Paper 1 - Attachment Flashcards
What is attachment?
Is an emotional bond between two people (two-way process) that endures over time.
Each individual sees the other as essential for their own emotional security and attachment in humans takes a few months to develop.
It leads to certain behaviours such as clinging (separation distress) and proximity seeking, and serves the function of protecting an infant (secure base)
What is reciprocity?
Care-giver infant interaction is reciprocal (e.g. each person’s interactions affect the other)
Turn taking and responding, eliciting (drawing out) a response from the other but doesn’t necessarily mean responding with the same behaviours.
Two way
What is interactional synchrony?
Caregiver and infant signals synchronise (e.g. occur together)
Infant and caregiver mirror each other i.e imitate the same behaviours in a synchronised fashion (in time with each other)
Move in time with each other e.g. both turn heads at same time/both smile at the same time.
What is the alert phases?
From birth babies signal when they are ready to interact
What is the A01 of Meltzoff and Moore in relation to caregiver - infant interactions?
Observed the beginnings of interactional synchrony infants as young as 2 weeks old.
An adult displayed one of three facial expression or one of three distinctive gestures.
Child’s response was filmed
Findings – babies as young as 12-27 days would attempt to imitate facial and physical gestures.
What is examples of reciprocity (alert phases) in relation to caregiver - infant interactions?
Babies have ‘alert phases’ and signal they are ready for interaction
Mothers (typically) pick up on and respond to alertness (2 thirds of time - Feldman and Eidelman 2007)
Jaffe 1973 - Example of reciprocity in relation to caregiver - infant interactions
Jaffe (1973) demonstrated that infants coordinated their actions with caregivers in a conversation. From birth babies move in a rhythm when interacting with an adult almost as if they were taking turns, as people do when having a conversation. One person leans forward and speaks and then it’s the other person’s turn = Reciprocity.
Brazelton 1979 - Example of reciprocity in relation to caregiver - infant interactions
Brazelton (1979) this rhythm is important for later communication. The regularity of the infant signals allows the caregiver to anticipate future behaviour = lays foundations of attachment.
Isabella 89 - Example of intersectional synchrony in relation to caregiver - infant interactions
Isabella (89) observed 30 mothers and infants together and assessed the degree of synchrony.
The researchers also assessed the quality of mother-infant attachment.
They found high levels of synchrony were associated with better quality mother-infant attachments.
A03 : The use of filmed observations (caregiver-infant interactions)
+ Mother-baby interactions are usually filmed from multiple angles – very fine details of behaviour can be recorded and analysed later. Babies do not know they are being observed, so their behaviour does not change in response to observation (an issue for most observational research). This means that studies have good reliability and validity
A03 : Problems with testing infant behaviour (caregiver-infant interactions)
- Infants mouths are constantly in motion, the expressions tested occur frequently – this makes it difficult to distinguish between imitated behaviour and general activity. It is also hard to know if a hand movement is a response to the caregiver or a random twitch. This means we cannot be certain that any particular interactions observed between baby and caregiver are meaningful
+ Meltzoff and Moore overcame this issue by filming infants and asking an observer to judge the infants behaviour when they DIDN’T know what behaviour was being imitate – increases internal validity.
A03 : Failure to replicate (caregiver-infant interactions)
- Koepke (1983) failed to replicate Meltzoff and Moore study findings, could be as it was less carefully controlled.
A03 : Difficulty inferring developmental importance (caregiver-infant interactions)
- Feldman (2012) says that synchrony and reciprocity simply describe behaviours that occur at the same time. These can be reliably observed BUT this may not be useful as it does not tell us their purpose. This means that we cannot be certain from observations that reciprocity or synchrony are important in development
Who did a study in relation to stages of attachment & what did they do?
Schaffer and Emerson (1964)
Observed 69 babies in Glasgow for 18 months (longitudinal study)
They looked at the interactions between the baby and its caregiver
What was the method of Schaffer and Emerson’s study?
60 babies from skilled working class families were observed.
Mothers and babies were visited once a month for the first year, and then
again at 18 months.
They ask mothers questions about how the babies reacted in 7 everyday
separations (e.g. adult leaving the room) – This measured separation
anxiety.
They also assessed how babies reacted to unfamiliar adults (stranger
anxiety).
What were the findings of Schaffer and Emerson’s study in relation to stages of attachment?
Between 25-32 weeks of age 50% of babies showed separation anxiety
towards their mother (specific attachment).
This specific attachment was with the caregiver who was most sensitive
to infant signals NOT necessarily who they spent the most time with.
By 40 weeks, 80% of babies had a specific attachment and 30% had
multiple.
What are the 4 stages of attachment?
- Asocial (about birth to 8 weeks)
- Indiscriminate Attachment (about 2-7 months)
- Specific Attachment (about 7-12 months)
- Multiple Attachment (about 1 year onwards)
What happens at the asocial stage of attachment?
The behaviour between humans and non-human objects are very similar. Infants can recognise specific faces. They are happier in the presence of humans than when alone, they will smile at anyone and they prefer familiar individuals as well as prefer faces to non-faces.
What happens at the indiscriminate stage of attachment?
At this stage they recognise and prefer familiar people. They will smile more at familiar than unfamiliar faces. Infants at this stage have a preference for people rather than inanimate objects BUT they will accept comfort from any adult as they don’t have stranger anxiety.
What happens at the specific stage of attachment?
Infant shows a distinct protest when a particular person puts them down (separation anxiety)
They show happiness and joy when that person returns and is comforted by them (Primary Attachment).
They will show stranger anxiety.
Schaffer and Emerson states that the primary attachment isn’t always the person that spends most of the time with the infant. (They concluded it’s the quality of the relationship not quantity. In 65% of children the first specific attachment was to the mum, 30% mum and an object, 3% the father).
What happens at the multiple stage of attachment?
Main attachment is formed and a wider circle of multiple attachments depending on consistent relationships.
Schaffer and Emerson found that within one month of becoming attached 29% of the infants had multiple attachments, parent, grandparents, siblings etc, these are secondary attachments. Separation anxiety was displayed in these relationships.
Within 6 months this had risen to 78%.
By 1 year a majority of infants had developed multiple attachments.
A03 : Good external validity (stages of attachment)
+ Most observations carried out by parents during normal activities and then reported to
researchers (if observer’s were present, this may have distracted the babies, made them anxious
and potentially changed their natural behaviour). This means that it is highly likely the
participants behaved naturally during the observation, meaning good external validity.
- HOWEVER, data was from mother’s reports of their child. Mothers may have been less sensitive
therefore not reported it = systematic bias – challenges validity.
A03 : Biased Sample (stages of attachment)
- All participants from the same district
- Working class population (can it be generalised?)
- Sample form 1960’s (parenting has changed)
- Now more women work, higher care outside the home now AND now more fathers stay at home
to care for the family than every before (quadrupled since 1960)
A03 : Problems studying the asocial stage (stages of attachment)
- The problem at this stage is babies have poor coordination and are immobile. Therefore difficult
to make judgements from observation, therefore low reliability.