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attachment p1 - Coggle Diagram

- - - - infants coordinate their actions with caregivers in a kind of conversation. From birth babies move in a rhythm when interacting with an adult almost as if they were taking turns. The caregiver and the infant respond to each other's signals, facial expressions etc and each gets a response from the other
      - Brazelton suggested that this basic rhythm is an important precursor to later communications. The regularity of an infants signals allows caregivers to anticipate the infants behaviour and response appropriately, this lays the foundation for later attachment between caregiver and infant
    - - the mirroring action of facial expressions, bodily movements and/or emotions between two people. Synchrony refers to the co-ordinated manner in which these actions take place
      - Interactional synchrony is another important process to enable secure attachment between an infant and caregiver Isabella et al. (1989) found, during a study of 30 mothers and their babies, that those with higher levels of synchrony had a more secure attachment
    - - conducted the first study into intersectional synchrony
      - they used an adult model who displayed one of 3 facial expressions or hand movements where the fingers moved in each sequence.
      - A dummy was placed in the infant's mouth during the initial display to prevent any response. Following the display the dummy was removed and the child’s expression was filmed on video
      - They found that there was an association between the infant behaviour and that of the adult model.
      - later research revealed the same findings in infants only 3 days old. The fact that infants as young as this were displaying the behaviour would appear to rule out the possibility that the imitation behaviour were learned, the behavioural response must be innate
      - real or pseudo imitation
        
        Jean Piaget believed that true imitation only developed towards the end of the first year and anything before this was a kind of ‘response’ training - what the infant is doing is repeating a behaviour that was rewarded.
        
        Piaget suggests that what the infant is doing is pseudo-imitation (they haven’t consciously translated what they have seen into a matching movement.)
  - - - findings are unreliable as it is difficult to reliably test infant behaviour. for example in Meltzoff and Moore's the expressions that are tested occur frequently (tongue sticking out, yawning, smiling) this makes it difficult to distinguish between general activity and specific imitated behaviours. This highlights the difficulties in testing infant behaviour.
      - counter argument: to overcome the reliability problem meltzoff and moore measured infant responses by filming infants and then asking an observer (who was unaware what behaviour was being imitated) to judge the infants' behaviour from the video. this insured inter-observer reliability and offered a solution to increase the internal validity of their findings and suggests that infants do mirror the actions of adults.
      - other studies have failed to replicate the findings. Koepke et al failed to replicate the findings of Meltzoff and Moore suggesting that the original research may be unreliable. furthermore Marian et al replicated the study by Murray and Trevarthen(who's study supported meltzoff and moore's bu suggesting that infant responses are innate) and found that infants couldn’t distinguish live from videotaped interactions with their mothers. Which suggests that the infants are actually not responding to the adult.
      - counter argument: Meltzoff and Moore counter argued that the research by Koepke failed because it was carefully controlled and Marian et al acknowledged that the failure to replicate may lie with the procedure. differences in methodology account for differences in findings
    - - internationally supported. infant behaviour has also been observed in regards to their response to inanimate objects. Abravanel and DeYoung (1991) observed infants interacting with 2 objects, 1 simulating tongue movements, and the other a mouth opening/closing. They found that infants between 5 and 12 weeks old made little response to the objects, infants don't respond to anything they see, only specific social stimuli
      - meltzoff's research into intersectional synchrony lead to the development of his 'like me' hypothesis this hypothesis shows how interactional synchrony might help children to understand the internal mental states of other people- a so called ‘theory of the mind’, which is fundamental in developing social relationships. Therefore, a strength of this research is that it explains how children begin to understand what others think and feel, and thus are able to conduct relationships.
- - - - stage 1: asocial/pre-attachment/indiscriminate attachments
        
        0-2months
        
        infants produce similar responses to all objects , whether they are animate or inanimate.
        
        reciprocity and interactional synchrony play a role in establishing the infants relationships with others
        
        Towards the end of this period, infants are beginning to show a greater preference for social stimuli, such as a smiling face, and to be more content when they are with people
      - stage 2: the beginnings of attachment
        
        around 4 months
        
        infants prefer human company to inanimate objects and can distinguish between familiar and unfamiliar people
        
        However, they are still relatively easily comforted by anyone, and do not yet show anxiety with strangers
      - stage 3: discriminate attachment
        
        7-9 months
        
        infants begin to show separation anxiety to a particular person show especial joy at reunion with that person and are most comforted by this person
        
        infants begin to display stranger anxiety
      - stage 4: multiple attachments
        
        infant develops a wider circle of multiple attachments depending on how many consistent relationships they have
        
        Schaffer and Emerson found that within one month of becoming attached 29% of infants had multiple attachments to someone else. Within six months this had risen to 78%
  - - - observations were carried out in the parents home so not a controlled lab setting, this means that the babies were not distracted by unfamiliar researchers as they would have been in a lab so the babies were acting as they would do in their natural environment so the research has high ecological validity
      - good real-world application as the stages of attachment can be applied to practically any childcare setting like nurseries and preschools, furthermore parents can use the stages of attachment to help understand the development of their child so for example they may avoid starting their child in daycare at around 7 months to avoid their childs specific attachment being formed to someone other than them
    - - data collected is unreliable as The data was based on mothers’ reports of their infants. Some mothers might have been less sensitive to their infants’ protests and therefore less likely to report them. furthermore social desirability bias may have altered the mothers reports. This would cause a systematic (experimenter) bias in the results which do not reflect the mothers’ genuine experiences.
      - the sample used was bias, the sample was taken from a working class population, thus findings may only apply to that social group and not others. Furthermore, the sample was from the 1960s. Parental care of children has changed considerably since that time. More women go out to work so many children are cared for outside the home, or fathers stay home and become the main carer. Research shows that the number of dads who choose to stay home and care for their children and families has quadrupled over the past 25 years. lacks population and historical validity
      - stage theories suggest that development occurs in a specific sequence. this as suggested that shcaffer and emerson means development of attachment is inflexible/ in a fixed order e.g single attachments must come before multiple attachments which in some situations and cultures may not be correct and multiple attachments come first. may be problematic if they become a standard by which families are judged and lead to them being classed as abnormal.
- - - - procedure
        
        divided group of gosling eggs into two groups, one group left with natural mother, other group put in incubator. when incubator eggs hatched the first thing they saw was Lorenz, they soon started following him around. to test the effects of imprinting Lorenz marked the two groups to distinguish them and then put them together where both lorenz and their natural mother were present
      - findings
        
        gosling ducks divided themselves up, one group following their natural mother and the other following Lorenz, Lorenz's group showed no recognition of their natural mother
        
        lorenz noted that this process of imprinting is is restricted to a very definite period of the young animals life called the 'critical period' If a young animal is not exposed to a moving object during this early critical period the animal will not imprint
        
        Imprinting is a process similar to attachment in that it binds a young animal to a caregiver in a special relationship.
      - long lasting effects
        
        he process of imprinting is irreversible and long lasting
        
        early imprinting had an effect on later mate preferences, called sexual imprinting. Animals will choose to mate with the same kind of object upon which they were imprinted.
    - - procedure
        
        created two wire 'monkey mothers' one of which was wrapped in cloth, for four of the monkeys the milk bottle was placed on the cloth mother and for the other four it was placed on the wire mother. the 8 monkeys were studied for 165 days and it was observed how much time the monkeys spent with each mother and how the monkeys responded when frightened by something
      - findings
        
        all 8 moneys spent the most time with the cloth covered mother whether or not the mother had the milk bottle, the monkeys who were fed from the wire mother only spent a short amount of time feeding then returned to the cloth mother
        
        When frightened, all monkeys clung on to the cloth-covered mother
        
        findings suggests that infants do not develop an attachment to the person who feeds them but to the person offering contact comfort.
      - long lasting effects
        
        harlow continued to study the monkeys as they grew up
        
        all the monkeys as they were essentially motherless developed abnormally
        
        socially abnormal - froze or fled when approached by other monkeys
        
        sexually abnormal - did not show normal mating behaviour
        
        maternally abnormal - did not cradle their own offspring
  - - - support
        
        further studies supported the process of imprinting. for example research done by Guiton demonstrated that leghorn chicks, exposed to yellow rubber gloves whilst being fed during their first few weeks, became imprinted on the gloves. this supports the view that young animals are not born with a predisposition to imprint on a specific type of object but probably any moving thing that is present during the critical window of development. furthermore Guiton found that the male chicks later tried to mate with the gloves which supports the long lasting effects of imprinting.
      - criticisms
        
        one of the characteristics of imprinting is that it is an irreversible process however this has now been questioned and it is understood that imprinting is more a ‘plastic and forgiving mechanism’ as suggested by Hoofman. furthermore Guiton found that he could reverse the imprinting in chickens that had initially tried to mate with the rubber gloves. He found that, later, after spending time with their own species, they were able to engage in normal sexual behaviour with other chickens.
        
        Lorenz's study focused on imprinting in birds and although his findings have influenced our understanding of human development there are problems with generalising findings from birds to humans. for example mammalian mothers show more emotional attachment to young than birds.
        
        sluckin questioned whether there was actually a 'critical period', he kept a duckling in isolation for 5 days and found that it still imprinted so he concluded that the 'critical period' was actually a 'sensitive period' at attachment could still be formed outside of the period
    - - support
        
        a number of studies have found that the observations made of animal attachment behaviour are mirrored in studies of humans for example, Harlow’s research is supported by Schaffer and Emerson's findings that infants were not most attached to the person who fed them.
        
        counter argument: however Schaffer and Emerson suggested that infants became most attached to the person who responded most sensitively to their needs and as the 'mother' monkeys could not be responsive the attachment the monkeys formed to them is not supported by schaffer and emersons research so this suggests that Harlow’s study is not valid in determining attachment as the cognitive level of humans greatly exceeds that of animals.
      - criticisms
        
        the stimulus objects differed in more ways than being covered in cloth or not the two heads were also different, which acted as a confounding variable because it varied systematically with the independent variable - this undermines the internal validity of the study as it is possible that the reason the infant monkeys preferred one mother to the other was because their cloth covered mother had a more attractive head.
        
        study is considered unethical as the monkeys involved in the study suffered from lasting emotional harm as the monkeys later found it difficult to form relationships with their peers. In addition, Harlow created a state of anxiety in female monkeys, which had implications once they became parents. Such monkeys became so neurotic that they smashed their infant’s face into the floor and rubbed it back and forth. the protection from harm was greatly breached
        
        counter argument: on the other hand, the experiment can be justified in terms of the significant effect it has had on our understanding of the processes of attachment, and the research derived from this study has been used to offer better care for human infants. Therefore, it could be argued that the benefits outweigh the costs to the animals involved in the study. Such criticisms do not challenge the findings of the research but are important in monitoring what counts as good science.