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Summary AQA A level Psychology - Attachment Revision notes + Essay plans
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AQA A level psychology revision notes for the whole topic of Attachment. Essay plans included. Produced by an A* student.
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AttachmentCaregiver- infant interactions in humans
Reciprocity Interactional synchrony
A description of how two people interact. Mother and infant reflect/ mirror the actions
Mother-infant interaction is reciprocal in that and emotions of the other and do this in a
both infant and mother respond to each other’s coordinated / synchronised way.
signal and each elicits a response from the
other.
Feldman and Eidelman (2007) - Meltzoff and Moore (1977) - observed infants
Babies have periodic ‘alert phases’ to signify @ 2 weeks old. Parent showed 1 of 3 gestures /
they want to interact. Mothers pick up on this facial expressions. Infant responses filmed,
⅔ of the time. found to be associated with parent’s action.
After 3 months, this is more prominent, with
special attention on verbal signals & facial Isabella et al investigated 30 mothers and
expressions. found high levels of synchrony were associated
Brazleton et al- called it ‘the Dance’ - with better quality attachment.
responding to each other’s moves. The baby
takes on an active role and also initiates
interactions.
It is thought that mimicking and caregiverese are innate abilities because they are present from birth
and are cross-cultural. This means that they do not evolve from babies' experiences but that they
have a genetic element.
☺Controlled experiments in a controlled ☹ Susceptible to observer bias, as subjective
experimental setting. Standardised procedures interpretation is required.
+ operationalised behavioural categories + Could reduce the validity as dependent on
filming from multiple angles = high reliability; perception of researcher, who may want
can be repeated to check the consistency of findings to match their hypothesis.
findings.
☺ Less prone to demand characteristics - ☹ Reduced value of insight in explaining
babies don’t know / care that they are being mother-infant interactions because difficult to
watched. Their behaviour will not change; true say whether infant did action/ gesture
reflection of interactions with caregiver. accidentally or deliberately.
High internal validity
☹ Observations don’t tell us the purpose of
synchrony and reciprocity - just describe them.
Evidence suggests these are important in
empathy, language and moral development.
, ☹ Socially sensitive research- controversial as it
suggests children may be disadvantaged by
particular child-rearing practices.
Career mothers = no interactional synchrony.
Role of father
Traditionally it was thought that the father had a supporting role for the mother, but research has
shown that fathers may be more important than this in infant attachment.
Discuss role of father in attachment:
- Role of societal norms in shaping role of father
- Field’s research (1978) shows fathers can be primary caregivers
- Grossman - quality of adolescent attachment to father is related to father’s play during
childhood
- Inconsistency in the research of role of father as to whether he plays a distinct role
- Same-sex + single-sex families = no differences in development = no distinct role
- Evolutionary explanations ; biological differences
Evaluation of the role of the father
☺ ☹ MacCallum and Golombok (2004) found that children growing up in single
parent / same sex families do not develop any differently.
= father has no distinct role / role as secondary attachment figure is not
important.
☹ Alternative explanations why fathers don’t become PCG = gender roles based
on society norms. Women expected to be more nurturing.
☹ Biological differences - oestrogen and oxytocin create higher levels of
nurturing behaviour - women might be predisposed to be the PCG.
☹ Socially sensitive research
☹ Field filmed 4 month old babies interacting with PCG mothers, PCG fathers
and SCG fathers. PCG fathers, like PCG mothers, spent more time smiling,
imitating and holding infants than SCG fathers.
Key to attachment = level of responsiveness, not gender.
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