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Summary AQA A level Attachment notes
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Attachment - Caregiver-infant interactions in humansKey term -
❖ Attachment = an emotional tie between two people shown in their behaviour.
- The two-way communication builds a bond between the caregiver and infant.
Early interactions:-
- Babies are born with primitive reflexes, including sucking and grasping and also
sensory abilities, to help them tune into the social world.
Types of interactions in attachment include:
➢ Interactional synchrony
➢ Reciprocity
➢ Imitation - infant copies the adult’s behaviour
➢ Sensitive responsiveness - adult pays careful attention to infant’s communications
and responds in an appropriate manner (e.g., nappy changes)
➢ Caregiverness - adult modulates their voice for the baby, by talking slowly and in a
higher pitch (baby talk)
➢ Bodily contact - physical contact often skin-to-skin (e.g., breastfeeding)
Research Support -
Mehler et al. -
One-month-olds would suck faster on a pacifier when listening to their mother, compared to a
stranger's voice. This shows that babies could tell the difference and preferred to listen to their
mothers voice.
These studies show how babies enter the world already tuned to pay attention to important
social signals,such as faces and voice
Study on one-hour infants- Johnson and Morton
The infants were shown 3 types of faces: control, schematic and scrambled. They measured
how long the infants looked at each face.
They found - babies spent the most time looking at the schematic face
This implies that the orientation to face-like stimuli is innate.
Reciprocity and interactional synchrony:-
Key term -
❖ Reciprocity = the matching actions of two people
- E.g., mother-infant interaction is reciprocal, as both infant and mother
respond to each other’s signals and elicit a response from the other
Brazelton et al - describes reciprocity as a ‘dance’, as the infant and caregiver respond to
each other's moves
❖ Interactional synchrony = coordination between two people during an interaction.
- E.g., mother and infant reflect both the actions and emotions of the other, and
do this in a co-ordinated way
Research Support for interactional synchrony -
,MELTZOFF and MOORE -
observed the beginnings of interactional synchrony in infant between 2-3 weeks old
An adult displayed one of three facial expressions or distinctive gestures, such as opening mouth in
shock or opening and closing their hand. The child's response was then filmed and identified by an
independent observer.
An association was found between the expression of gesture the adult has displayed and the actions
of the babies, showing infants has imitated the experimenter
Isabella et al - High level of synchrony were associated with better quality of mother-infant attachment
Stages of attachment identified by schaffer:-
Key study - Schaffer and Emerson’s Glaswegian baby study -
M Schaffer and Emerson (1964) - studied 60 babies from Glasgow and the majority were from
E
T working-class families.
H The babies and their families were visited every month for a year, and then again at 18 months
O They interviewed the mothers and asked them about what kind of behaviour their babies showed
D
especially when separated, and told to use a scale from 1-10 if they show no protest to crying
loudly
F Between 25 and 32 weeks of age about 50% of the babies have separation anxiety to a particular
I
N adult, usually the mother:
D - 65% of first attachments were to the mother
I - 3% of first attachments were to the father
N
G By 40 weeks babies 30% has displayed multiple attachments - usually with the mother and father
(S) - high mundane realism - (L) - lacks temporal validity as it was over 50 years ago,
longitudinal study - families were visited and childrearing and cultural beliefs have changed since
regularly in their own homes and then. Suggesting it is not representative of the Uk or the
researchers used a process of world
triangulation
Schaffer identifies four key stages of attachment -
1. Asocial stage Babies produce a similar response to objects and people.
They display some preference for humans-like stimuli and prefer to look at
(0-6 weeks) faces. - Babies are happier in the presence of humans
They learn to discriminate familiar people from unfamiliar by smell and voice
2. Indiscriminate Babies display more sociable behaviour.
attachment They can tell apart and prefer to be in human company. They are easily
comforted and do not prefer specific individuals yet and don’t show
(6 weeks to 6 months) separation anxiety.
3. Specific Baby begins to display stranger anxiety, as well as being attached to one
attachment particular adult.
When their primary attachment figure leaves them they show separation
(7 months onwards) anxiety and protest
4. Multiples After having an attachment to one adult, at this stage babies then extend
attachment their attachment to multiple people. Babies begin to attach to people they
regularly spend time with, such as siblings, grandparents and childminders.
(10-11 months onwards)
, Multiple attachments and the role of the father:-
Research conducted by Schaffer and Emerson found that only 3% of attachments were with
their father, however this is outdated. Women still remain primary caregivers, but there has
been an increase in fathers also becoming a primary caregiver.
There are now changing cultural roles, such as single-parent fathers, househusband or
same-sex relationships.
In comparison to mothers, fathers are seen to encourage the importance of play with their
babies. This can be through interactions, emphasis stimulation, as well as risk taking
behaviour. This is different to mothers who take on a nurturing and comforting role.
VERISSIMO et al -
Observed preschool children’s relationship with mother and father, and compared it with
an assessment of later social interactions at nursery.
They found - a strong attachment to the father was the best predictor of the ability to make
friends in school, suggesting the role of the father is important in socialisation
Evaluation -
(S) - Social Contribution for Research onto the importance of the father - as a result of research
the importance of fathers playing a role in attachment has grown. This is shown through the
introduction of paternity leave, allowing men to share time with their partner when their baby is
born.
However, there are inconsistent findings in the role of the father. Other research agrees that fathers
do have an important role in their children’s development, but there was no difference found in
development when looking at children in same-sex or single-parent households.
- This suggests that the fathers role may not be as significant as suggested
(S) - controlled observations capture finer details - observations of mother-infant interactions are
generally well-controlled, with both mother and infant being filmed in multiple angles.
- This ensures that very fine details of behaviour can be recorded and later analysed.
This indicated that observations as a use of research into attachment is beneficial as it has good
validity
(L) - ethical implications when studying infants and Social sensitivity - infants cannot
communicate, meaning they cannot give consent to being studied. As a result of this, when they
grow up they may feel anxious that their information was publicised
It is socially sensitive when investigating child rearing techniques - some women may find their life
choices criticised, for example returning to work after birth, this can make parents feel
uncomfortable and blame themselves if their attachment with the infant is not strong
(L) - hard to understand what is happening when observing infants - observer bias -
This means we cannot be certain when interpreting mother-infant interactions. As a result of the
researchers not knowing how the baby is feeling, they may instead interpret it.
As a result the research can be seen to suffer observer bias and be unscientific
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