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Psychology Attachment Entire Specification
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This covers the entire content of Attachment for A Level Psychology, these notes helped me achieve a B in my exams and will be useful for you.
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What is an Attachment?- It is a close 2-way emotional bond between individuals, where
each individual sees the other as an essential for their own
environmental security.
Caregiver-Infant Interactions
- Reciprocity = Child and parent pay attention to each other’s verbal
and non-verbal signals, taking it in turns to initiate the sequence.
- Interactional synchrony = Coordinated rhythmic exchanges
between the carer and infant. Infants moves their body in tune with
the caregivers rhythm of spoken language, which reinforces the
attachment bond.
Meltzoff and Moore (1997):
- Babies as young as 2-3 weeks old, mimicked hand and facial
gestures. The study used an adult model, displaying one of three
facial expressions or hand movements. A dummy was then placed
in the infants mouth during the initial display to prevent any
response. The dummy was then removed, and the child’s
expression was filmed. They found that there was an association
between the infants behaviour and that of the adult model.
EVALUATION:
- Strengths = Highly controlled, no demand characteristics, has
practical application as it encourages parents to interact more.
- Weakness = observations don’t tell us about the purpose behind
synchrony or reciprocity, there are practical issues as it is very
difficult to control the baby’s behaviour.
Schaffer’s Stages of Attachment
- Aim = investigate the formation of early attachment and the age of
this development, emotional intensity and who they were attached
too.
- Method = they observed 60 Glaswegian babies for 18 months from
skilled working-class families – they were visited once a month for
a year and again at 18 months. Researchers asked parents to
observe their children in different circumstances, keep a diary and
report back to the researchers.
, - Results = between 25-32 weeks, 50% of the babies showed
separation anxiety towards a particular adult, usually the biological
mothers (specific attachment). Attachment tended to be to the
caregiver that was most sensitive to the infants signals and facial
expressions (the primary attachment figure). At 40 weeks, nearly
30% had formed multiple attachments, they were described as
secondary attachments.
Multiple attachments:
- Schaffer and Emerson (1964) found when infants were 18
months, they had already formed multiple attachments. Multiple
attachments is when infants form several different attachments
with a range of people. The opposite idea of this is Bowlby’s
Monotropy Theory. This states infants form one main attachment
with their primary caregivers and this is replicated through their life
in their relationships with others.
EVALUATION:
- Strengths = it’s a naturalistic observation as behaviours are
studied in an environment in which it occurs naturally, therefore
there is good external validity. It is a longitudinal study so its
possible to watch behaviours change overtime. There is
application as the stages can identify developmental delay or
infant caregiver bonding issue by healthcare professionals.
- Weakness = lacks reliability as not all children will fit into the
stages, some children may bond quickly and some slowly.
Reliability can be questioned because the accuracy of data
collected by parents who kept diaries isn’t very reliable. As a dairy
is likely to be inconsistent in terms of what and when things are
written, therefore showing inconsistency.
The Role of the Father
Grossman (2002):
- Aim = is examine how important fathers are in childhood
development and if they have a distinctive role.
- Procedure = looked at both parents behaviour and relationships to
the quality of children’s attachment experiences at the ages of 6,10
and 16. This was conducted by a longitudinal study of 44 families.
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