Attachment and Explanations

Attachment and Explanations

1. Attachment - "close emotional relationship between infant and caregiver"

   • Schaffer identified stages of attachment:
     • pre-attachment (asocial): 0-3 months, baby learns to separate people from objects, no preferences for caregiver
     • indiscriminate phase: 6 weeks-7 months, infant starts to clearly distinguish people, smiling more at people it knows than strangers. no preferences still
     • Discriminate phase: 7-11 months, able to form strong attachment with an individual. illustrated by being content when their around, stressed when they leave but happy upon return
     • multiple attachment phase: 9months +, infant can form multiple attachments to many different people, some may be stronger than others and fulfill different functions e.g. play, comfort.
       • Schaffer said by 18 months that 32% of babies had atleast 5 attachments.
     • Schaffer and Emerson (1964) - Method: 60 babies observed in homes every 4 weeks from birth to 18 months (longitudinal), interviews conducted by families. Results: Schaffers stages were found to occur (at 8 months 50 infants had multiple attachments, about 20 of them had no attachment with mother or had stronger one with someone else even though mother was main carer). Conclusion: infants form attachments in stages and can eventually have multiple. quality of care is important (if someone responds more accurately to babies signals then it will attach to them first).
       • limited sample, evidence from interviews and observations may be biased and unreliable.
       • Tronick et al (1992) found infant in zaire had a strong attachment with their mother by 6 month but had no strong attachments with others even though they had several carers
       • mother was primary caregiver for only 1/2 of infants, 1/3 preffered father and rest had strongest attachment with grandparents and siblings.
         • Goodsell and Meldrum (2009) - those with secure attachments to mother were more likely to be securely attached to father.
         • Ross et al (1975) - number of nappies changed by father positively correlates to strength of attachment.
           • Caldera (2004) - 60 fathers + mothers, 14 month old babies, when fathers involved in caregiving activities they were much more likely to develop a strong attachment with their child.
         • Geiger (1996) suggested mother and fathers roles are different; mothers are nurturing and caring and father's relationship is play.

2. features of caregiver-infant interaction

   • sensitive responsiveness: caregiver responds appropriately to signals
   • imitation: infant copies caregivers actions and behaviour
     • meltzoff and moore (1977) infants between 2-3 weeks appeared to imitate facial expressions and hand movements of experimenter
   • interactional synchrony: infants react in time to caregivers speech - "conversation dance"
     • Condon and Sander (1974) evidence for this concept, shows how babies move in time with adult conversations
   • reciprocity: interaction flows back and forth between caregiver and infant
   • motherese: slow, high pitched way of speaking to infants.

3. Animal Studies

   • Lorenz (1935) - geese attach to first moving thing they see after birth (imprinting), divided a clutch of goose eggs into 2 eggs (one with their mother, one in incubator). he found that they followed him in same way they followed their mum. he put both groups together and found they both re-arranged into their groups and looked for their mothers. he determine that imprinting happens 13-16 hours after hatching he called this the critical period (if they don't imprint during this period they can never imprint)
     • used precocial species (can see and walk from birth) - very different from humans.
   • Harlow (1959) - Method: aimed to find whether baby monkeys would prefer a source of food or a source of comfort and protection. rhesus monkeys had a wire mother with a bottle and a cloth mother with no bottle. Results: monkeys spent most of their time clinging to cloth surrogate and only used wire one to feed (cloth surrogate gave them comfort in new situations) when monkeys grow up they had social and emotional disturbances and were poor and violent mother. Conclusion: infant monkeys formed more attachment with something that gave them comfort, growing up in isolation affected development.
     • lab experiment, good control of variables.
     • can't be generalised to humans as was monkeys
     • ethical problems: monkeys were put in stressful situations and showed signs of being damaged
     • monkeys kept in isolation, not in there natural habitat so lacked ecological validity.
     • results are replicable however ethical guideline now in place mean couldn't be repeated.
     • Harlow and zimmerman (1959) added a fearful stimulus (oversized toy), when placed in cage they would cling to cloth mother; if only wire surrogate was present they would run around the cage. researchers concluded that strong attachment with primary caregiver is highly important in development
     • Harlow and Sumoi (1970) cloth mother with and without food, one with food was prepared so concluded it is a factor.
   • hard to generalise findings from animals to humans
   • might not be generalisable but definitely have influence on policies and theories in different fields of research.
   • ethics
     • some studies could not have been conducted on humans ethically e.g harlow's monkeys
     • some see it as unethical to inflict suffering to animals, especially when they can't give consent

4. explanations of attachment

   • Behaviourism and conditioning.
     • Classical Conditioning - associations, baby finds food pleasurable, when mother is around it gets fed = forms association between mother and food, whenever mother is around there is pleasure.
     • Operant Conditioning - Dollard and Miller (1950) babies feel discomfort, have a desire to get food to alleviate the discomfort. if they cry their mother will come feed them so discomfort is removed (negative reinforcement). mother is associated with food and baby will be close to her; this produces attachment behaviour (distress when separation)
     • lots of scientific support
     • reductionist, it tries to explain complex attachments with simple stimulus-response.
     • lots of ungeneralisable evidence from animal research
     • Schaffer and Emerson (1964) doesn't support learning theory as half of attachments weren't with mother.
   • Bowlby (1951) - he argued that we all have a biological need to attach to primary caregiver (developed through natural selection to ensure survival of child)
     • Monotropy: we form one main attachment (50% of cases is mother) this has a survival value as it ensures protection and food. strong attachment provides a "safe base" allowing us to explore environment
       • Schaffer and Emmerson (1964) - provided evidence against monotropy, found that many children form multiple attachments and may not attach to mother
       • Harlow (1959) monkeys raised without mothers but with other monkeys would attach to their peers and showed no signs of disturbance in later life
     • Internal Working model: forming an attachment provides a template from which we can base all future relationships on. the model is "working" as it can change and develop over time depending on how relationships change. Primary caregiver provides foundations for child's future relationships (continuity hypothesis)
     • Critical period: first 3 years of life are critical period to attach, otherwise this may never happen. if attachment never forms (privation) or is broken (deprivation) it may impact the child's social and emotional development.
       • maternal deprivation thesis - assumes if relationship between mother and child is disrupted during the critical period there will be long term consequences.
       • Czech twins Case study (1976) effects of privation and deprivation may be overstated
     • Harlow's monkeys: supports idea of evolutionary need to attach, suggests social and emotional development will be impaired if attachment doesn't form.
     • Bowlby's report in the 1950s led to an increase in stay at home mothering, had implications for economy.