings - Schaffer and Emerson identified four distinct stages in the development of infant attachment behaviour.
Outline the strengths of the stages of attachment.
- It has good external validity. Most of the observations were made by parents during ordinary activities and reported to the researchers. The alternative would have been to have researchers present to record observations. This might have distracted the babies or made them feel more anxious. This means that it is highly likely that the participants behaved naturally while being observed.
- They have a practical application in day care. In asocial and indiscriminate attachment stages day care is likely to be straightforward as babies can be comforted by any skilled adult. Schaffer and Emerson’s research tells us that day care, especially starting young with unfamiliar adults may be problematic during the specific attachment stage. This means that parent’s useage of day care can be planned using Schaffer and Emerson’s stages.
Outline the limitations of Schaffer and Emerson’s stages of attachment.
- There are issues with asking the mothers to be observers. They were unlikely to be objective observers. They may have been biased in terms of what they noticed and reported. This means that even if babies behaved naturally their behaviour may not have been accurately recorded.
- Another limitation is the validity of the measures used to assess attachment in the asocial stage. Young babies have poor co-ordination and are fairly immobile. If babies less than two months old felt anxiety in everyday situations they might have displayed this in quite subtle, hard-to-observe ways. This made it difficult for mothers to observe and report back to researchers on signs of anxiety and attachment in this age group. This means that the babies may actually be quite social but because of the flawed methods, they appear to be quite social.
Define a father.
Anyone who takes on the role of the main male caregiver, this can be but isn’t necessarily the biological father.
Outline attachment to fathers.
Schaffer and Emerson (1964) found that the majority of babies attach to their mother first at around 7 months. They found that in only 3% of cases the father was the first sole object of attachment. In 27% of cases the father was the joint first object of attachment with the mother. However it appears that most fathers go on to become important attachment figures. 75% of the babies studied by Schaffer and Emerson formed an attachment with their father by the age of 18 months . This was determined by the fact that the babies protested when their father walked away.
Outline the distinctive role for fathers.
Grossman (2002) carried out a longitudinal study where babies’ attachments were studied until they were into their teens. The researchers looked at both parents behaviours and its relationship to the quality of their baby’s later attachments to other people. Quality of a baby’s attachment to mother but not father was related to attachment to mothers. This suggests that attachment to fathers is less important than attachment to mother. Grossman also found that the quality of fathers’ play with babies was related to the quality of adolescent attachments. This suggests that fathers have a different role from mothers - one more to do with play and stimulation, and less to do with emotional development.
Outline fathers as primary attachment figures.
There is evidence to suggest that when fathers take on the primary caregiver they are able to adopt the emotional role more typically associated with mothers. Field (1978) filmed 4-month babies in face-face interaction with primary caregiver mothers, secondary caregiver fathers and primary caregiver fathers. Primary caregiver fathers like the mothers spent more time smiling, imitating and holding babies than the secondary caregiver fathers. So it seems that fathers have the potential to be more emotion-focused primary attachment figure - they can provide the responsiveness required for a close emotional attachment but perhaps only express when given the role of primary caregiver.
Outline the strengths of the research into the role of the father.
It can be used to offer advice to parents. Parents and prospective parents sometimes agonise over decisions like who should take on the primary caregiver role. For some this can lead to worrying about whether to even have children at all. Mothers may feel pressured to stay at home because of stereotypes and fathers may be pressured to focus on work rather than parenting. In some families this may not be the best economic solution. Research into the role of the father can be used to offer reassuring advice to the parents. This means that parental anxiety about the role of fethers can be reduced.
