Topic 3: Attachment Flashcards
(153 cards)
What is an attachment?
A close two way emotional bond between 2 individuals in which each individual sees the other as essential for their own emotional security.
What are the signs that an attachment has formed?
- Proximity
- Separation distress
- Secure base behaviour
What is reciprocity?
Back and forth exchange of behaviours or social signals, where one persons actions trigger a similar response from the other.
What are alert phases?
When babies signal that they are ready for a spell of interaction.
What did Feldman and Eidelman and Finegood find about alert phases?
Feldman and Eidelman- mothers pick up and respond to their babies alertness around 2/3 of the time.
Finegood- this varies according to the skill of the mother and external factors like stress.
What else did Feldman say about alert phases?
From around 3 months the interactions become more frequent and involve both mother and baby paying close attention to each others verbal signals and facial expressions.
What did Brazelton say about babie’s active involvement?
Both babies and adults can initiate interactions and they appear to take turns doing so. This interaction is described as a dance where each person responds to the other persons moves.
What is interactional synchrony?
When 2 people carry out the same action simultaneously, their actions and behaviours mirror each other.
How did Feldman define interactional synchrony?
The temporal coordination of micro level social behaviour.
What was Meltzoff and Moore’s observation on interactional synchrony?
They observed the beginnings of interactional synchrony in babies as young as 2 weeks.
An adult displayed 1 of 3 facial expressions or 1 of 3 distinctive gestures.
Babies response was filmed and labelled by independent observers.
Babies were more likely to mirror those of the adults more than chance would predict.
What did Isabella observe about the importance of interactional synchrony for the development of caregiver infant interaction?
Observed 30 mothers and babies together and assessed the degree of synchrony. Also assessed the quality of mother- baby attachment. Found that high levels of synchrony were associated with better quality mother-baby attachment.
What is a strength of research into caregiver-infant interactions? (filmed observations)
Filmed in a lab so distractions can be controlled. Films can be watched and analysed later so researchers don’t miss any key behaviours. More than 1 observer can record data so increase the inter rater reliability. Babie’s don’t know they are being observed so don’t change behaviour. data has a good reliability and validity.
What is a limitation of research into caregiver-infant interactions? (Difficulty observing babies)
Hard to interpret a baby’s behaviour. Movements tend to be small hand gestures of subtle facial expression changes so hard to know the meaning of these and also we are not sure what is happening from the babies perspective, e.g a hand movement could be random or something triggered by the caregiver. Can’t be certain that the behaviours seen in these interactions may have a special meaning.
What is a limitation of research into caregiver infant interactions? (Developmental importance)
Observation does not tell us about its importance in development. Feldman says that things like interactional synchrony just gives names to patterns of observable infant and caregiver behaviours. May not be particularly useful in telling us about child development as we don’t know the purpose of the behaviours. So just by observing we don’t know whether reciprocity and interactional synchrony are important for child development.
What is a strength of research into caregiver infant interactions?
(Developmental importance)
Evidence that these early interactions are important for childhood development. e.g Isabella’s finding that high levels of synchrony predicted development of good quality attachment. So caregiver interaction is probably important in developement.
What is the extra evaluation for research into caregiver infant interactions? (Practical value vs ethics)
Practical value in parenting skills training. Crotchwell found that a 10 minute parent child interaction therapy improved interactional synchrony in 20 low income mothers and their children.
However research is socially sensitive as it can be used to argue that if a mother returns to work too soon after having a baby this may risk damaging the baby’s developement.
Who proposed the 4 stages of attachment?
Schaffer and Emerson.
What happens during the asocial stage?
- First few weeks of life.
- Similar behaviour between humans and inanimate objects.
- Show preferance for the company of familiar people and more easily comforted by them.
- Form bonds with others which form the basis of later attachments.
What happens during the indiscriminate attachment stage?
- 2-7 months
- More obvious and observable social behaviours.
- Clear preference for being with humans rather than inanimate objects.
- Prefer company of familiar people but will accept comfort from anyone.
- No stranger or separation anxiety.
What happens in the specific attachment stage?
- 7+ months
- Start to show signs of attachment towards towards one person.
- Stranger and separation anxiety.
- Person the specific attachment is formed to is the primary attachment figure.
- The primary attachment figure is the person who offers the most interaction and responds to the baby’s signals with the most skill.
- 65% of cases the primary attachment figure is the mother.
What happens in the multiple attachment stage?
- Start to form attachments to more than 1 person.
- 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 one.
- By the age of 1 most babies had developed multiple attachments.
What was the prodedure of Schaffer and Emerson’s study which led them to develop the 4 stages of attachment?
60 babies from working class families in Glasgow. Researchers visited mothers and babies in their own homes every month for the first year and again at 18months. Mothers were asked questions about their babies separation and stranger anxiety.
What is a strength of Schaffer and Emerson’s research? (Good external validity)
Most of the observations were made by the mothers during ordinary activities. So the babies were not distracted or felt anxious at any point. So it was more likely the participants were behaving naturally.
What is a limitation of Schaffer and Emerson’s research? (Good external validity)
Mother’s are unlikely to be objective observers. Bias in what they noticed and reported. So even if the babies behaved naturally, their behaviour may not have been accurately recorded.