studies

Question 1

Schaffer and emmerson (1964) - attachment

Answer 1

• 60 babies an their mothers from working class families in Glasgow
• the babies were studied every month for a year and then again at 18 months
• they used observational interviews to ask the mothers questions about the behaviour of their babies in 7 everyday situations
• between 25-32 weeks around 50% of babies showed separation anxiety towards adults and showed joy at reunion
• in 65% of the children, the first specific attachment was to the mother and fathers were the first specific attachment in 3% of babies.
• 27% of babies had fathers as joint attachment and 30% had their mothers as joint also
• by 40 weeks 80% of babies had specific attachments and almost 30% formed multiple

Question 2

Meltzoff and Moore (1977) - interactional synchrony

Answer 2

• an adult displays 1 of 3 facial expressions or 1 of 3 distinctive gestures
• the baby’s response is observed and labelled
• the babies actions tended to mirror those of the adults

Question 3

Grossman (2002) - role of the father

Answer 3

• a study that looked at both parents behaviour and the relationship to children’s attachment
• quality of infant attachment to mothers was related to children’s attachments in the future meaning mothers attachment was more important
• however, the quality of fathers play with infants was related to adult attachments, which suggests fatehrs have a different role in attachment

Question 4

field (1978) - fathers role

Answer 4

• filmed a 4-month old babies face to face interactions with primary caregiver mothers, secondary and primary caregiver fathers.
• primary caregiver fathers spent more time smiling, imitating and holding infants than secondary caregiver fathers (similar to PC mothers)
• the key to attachment is the responsiveness not gender of a parent (role of the father can be same as the role of the mother)

Question 5

Lorenz’s geese (1935) - imprinting

Answer 5

• he randomly allocated geese eggs into two groups
• one group was hatched in an incubator where the first moving object seen was Lorenz
• the second group was raised naturally with the mother goose
• he marked the two groups and then combined them and saw whether the geese went to Lorenz or the mother goose
• the incubator group followed Lorenz everywhere and the natural group followed the mother goose
• he concluded imprinting is similar to attachment and is long lasting and irreversible
• he also thought that imprinting affects adult mate preferences
• the critical period for geese was 32 hours

Question 6

Harlow’s monkeys (1959)

Answer 6

• he raised infant Rhesus monkeys and studied them for 165 days
• half of the monkeys had a milk bottle on the wire “mother” and half had a milk bottle on a cloth “mother”
• in both conditions there was one wire and one cloth “mother”
• all monkeys cuddled the cloth mother as opposed to the wire mother and spent more time with it even if they had the bottle
• monkeys who were raised on the wire monkey spent a short amount of time feeding and then returned to the cloth mother
• when frightened they all went to the cloth mother and when exploring new places used her as a base to explore from regardless of which monkey had the milk
• this suggests that infants do not develop an attachment to the person who feeds them but the one offering contact comfort
• the critical period for moneys was 90 days for an irreversible attachment to form