Attachment: Reciprocity and Synchrony

• Attachment is a reciprocal emotional bond between an infant and their primary caregiver.

Reciprocity and Interactional Synchrony

• Reciprocity is a two-way process where both the child and mother bond with each other to form an attachment.
• Both parties contribute to the relationship and respond to each other.
• Brazleton et al. demonstrated that children as young as 2 weeks old can attempt to copy their caregiver, who responds two-thirds of the time.
• Reciprocity teaches the child to communicate and allows the parent to better care for the child by detecting and responding to cues.
• Interactional synchrony occurs when the infant and caregiver synchronize their interactions.
• Condon and Sander (1974) found that children can synchronize movements with the sound of an adult's voice.
• Brazleton et al. showed that young infants can copy facial expressions or gestures.
• The interaction changes with the rhythm, pitch, and volume of the adult's speech, which can lead to better communication when the child is older.
• Studies use controlled observations and filming from different angles to ensure detail and accuracy which allows for valid conclusions using inter rater reliability
• A weakness of interactional Synchrony research is researchers do not know whether the actions of children are meaningful, especially since young children have little or no motor coordination.

Stages of Attachment (Schaffer and Emerson's Study, 1964)

• Aim = identify stages of attachment and patterns in the development of attachment between infants and parents.
• Involved 60 babies from Glasgow from the same estate.
• Researchers analyzed interactions between infants and carers through interviews and mothers keeping diaries to track behaviors like separation anxiety, stranger anxiety, and social referencing.
• Longitudinal study lasted 18 months, with monthly visits to the infants.
• Infants with parents/carers showing 'sensitive responsiveness' were more likely to have formed an attachment
• Sensitive responsiveness was more important than time, so infants formed more attachments with those who spent less time but were more sensitive.
• Infants with responsive parents had more intense attachments, while those without interaction had weak attachments.
• Attachments formed when the carer communicates and plays with the child

Stages of Attachment

• Asocial Stage (0-6 weeks) = infant responds to objects and people similarly, more to faces and eyes.
• Indiscriminate Attachments (6 weeks – 6 months) = infant develops more responses to human company. Can be comforted by anyone.
• Specific (7 months +) = infant prefers one carer, seeks security, comfort, and protection from them, and shows stranger and separation anxiety.
• Multiple (10/11 months +) = infant forms multiple attachments and seeks security, comfort, and protection from multiple people. Shows separation anxiety for multiple people.
• There are attachments with their mothers, fathers, siblings, extended family members and family friends. Out of all attachments strength and value varied greatly to the child.

Evaluation of Stages of Attachment

• Lacks population validity due to Glasgow origin and working class families. Small sample of 60 cannot be generalized.
• Schaffer's stages lack population and temporal validity due to changed parenting techniques, affected by Bowlby's work, suggesting caution when generalizing findings.
• May lack internal validity because it uses self-report from a daily diary, it is not as accurate due to parents being busy or exhibiting potential biases.

Role of the Father

• Schaffer and Emerson. found that 75% of infants formed a secondary attachment to their father by 18 months, with 29% within a month of forming a primary attachment.
• Tiffany Field suggested the father can become the primary attachment figure, finding that primary caregivers were more attentive regardless of gender.
• MacCallum and Golombok show that children growing up in homosexual or single-parent families were not different compared to children with two heterosexual parents, therefore, role of father is disputed.
• The gender of the primary caregiver is influenced by societal expectations and biological factors.
• Blaming parents for abnormalities is socially sensitive, so pressures single parents to return to work later for secure attachment.

Animal Studies of Attachment

• Lorenz demonstrated imprinting, where animals attach to the first moving object or person they see after birth. Formation must occur in birth for the first 30 months of life.
• Sexual imprinting is a similar concept where animals show sexual behaviors towards the first moving object they see.
• Generalizing Lorenz's findings has issues because mammalian attachment systems differ from those of birds, and mammals can form attachments at any point in their life, therefore, there is low ecological validity.
• Guiton et al. demonstrated, sexual imprinting isn't permanent as chickens who imprinted on washing up gloves eventually preferred mating with chickens, so learning and experience are more important.
• Harlow demonstrated importance of contact comfort where baby monkeys sought comfort from a cloth-bound mother regardless of which wire monkey was dispensing milk.
• Monkeys are less skilled at mating, more aggressive towards their offspring, and socially isolated due to developmental issues.
• Harlow's research demonstrated the importance of attachment figures, intellectual stimulation, and contact comfort, leading to changes in animal care in zoos.
• Harlow's experiment has some ethical issues for long-term psychological harm.

Explanations of Attachment: Learning Theory and Bowlby's Monotropic Theory

• Learning theory views attachments as learned through experiences.
• Cupboard love is where attachments form to the person providing food
• Classical conditioning involves the baby associating the mother with pleasure, leading to attachment formation.
• Operant conditioning involves the child associating the caregiver with rewards and receiving attention and food.

Bowlby's Monotropic Theory of Attachment

• Evolutionary theory stating attachments are innate
• Adaptive = attachments are adaptive and beneficial for survival.
• Social releasers = babies cute faces which adults care for because it activates the mammalian attachment system.
• Critical period = - the time that attachment can form and suggested that if no attachment is formed individuals can be socially, emotionally, intellecturally and physically stunted.
• Monotropy = form one special intense attachment typically with the mother and if it does not exists there is emotional and intellectual developmental deficits.
• Internal working model = in the brain for information that allows the individual to understand how to behave around people.
• Internal working models are formed during the initial attachment and have a significant impact later in life.
• Monotropy suggests not the primary attachment figure is the mother.

Ainsworth's 'Strange Situation'

• Designed 'the strange situation' as a procedure to assess how securely attached a child was to its caregiver.
• Controlled observation conducted through a two-way mirror with seven stages each lasting 3 minutes.
• The assessment focuses on 4 behaviours = separation anxiety, stranger anxiety, willingness to explore and reunion behaviour with the caregiver.
• According to that Ainsworth was able to identify 3 types of attachments = secure, insecure resistant, and insecure avoidant.
• Secure attachments show some separation anxiety when parent leaves but child can be soothed and are able to play independently as a base to explore an environment (65%)
• Insecure Resistance attachments show when the infant becomes distressed when the parent leaves and when returns repeatedly switches from seeking and rejecting social interaction. Typically 3%
• Insecure avoidant attachments show for in separation anxiety when carers leaves so may show how angry and are avoidint intimacy (20%)

Evaluation of the ‘strange situation’

• Measured the relationship with one attachment figure, but only used mothers in the study.
• There were ethical issues involved and 20% of children cried in desperation.
• Lacks population and ecological validity because most of of the studies were based in the USA.
• Conducted in a lab with confounding variables highly controlled.

Cultural Variations in Attachment

• Van Izjendoorn and Kronenberg (1988) conducted a meta-analysis of 32 studies using 8 countries, all investigating the patterns of attachment across a variety of cultures
• There have been several studies to conduct the different distributions of different patterns
• The proportion of securely attached children in Italy was only 50% because now woman work and more mother use professional childcare.
• Korean infants are classed as in secure resistant because, children rearing practices are influential in patents attachment
• Strange situation does not account for cultural variations between countries attachment. Can measure culture variations through different countries but not countires within the same country.

Bowlby's Theory of Maternal Deprivation

• Essential for healthy psychological and emotional development and if there is negative consequences of maternal deprivation then there will be, such consequences as, an inability to form attachments in the future, feeling affectionless psychopathy , delinquency and problems with cognitive.
• Attachements are commonly disrupted when there is stay in hospitals which is separated from an abusive or not attentional absent parents.
• In order to assess the effects of maternal deprevitation, Bowlby conducted a 44 theives children study and show affectionless psychopathy and depervation during the crinical.
• Lewis al disagreed with the results because they found no link between internal deprivation because it does control confounding variable.

Effects of Institutionalisation

• Likelihood of privation and a number of show distress.
• Children can be placed into a institution when they were less than 4 when not yet formed attachments.
• 70% were described as not able ‘to care deeply about anyone’
• Rutter found that children with disinhibited attachemnt, were a result of having too much carevigers.

Bowlby's Influence of Early Attachment on Childhood and Adult Relationships

• Influenced children in attachment childhood and adult relationships like families or romantic.
• Internal work models creates how people behave and it creates personality types.
• A child’s model can lead to devolvement abuse or lack of intimacy.
• Research found that majority of woman had the same attachembt to their children and mothers.
• Early attachents can create happiness as a child and last longer as an adult.
• Suggests the influence of early attachemnets, means a poor attachemnt means can bad parenting from future genarations.