Detailed essay plans covering all topics in Attachment (AQA A-Level Psychology)
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Course
Attachment
Institution
AQA
Book
Psychology A Level Year 1 and AS: The Complete Companion Student Book for AQA
This document covers every possible essay that may come up for Attachment (AQA A-Level Psychology). They are simplified and easy to learn yet still have lots of detail to ensure you achieve the highest grade possible. There are abbreviations throughout that you should understand as a psychology stu...
Discuss infant-caregiver interactions + reciprocity / interactional synchrony (16)
Discuss research into caregiver-infant interactions in humans (16)
(don’t need all info - tailor to question)
Para 1 → Outline: caregiver infant interaction (AO1)
● Interactions between babies / PCG are baby led, adult responds to babies behaviour
● Early interactions have important functions for the child’s social development
● The responsiveness of the caregiver to the infant’s signals has profound effects
● 2 main aspects: reciprocity and interactional synchrony
Para 2 → Outline: reciprocity (AO1)
● Two-way interaction between caregiver and child
● Caregiver-infant interaction is a two-way / mutual process
● Each party responds to the other’s signals to sustain interaction (turn-taking)
● The behaviour of each party elicits a response from the other
● Behaviour is matched during interaction e.g. smiling back when someone smiles
● E.g Infant smiled, produces a smile from the PCG (normally baby led)
● Reciprocity influences a child’s physical, social and cognitive development
Para 3 → Outline: interactional synchrony (AO1)
● Simultaneous co-ordinated sequence of movements, communication, emotions
● Parent's speech / infant's behaviour become finely synchronised - in direct response
● Two people interact / mirror what the other is doing e.g facial / body movements
● Form of rhythmic interaction between infant and PCG
● Infants coordinate actions with PCG in a kind of conversation
● Infant / PCG anticipate how other will - elicits a particular response from the other
● E.g A PCG who laughs in response to their infants giggling sound and tickles them,
is experiencing synchronised interaction
Para 4 → Strengths: research into reciprocity - Brazelton (AO3)
● Observed mums / babies during interactions
● Reported existence of reciprocity - babies / caregivers respond to actions of other
● Primary attachment figures were told to not respond to babies signals
● Babies initially showed signs of distress, when the attachment figures continued to
ignore the babies some responded by curled up and lying motionless
Para 5 → Strengths: research into interactional synchrony - Meltzoff and Moore (AO3)
● Observational experiments to study start of interactional synchrony in infants
● Adults displayed distinctive facial gestures (tongue out) - infant responses observed
● Results indicated infants could imitate these facial and manual gestures
● Argue this interactional synchrony is important for development of attachment
● Suggest higher interactional synchrony associated with better quality attachment
Para 6 → Weakness: research is socially sensitive (AO3)
● Socially sensitive for / implications for working mothers
● Time consuming
● Babies are always sleeping so it is hard to find a time when they are alert
,Para 7 → Weakness: difficulties in reliability when testing infant behaviour (AO3)
● Infants mouth are always moving - hard to tell what’s general / imitated behaviour
● Expressions in the tests (smiling, yawning…) occur in infants so hard to distinguish
● Cause and effect - ethically impossible to manipulate variables e.g amount and
quality of interaction between baby and their caregiver
● M+M overcame this by measuring responses by filming just behaviour in interaction
● Then got an independent observer to judge the baby's behaviour
● They didn’t know which behaviour was being imitated and which behaviour wasn’t
● This increased the validity of the data
Para 8 → Weakness: failure to replicate (AO3)
● Other studies have failed to replicate findings of research
● Koepke failed to replicate the findings of Meltzoff and Moore
● Found babies were no more likely to stick out their tongue when the researcher did
compared to if they smiled
● Suggesting infant imitation / reciprocity / interactional synchrony may need to be
modified or abandoned
Issues with research into infant caregiver interactions → how they’re dealt with
● Context affects behaviour → natural setting (at home)
● Observational (bias0 → use more than one observer
● Practical issues → shorter observations
● Ethics → protection from harm
, Stages of attachment
Describe / evaluate stages of attachment identified by Schaffer and Emerson (16)
Para 1 → Outline: Schaffer (AO1)
● Newborn babies don’t have any attachments
● Schaffer’s theory on the stages of attachment is one of the most widely accepted
● His theory shows us what an attachment is / why we develop it in the first place
Para 2 → Outline: stages of attachment (AO1)
1. Indiscriminate attachments (0-8 weeks)
Behave similar between humans / non-human objects but prefer faces to non-faces
Happier with humans than when alone - Smile at anyone
2. Beginnings of attachments (2-7 months)
Recognise/prefer familiar people / faces but accept comfort from any adult
Preference for people rather than inanimate objects
3. Discriminate attachments (7-12 months)
Primary attachment to particular individual (person who shows most sensitivity)
Fear strangers (stranger anxiety) / unhappy when separated (separation anxiety)
4. Multiple attachments (1 year<)
Form secondary attachments with familiar adults they spend …time with e.g dad
Attachment to special person remains strongest
Baby is more independent / forms more attachments - fear of strangers weakens
Para 3 → Outline: longitudinal study (AO1)
● Schaffer and Emerson conducted a study on the development of attachment
● Followed 60 infants from mainly working class families in Glasgow
● Infants observed every 4 weeks until 12 months / again at 18 months
● Attachment was measured in 2 ways:
- Separation protest in 7 situations (left alone in a room/cot at night and so on)
Info obtained by interviewing the mums about the 7 situations
- Stranger anxiety ( researcher approached infant / noting when they whimper)
started to whimper
● Found attachments most likely to form with who responds accurately to the baby's
signals, NOT the person they spent more time with (RESPONSIVENESS)
● Mums who respond quickly to babies = intensely attached infants.
● Responsiveness seems the key to attachment
Para 4 → Weakness: issues with the study (methodology) (AO3)
● Data may be unreliable
● Behaviour monitored by mums - may have be less sensitive to infants' protests or
less likely to report them (also affected by DCs / socially acceptable behaviour)
● Creates a systematic bias which questions validity
● Longitudinal study - affected by drop out rates
● Control of EVs - babies become familiar with researcher affecting stranger anxiety
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