This document covers the Attachment topic in A level psychology: caregiver-infant interactions, Schaffer and Emerson, role of the father, animal studies (Harlow and Lorenz), learning theory, Bowlby, Bowlby's theory of maternal deprivation, Ainsworth's strange situation, and cultural variations.
Attachment - an emotional bond between two people in which each seeks closeness and
feels more secure when in the presence of the attachment figure
Strong, lasting, emotional bond formed between a baby and their main caregiver
● Emotional bond between two people, two-way process that endures over time
● Each individual sees the other as essential for their own emotional security
● In humans - takes a few months to develop
● Leads to certain behaviours e.g. clinging (separation distress) and proximity seeking,
and serves the function of protecting an infant (secure base)
Reciprocity - involves turn-taking and mutual responsiveness - both respond to each other
and each elicits a response from the other, doesn’t necessarily mean responding with the
same behaviours, two-way
Interactional synchrony - infant and caregiver mirror each other , involves mutual focus
and mirroring of emotion or behavior, in a synchronised fashion 🪞
Imitation - infant mimics/copies the adult’s behaviour
Sensitive responsiveness - adult attends sensitively to infant’s communications
Examples: reciprocity
● Alert phases - from birth babies signal when they are ready to interact
● Feldman and Eidelman (2007) - found that mothers (typically) pick up on and
respond to alertness (⅔ of the time)
● Reciprocity increases after 3 months
Meltzoff and Moore
● Observed the beginnings of interactional synchrony in infants as young as 2 weeks
old
● An adult displayed one of three facial expressions or one of three distinctive gestures
● Child’s response was filmed
● Findings - babies as young as 12-27 days old would attempt to imitate facial and
physical gestures
● Jaffe (1973) demonstrated that infants coordinated their actions with caregivers in a
conversation. From birth - babies move in a rhythm when interacting with an adult
almost as if taking turns like in conversation. One person leans forward and speaks
and then it’s the other’s turn = reciprocity
● Brazelton (1979) - supports Jaffe further - found this rhythm is important for later
communication. The regularity of the infant signals allows caregiver to anticipate
future behaviour = lays foundations of attachment
Interactional synchrony
● Isabella (1989) observed 30 mothers and infants together, assessed the degree of
synchrony
● The researchers also assessed the quality of mother-infant attachment
● Found high levels of synchrony were associated with better quality mother-infant
attachments
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