Attachment

Attachment

1. Introduction to attachment

   • Alert phases : Babies will signal when they are ready to interact
   • Reciprocity : caregiver - infant interaction is reciprocal
   • Interactional synchrony : caregiver and infant signals synchronise (like swimmers)
   • Multiple attachments : attachments to two or more poeple
   • Attachment to fathers : most children are attached to their fathers in 18 months
     • Fathers play more of a playing role rather than comfort children, this is able to contribute to the child's attachment
     • Father as a primary caregiver - they will smile and imitate and comfort like mothers
     • Research into the role of the father in development
       • Grossman 2002 : the quality of the infant attachment in adolescence is related to the quality of attachment that they had with their fathers
         • It showed that the father is more important in the stimulation role then a nurturing one
       • Children who grown up in a same sex or single parent household do not develop any differently to those that don't = the father role is not important
       • The findings in the research is always inconsistent = overall picture is unclear
   • Research into interaction
     • The controlled nature that they are observed in makes it possible to capture the fine details of the interactions
       • This also increase the validity
     • Research involves observing the simple gestures and it is hard to assume the infants interactions
       • We can not be certain what behaviours are seen in mother and infant interactions are special

2. Schaffer's stages of attachment

   • Mothers of 60 babies reported monthly the levels of stranger and separation anxiety that their child displayed
     • Most of the babies showed attachment to a primary CG by 32 weeks and then developed multiple attachments
   • Aim was to investigate the age of attachment and who they formed with
     • The research has good external validity because it was done in the participants natural environment
     • The measuring of attachment is a weakness of the study - just because a child cries when an adult leaves the room does not mean that they are attached
     • Van Ijzendoorn et al - found that in different contexts multiple attachments can come first
   • The four stage of attachment
     • Asocial stage
       • Happier with humans - last for a few weeks (Indy is now somewhat happy with the cats and dogs )
     • Indiscriminate stage
       • 2-7 months - prefer humans and have some recognition (Indy is able to recognise Esme when she walks in a room)
     • Specific attachment
       • From 7 months - stranger and separation anxiety (Indy when Katie or Paul leave a room without him)
     • multiple attachment
       • Shortly after specific attachment the child will display separation anxiety towards CG as well

3. Animal studies

   • Ethology - the study of animal behaviour
   • Imprinting - newly hatched goslings attach to the first moving object they see

4. Romanian Orphan studies

   • Institutionalisation - the effects of spending large amounts of time in an orphanage or children home
   • Effects of institutionalisation - disinhibited attachment and mental retardation
   • Rutter et al - English and Romanian adopt study
     • 165 Romanian orphans - in poor conditions before coming to the UK
       • Can good care counteract the poor conditions that they have experienced = Physical - cognitive - emotional with assessments @ 4 - 6 - 11 - 15
       • A control group of British orphans were followed as well
       • Half the orphans showed signs of mental retardation when they came to the UK
         • The recovery rates were all based off the age of adoption
         • children who were adopted before 6 months = IQ 102
         • Children who were adopted between 6-24 months = IQ 86
         • After 24 months = IQ 77
         • Those that were adopted after 6 months had frequent disinhibited
   • Evaluations
     • The study has practical applications - it has helped improve the way that children are cared for in care homes now
       • Care homes do not allow children to have many carers - children can develop normal attachments
     • The original orphan studies used orphans who had experienced a lof trauma
       • It is hard to observe the effects of institutionalisation - confounding variable
       • Most of the Romanian orphans were abandoned at birth - less confounding variables + increased internal validity
     • The conditions of the orphans were so bad that the results may be hard to generalise to situations of deprivation
       • The Romanian orphans had low standards of care - the unusual situational variables = study lacks generalisability
     • Rutter did not interfere with the process of adoption - the children who had been adopted earlier may have been socialised
       • In Bucharest Early Intervention Study - the parents were assigned children
         • This gets rid of the problem of the parents choosing the child that they would like

5. Bowlby's theory's of attachment

   • Monotropy - One primary attachment is different and more important than others
   • Innate - it provides survival advantage
   • Social releasers - innate behaviours which are designed to elicit adult responses
   • Critical period - the period in which babies are adapted to form attachments
   • Internal working model - the attachments in early life form models for later relationships
   • The Monotropic theory
     • Attachment is a survival advantage for infants, the child stays close to the mother
       • Primary attachment figures are more important than others
       • + Spending time with the mother = good + beneficial = 1) Law of continuity + 2) Law of accumulated separation
       • Babies are born with social releasers - they are able to activate the adults attachment system
       • The critical period = when the attachment system is maximally active + if attachments are not formed then they are harder to form in later life
       • The first attachment creates a mental representation of their relationship with the caregiver - it then creates a template of how relationships should be like later
         • This predicts that the patterns of attachment are passed on through generations