Attachment

Four stages of attachment

1. ASOCIAL (0-8 weeks)

   • behaviour towards humans and inanimate objects is fairly similar but they show preference towards people.

   • have preference for people they have been comforted by.

2. INDISCRIMINATE (2-7 months)

   • start to display obvious social behaviour and a clear preference towards people especially family ones.

   • usually accept cuddles from anyone as have no separation or stranger anxiety.

3. SPECIFIC (7-12 months)

   • babies start to display classic attachment towards the person who they have the most interaction and responses with (65% of time is mother)

   • have anxiety towards strangers and when the figure is absent

4. MULTIPLE (1 year+)

   • extend attachment to multiple people who they regularly spend time with

   • secondary attachments e.g. grandparents, babysitter, siblings

Schafer and Emerson’s study of attachment

did an observational study on the formation of early infant-caregiver interactions

60 babies (31 male, 29 female) in skilled working class families from Glasgow

visited babies in home every month for a year and again at 18 months, and asked mum questions about baby’s protests in 7 everyday activities e.g. baby left alone in a room

also assessed stranger anxiety, their response to unfamiliar people, by the researcher approaching the child at each home visit

Evaluating Schaffer and Emerson’s study of attachment

Good external validity: most of the observations were made by parents during ordinary activities and reported to the researchers so babies would behave naturally as with the parent.

• mothers being observers will not be objective- they will be biased about what they notice and how accurately they report it.

Practical application for day care

• asocial and indiscriminate: straight forward as babies can be comforted by a skilled adult- should start day care now

• specific: day care with unfamiliar adult (especially beginning it) may be problematic

Study done longitudinally so has good internal validity as no participant variables

Poor evidence for asocial stage- measuring attachment here is hard as young babies have poor coordination and are fairly immobile so anxiety may be shown in subtle unobservable ways which makes it difficult for mothers to observe and report back.

Only used one sample in an individualistic culture (collectivist cultures tend to have multiple attachments from an early age) meaning research is not generalisable

Just because a baby gets distressed when an individual leaves the room does not signify attachment

• Bowlby: children often get distressed when a playmate leaves but this does not signify attachment

• therefore Schaffer and Emerson’s study does not distinguish between secondary attachment and playmates

Reciprocity

when each person responds to the other and elicits a response (turn taking)

e.g. baby smiles, the mum talks back

• alert phases- babies periodically signal that they are ready for interaction and pay close attention to expressions (mums notice 2/3 of time)

• active involvement- infant and caregivers initiate interactions and respond appropriately. Brazelton

Interactional Synchrony

perform actions in unison to mirror each other

• babies will be depressed if there is no synchrony or they are not responded to e.g. still face, Tronick

• Meltzoff and Moore: begins as young as 2 weeks old. an adult displayed one of 3 facial expressions or a gesture and there then was a significant association with how the baby would respond.

• Isabella: observed 30 mother and babies together and their synchrony, assessed their quality of attachment. high levels of synchrony associated with better quality mother- baby attachments.

Attachment and the 3 characteristics

A particular type of emotional bond between the infant and the caregiver shown with reciprocal affection, frequent interaction, proximity and selectivity.

1. Proximity- try to stay physically close to attachment figure

2. separation distress- people show signs of anxiety when attachent figure leaves their presence

3. secure based behaviour- make regular contact even when we are independent of them e.g. baby returning to mum when playing

evaluating caregiver interactions

filmed observations in a lab meaning other distractions can be controlled, observations can be recorded in order to analyse them later, and different researchers can agree on the views of data. babies will not show demand characteristics

research into care-giver interactions has practical applications in parenting skills training.

• Crotwell, after a 10 minute ineraction therapy, interactional synchrony was improved in 20 pairs.

hard to observe and interpret a baby’s behaviour as studying small hand movements or subtle changes in expression which could be a response or may just be a twitch e.g. a smile may be a response or could just be passing wind. you cannot know from the baby’'s perspective

observing a behaviour does not tell us its developmental importance

• Feldman: synchrony and reciprocity give names to patterns in behaviour but are not useful in understanding child development as does not explain the purpose

→ evidence from other researchers that early interactions are important e.g. Isabella- interactional synchrony helped make good quality attachments, relieve stress and improve language skills

Statistics on attachment to the father

sole first attachment- 3%

joint first attachment- 27%

75% of babies formed attachment with their father after 18 months

Grossman’s research on role of the father

did a longitudinal study on babies till teenage years

researchers looked at both parent’s behaviour and relationship with child, and compared it to the quality of baby’s later attachment to other people

• quality of mother attachment was related to attachment in adolescene (not the father)

• quality of the father’s play with baby was related to adolescence attachment

• fathers have different role from mothers- more to do with play and stimulation, less to do with emotional development

Field’s research on role of the father

filmed 4 month old babies in face-to-face interactions with:

primary caregiver mother

primary caregiver father

secondary caregiver fathers

• primary caregivers (mothers and fathers) spent more time smiling, imitating and noticing- part of attachment process in reciprocity and interactional synchrony

• a baby’s relationship with their primary attachment figure forms basis of all later close emotional attachments

• when fathers are primary caregivers they are able to adopt the emotional role typically associated with mothers

• fathers only express emotion focysed and responsiveness when they are primary caregivers

Evaluating the role of the father

Research can offer economical advice to parents

• parents and prospective parents often worry who should be the primary caregiver (may even stop them having kids)

• mothers may feel pressured to stay at home, and fathers at work due to stereotypes

• this research can be reassuring as fathers can be primary caregivers e.g. mother can be breadwinner and dad stay at home if that is best for their family’s income

Lack of clarity over the question ‘what is the role of the father’

• some researchers want to understand role of the father for:

  • secondary attachments: fathers have a distinct role in play

  • primary attachments: they can be nurturing

• therefore hard to answer as a specific role is not being discussed

Findings vary according to the methodology used

longitudinal studies show fathers as secondary attachment figures have distinct roles in play and stimulation

• this suggests, however, that children whose parents are lesbian or whose mother is single, lack something

• McCallum and Golombok: show children from non- nuclear families do not develop differently

• therefore, questions about father’s distinct role remain unanswered

→ however, lines of research may not actually be in conflict as parents in non-nuclear families may adapt to include this role played by fathers so children are not bereft. when present, fathers have distinct role but families can adapt to not having a father.

Preconceptions about how fathers should behave (through media e.g. father’s stricter) may cause unintentional researcher bias so researchers record what they expect to see rather than objective reality

Lorenz’s research, animal studies of attachment

randomly divided a large litter of goose egg

• half hatched with mum in their natural environment

• half hatched in an incubator, and the first moving object they saw was Lorenz

Despite putting them all with the mother, half stayed with mum and half followed Lorenz around everywhere

Imprinting: bird species that are mobile from birth attach to the first moving object they see

• Lorenz said there was a critical period where imprinting takes place- for babies this was in the first 2-5 years otherwise there is irreversible consequences for later relationships, intelligence, behaviour and psychology.

Sexual imprinting: peacoack reared in the reptile house with a tortoise as an adult would only show mating behaviour to the tortoise

Evaluation of Lorenz

research support, regolin and Vallortigara

• chicks were exposed to simple shape combinations that moved e.g. triangle with a rectangle

• then showed a range of combinations- however they followed the original most closely

• shows young animals born with innate mechanism to imprint on moving object in critical period

Poor generalisability to humans

• cannot generalise findings and conclusions from birds to humans. mammalian attachment system is quite different and more complex e.g. 2 way attachment

Guiton: chickens imprinted on yellow washing up gloves and tried to mate with them as adults- with experience they learned to prefer mating with other chickens showing imprinting does not have a permanent effect

Harlow’s research, animal studies of attachment

soft object serves most of the function of a mother

reared 16 baby monkeys with 2 wire model ‘mothers’: one was plain wire and one was covered in cloth and they both dispensed milk to 8 of the monkeys

baby monkeys cuddled cloth covered monkeys in preference to plain wire and cuddled cloth when scared

→ contact comfort was important than food for attachment

followed monkeys into adulthood: maternal deprivation, aggressive, unsociable, undeveloped, unskilled at mating killed their children

had critical period of 90 days

Evaluation of Harlow

important real world application

• helps social workers and clinical psychologists understand lack of bonding experience may be risk factor in child development

• early relationships are key for later social development

• understand importance of attachment figures for monkeys

poor ability to generalise findings and conclusions from monkeys to humans.

• more similar to humans than Lorenz’s birds but human brain and behaviour still more complex

Ethical issues of research as caused severe and long term distress to monkeys (distress human like)

→ cost benefit analysis

Learning theory, classical conditioning

UCS food → UCR pleasure

NS caregiver → no response

UCS + NS food and caregiver → UCR pleasure

CS caregiver → CS pleasure

when the same person provides food over time they become associate with food, then the sight of the caregiver produces pleasure (love) so the attachment forms.

Operant conditioning, Learning theory

babies cry for comfort and receive positive reinforcement as they are then rewarded through food meaning that they are more likely to repeat the behaviour due to the positive consequence.

the caregiver avoids negative consequences when they feed because the baby no longer cries meaning the caregiver is more likely to repeat this behaviour

2 way process strengthens attachment

Attachment is a secondary drive, learning theory

hunger is a primary drive because it is innate and biological so we are motivated to eat in order to reduce this.

Sears: as caregivers provide food, attachment as a secondary drive is learnt through the caregiver giving satisfaction through food

Evaluation learning theory

Elements of conditioning could be involved in some aspects of attachment

• unlikely that association with food plays a central role in attachment but conditioning may still play a role.

• e.g the baby feels more warm and comfortable with a particular adult so wants them more

→ conditioning may not be an adequate explanation as babies are more active in attachment than passive.

Lack of support from animal studies

• Lorenz’s geese imprinted on the first moving object they saw which was separate from any food

• Harlow’s monkeys preferred the cloth covered surragate even those who were fed by the plain wire one

• shows that other factors help to form attachments.

Lack of support from studies of babies

• Schaffer and Emerson: babies tend to form their main attachment to their mother regardless of whether she fed them.

• Isabella: the quality of attachment was dependent on the interactional synchrony.

• shows that food is not the main factor- this is just reductionist as just 1 aspect of care

Hay and Vespo: parents teach children to love them by modelling attachment behaviours e.g. hugging. Parents also reinforce this by showing approval when kids show their own attachment behaviours back e.g. holding hand, hugging

→ suggests infants learn attachment through social interactions and imitations of behaviour. this is a 2 way interaction so supports reciprocity.

Bowlby’s explanation for attachment, monotropy

emphasised the importance on child’s attachment to one caregiver

more time spent with primary attachment figure is better for the child’s development

• law of continuity: care needs to be constant and predictable

• law of accumulated separation: effects of separation add up “safest dose is zero”

Bowlby’s explanation of attachment, social releasers

babies have innate cute behaviours like smiling, laughing and gripping that encourage adult attention. the purpose is to activate adult social interaction to make the adult and child attach (reciprocal)

Bowlby’s explanation of attachment, critical/ sensitive period

when the infant attachment system is active

• maximally sensitive at 6 months but can then last to age 2

• if in attachment is not formed in this time, a child will find it harder to form one later

Bowlby’s explanation of attachment, internal working model (and continuity hypothesis)

child forms a mental representation of relationship with their primary attachment figure which serves a model for what relationships are like.

• having a loving relationship with a primary caregiver means you then expect all relationships to be loving and reliable, and bring these qualities to future relationships

• first relationship has poor treatment means you will form poor relationships, expect poor behaviour and act poorly

• it also affects the child’s later ability to parent as they base their parenting behaviour on how they were parented

→ continuity hypothesis: internal working mode shapes all future attachments long term

Evaluating Bowlby’s theory of attachment

Evidence supporting role of social releasers, BRAZELTON

• observed babies trigger interactions with adults, then instructed adults to ignore babies social releasers

• babies became increasingly distressed and some eventually curled up and lay motionless supporting role of social releasers in attachment

Evidence supporting internal working model, BAILEY

• assessed attachment in 99 mothers and their 1 year old, and then also assessed mother’s own attachment to her primary caregiver

• mothers with poor attachment to primary caregiver more likely to have poorly attached children

• shows that the internal working model does impact generations of attachment

→ also other important influences of attachment e.g. genetic differences in anxiety and sociability affects behaviours and parenting

Attachment is innate and universal, TRONICK

• found african tribe with very different child wearing system to western societies still had 1 primary attachment

Real world application in improving childcare

• e.g. fostering instead of orphanages, parents being allowed to stay with children in hospitals, parental leave for adoptions

Laws of continuity and accumlated attachment means mothers who work may negatively affect children’s development causing pressure and like they have to then take the blame for any wrongs. Feminists argue this gives an excuse to restrict mothers

Temperament hypothesis- type of attachment not only influenced by responsiveness and sensitivity of caregiver, but also individual personality.

RUTTER- multi attachment system as all attachments are important and form the internal working model, Bowlby’s monotropic theory is at expense of other key figures like fathers.