Attachment revision - Paper 1

INTRODUCTION TO ATTACHMENT

RECIPROCITY - A discription of how two people interact. Mother-Infant interaction is reciprocal in that both infant and mother respond to eachother's signals and each elicits a response from the other.

FELDMAN and EIDELMAN 2007 Found that mothers typically pick up on and respond to infant alertness around two-thirds of the time.

FELDMAN 2007 Found that from around 3 months of age, these interaction tend to be more frequent and involve close attention to each other's verbal signals and facial expressions. A key element of this interaction is reciprocity. An interaction is reciprocal when each person responds to the other and elicits a response from them

BRAZELTON ET AL 1975 Described the interaction between mother and infant as a dance, because it is just like a couple's dance in that each partner responds to the moves of the other.

RECIPROCITY EVALUATION - It is hard to know what is happenening when observing infants: Gratier 2003 said that many studies involving observation of interactions show the same patterns of interaction. Since children are so young, we cannot really know for certain that behaviours seen in these studies have meaning.

INTERACTIONAL SYNCHRONY - Mother and infant reflect both the actions and emotions of the other and do this in a coordinated (synchronised) way.

MELTZOFF and MOORE 1977 Observed the beginnings of interactional synchrony from as young as two weeks old. An adult displayed one of three facial expressions or distinctive gestures. The childs response was recorded and identified by independent observers. An association was found between the expression/gesture and the response from the babies.

ISABELLA 1989 Observed 30 mothers and infants together and assessed the degree of synchrony and the quality of mother-infant attachment. It was concluded that high levels of interactional synchrony were associated with better quality mother-infant attachment.

INTERACTIONAL SYNCHRONY EVALUATION - Controlled observations capture find detail of mother-infant relationships as they are often well controlled procedures, with both mother and infant being filmed, often from multiple angles, capturing every emotion. Very fine aspects of behaviour can be recorded then repeated, increasing the validity of the research. The Hawthorne effect is not a big problem in research into mother-infant attachments as the infant does not know they are being recorded, so are unlikely to change their behaviour.

ATTACHMENT FIGURES

SCHAFFER and EMERSON 1964 Found that the majority of babies did become attached to their mother first (around 7 months) then within a few weeks formed secondary attachments to other family members including the father. In 75% of the infants studied, an attachment was formed with the father by the age of 18 months.

GROSSMAN 2002 - The role of the father; Carried out a longitudinal study looking at both parents' behaviour and it relationship to the quality of children attachments into their teens. Quality of infant attachment with mothers but not fathers was related to childrens attachments in adolescence, suggesting that father attachment is less important. However quality of father's play was related to quality of adolescent…