Attatchment

Attatchment

1. introduction to attatchment

   • Caregiver-infant interactions
     • reciprocity
       • - intense pleasurable interaction
       • after three months = increasingly frequent
       • baby takes an active role
       • each person responds to the other
       • Feldman and Eidelman, Brazelton et al
     • interactional synchrony
       • actions and emotions mirror the other
       • Feldman, Meltzoff and Moore, Isabella et al
     • hard to know what's happening- observing infants
     • controlled observations capture fine detail
     • don't tell us purpose of synchrony and reciprocity
   • Attatchment figures
     • parent-infant attatchment
       • schaffer and emmerson
       • attatched to mothers first
       • then secondary attatchments
     • the role of the father
       • Grossman longitudinal study
       • father attachment less important
       • play and stimulation role
     • fathers as primary carers
       • Tiffany field
       • fathers can be the primary caregiver
     • inconsistent findings on fathers
     • why aren't children without fathers different?
     • why don't fathers generally become primary attachments?

2. Schaffers stages of attachment

   • Schaffer and emmersons study
     • method
       • 60 babies
       • visited every month for first year then 18 months
       • separation and stranger anxiety
     • findings
       • 25-32 weeks 50% separation anxiety
       • 40 weeks 80% showed specific attatchment
       • 40 weeks 30% multiple attachment
     • good external validity
       • longitudinal design
         • limited sample characteristics
   • stages of attachment
     • 1: asocial
       • human and inhuman objects similar
     • 2: indiscriminate attachment
       • 2-7 months
       • not usual stanger or separation anxiety
     • 3: specific attachment
       • separation anxiety (bio mother 65%)
       • primary attachment figure
     • 4: multiple attachments
       • secondary attachments
       • 29% secondary within month of primary
   • problem studying asocial stage
     • conflicting evidence on multiple attachments
       • measuring multiple attached

3. Animal studies of attachment

   • Lorenz's research
     • imprinting
       • goose eggs
       • half with mother half incubator
       • followed mother or followed him
     • sexual imprinting
       • birds imprinting on humans then showed courtship towards humans
         • generalisability to humans
           • some observations questioned
       • peacock in reptile house
         • courtship towards giant tortoise
   • Harlow's research
     • the importance of contact comfort
       • 16 baby monkeys
         • cuddled soft over wire regardless of milk
       • wire mum and cloth mum
         • first milk by wire second milk by cloth
     • maternally deprived monkeys as adults
       • both cloth and wire not normal
       • aggressive and less sociable
       • neglected young
     • the critical period for normal development
       • within 90 days
     • theoretical value
       • practical value
         • ethical issues

4. learning theory explanation of attachment

   • classical conditioning
     • caregiver gives us unconditioned stimulus
     • associate caregiver with unconditioned stimulus
   • operant conditioning
     • baby cries for comfort - positive reinforcement
       • caregiver receives negative reinforcement
   • attachment as a secondary drive
     • drive reducton
       • food given by care giver = primary drive
         • attachment made as secondary drive
   • counter - evidence from animal research
     • counter evidence from human research
       • ignores other factors associated with forming attachments

5. bowlbys explanation