In this section:
- To define attachment
- The four characteristics of an attachment by Maccoby (1980)
- Caregiver-infant interactions including; Reciprocity, Interactional synchrony and Imitation.
- Tronick (1975) – still face
- Meltzoff & Moore (1977) – imitation
- Grossman (2002) – role of the mother and father
- Field (1978) – role of the father
- Hardy (1999) role of the father
Introduction to attachment
There are a number of definitions offered by different psychologists but these two seem typical:
Schaffer (1993):
‘A close emotional relationship between two persons, characterised by mutual affection and a desire to maintain proximity.’
Maccoby (1980):
Describes four characteristics of an attachment:
- Seeking proximity, the desire to be close to the person to whom you are attached.
- Separation anxiety, the distress that results from being separated from that person.
- Pleasure when reunited, relief and observable joy when reunited with them.
- General orientation of behaviour towards the caregiver, the child’s awareness of where the person is, and the reassurance they feel by them being close.
These characteristics are important to understand as they will reappear in later studies e.g. the ‘’Glasgow babies’ and the ‘strange situation.’
Caregiver-Infant Interactions
Caregiver-Infant interactions are the way parents and babies communicate with each other. There are different ways that these interactions occur, and it is believed that these interactions are important for a child’s social development and the development of attachments between the caregiver and infant.
Reciprocity and Interactional Synchrony
BE CAREFUL! Lots of students easily confuse these two types of caregiver-infant interactions. I have tried my best to demonstrate the difference between the two.
Reciprocity: TURN-TAKING
The idea that the mother and child are involved in a two-way communication. Both are active contributors and each is able to elicit a response from the other. The interaction flows both ways between adult and infant like a non-verbal conversation.
Meltzoff and Moore (1977) aimed to investigate the age at which imitation occurs in a child. They videotaped 6-21-day-old babies as they watched an adult experimenter perform different facial expressions. An adult displayed one of three facial expressions or one gesture e.g. waving finger. The baby’s response to each of these gestures were observed and their actions were video recorded. An independent observer (who had no knowledge of what the infant had just seen) was asked to note all instances of tongue protrusion and head movements using a number of behavioural categories. Each observer scored the recordings twice (allowing for both inter-rater reliability). The results indicated that babies as young as 2 weeks could imitate both facial expressions and manual gestures. Meltzoff and Moore concluded that the ability to imitate serves as an important building block for later social and cognitive development. Crucially, Meltzoff believed that babies are deliberate in their attempt to imitate.
Imitation can be seen as an example of reciprocity as it shows a turn-taking communication style.
Interactional Synchrony: TOGETHERNESS
Infants seem to coordinate their movements and gestures in time with adult speech. The mother speaks, and the baby responds in time to sustain communication. Babies can’t talk back so instead the infant moves with the rhythm of the interaction. As if they are one person, perfectly in time with each other.
Isabella
Hypothesised that caregiver-baby pairs that developed secure attachment relationships would display more interactional synchrony than babies with insecure relationships. 30 babies and their mothers were observed at 3 and 9 months. Those that were classes as having a secure relationship, interacted in a well-timed, reciprocal, and mutually rewarding manner. In contrast caregiver-baby pairs classed as insecurely attaches were characterized by interactions that were minimally involved, unresponsive and intrusive. They concluded that different interactional behaviours predicted attachment the quality.
Tronick (1975) The Still Face Experiment
Tronick used the still face technique to test the importance of interactional synchrony and see if it was a deliberate ploy by the child.
Watch what happens when the mother starts interactional synchrony, and then stops!
A mother engaged with the child suddenly stops responding. The child shows serious distress, turns away and cries. Often they would make deliberate and extreme attempts to lure mum back into interaction.
‘This suggests the child is an active and intentional partner in the communication.’
Evaluation:
Strengths:
- Objective: Recording interactions and having them assessed by independent observers such as is Meltzoff & Moore, allows for a level of objectivity and collection of very detailed data. This improves the validity of the research. Many pieces of research use controlled observations which allows researchers to capture micro-sequences which improves the validity.
- Applications: Research by Isabella has implied that these caregiver-infant interactions are important in developing attachments, empathy, language and moral development. This is useful as it means mothers can be encouraged to participate in such behaviours and try to encourage them, as it helps to develop beneficial skills in their child’s future development. For example, mothers and babies in the past were put in separate rooms after they had given birth, but now it is common practice to place the mother and baby in the same room in order to allow attachment behaviours to occur straight away.
Weaknesses:
- Subjectivity/Methodological Issues: Observing and interpreting the actions of infants is notoriously difficult. Putting yourself in the mind of a baby, when you have an adult mind is near impossible. I know this might seem a bit weird, but if you have a pet, you will always interpret their behaviour in various ways. A certain look they give you is interpreted as ‘they love me’. However, it’s more likely to be that you smell of the bacon sandwich you had in the morning, and they are wondering when they will get their share. The same issues happen when adults interpret babies. This may limit the validity, because what researchers think is happening and what is actually happening may be completely different. Because babies cannot communicate, inferences of behaviour are made which lends itself to issues with validity. Most research is observational so bias in observer interpretation could be a problem. Challenge: this could be over come by using more than one observer and utilising inter-rater reliability. This would mean that consistency of behaviour could be checked in order to check for any instances of researcher bias.
- Practical issues/ecological validity: Problem of context affecting behaviour – research should take place in natural setting e.g. child’s home to increase validity. This was not the case with Tronick’s still face experiment. Also, babies are often asleep or being fed, this means that there are limited opportunities to assess the interactions of a caregiver and their infant. Challenge: This could be overcome by carrying out fewer but shorter observation periods because of limited waking periods.
- Generalisability: Studies by Tronick and Meltzoff & Moore may not reflect caregiver-infant interactions today – a lot of the research is based on the mother and baby interactions – this may not be reflective of today because there are more instances of fathers staying at home and being the main caregiver. Research by Field looks at how the father as a primary caregiver behaves around the baby. This is inline with current circumstances where there are more instances of fathers being the key carer. Earlier research may not be so valid, as it typically focuses on the mother.
- Social sensitivity: The research into caregiver infant interactions could be socially sensitive as it targets the mother by suggesting that children maybe disadvantaged by certain child rearing practices. In particular is could place blame and guilt on mothers who return to work. Studies by Isabella and Tronick highlight this issue.
Role of the father
This part of the course seems like a very small part. However, recently there was an essay question on it! It is always good to be mindful that any topic can be turned into a 16 mark question, no matter how big or small! Please have a look at the video below which talks you through how to answer a 16 mark question on the role of the father.
https://www.tutor2u.net/psychology/reference/the-role-of-the-father-essay-example-answer
The arguments below would be perfect to use as part of an essay. Therefore, these are you evaluation points too – PEEC’s.
Why are mums and dads so different?
Nature or Nurture, or both?
Nature would put it down to genetics and our biology. Men have lots of testosterone making them more aggressive which may encourage more provider behaviour, getting the food and providing for the child to aid the child’s survival, whereas ladies have oestrogen that encourages a more caring and empathetic behaviour.
Nurture on the other hand would see it as the way we are brought up, possibly gender stereotypes and expectations of how men and women are ‘supposed’ to behave. Boys are expected to be more boisterous and play whereas girls are encouraged to play with dolls and be more affectionate from a very early age. Sometimes this is overt and obvious, other times done more subtly and without conscious awareness.
The Biological Argument –
Research has suggested that mean are not biologically programmed to provide a sensitive and nurturing attachment, and that this is more the biological role of the mother.
Hardy (1999) found that fathers were less able to detect low levels of infant distress, in comparison to mothers. These results appear to support the argument that the lack of oestrogen in men means that fathers are not equipped with the right hormones to form close relationships with their children. This research suggests that the role of the father is to biologically determined because it is restricted by their biological makeup.
Women also have body parts which make them more equipped to form an attachment. For example, having breasts means that mothers have a more natural opportunity to have skin to skin contact through breast feeding. In addition, women have increased levels of hormones that encourage attachment behaviours. For example oxytocin, which is nick named the love hormone as it encourages a connection between the mother and child.
However, more recent research has suggested that men have elevated levels of oxytocin when men become fathers. Read this article below:
Furthermore, there is research which suggests that fathers do form close attachments which is outlined in the research by Field (1978). In addition,
Schaffer and Emerson (1964), in their Glasgow Babies study found that infants typically form their primary attachment, invariably with mum, at about 7 months of age. Secondary attachments with other key figures, including dad, begin to form within the months that follow. Shaffer and Emerson’s research concluded that in only 3% of cases fathers were the primary attachment figure in comparison to 65% of mothers, however 27% of the time they shared the primary attachment figure status with the mother. In addition they found that by the age of one children most children had formed secondary attachments to other family members such as the father. Showing that the mother is more likely to be a primary attachment figure than the father but fathers will become attached to.
Grossmann (2002)
Conducted a longitudinal study of 44 families comparing the role of fathers’ & mothers’ contribution to their children’s attachment experiences at 6,10 and 16 years. Grossman (2002) found that the quality of mother-child attachment was important when assessing the quality of attachment into adolescence. In other words, it was a better predictor of a child’s future attachments and relationships. If a child had a good attachment with the mother, then they would form good attachments in the future. This is called an Internal Working Model (IWM), your IWM acts as a template for your relationships in the future. However, Grossmann found that this was not the case for father-child attachment i.e. it was not a good predictor of future attachments. This suggests that the role of the father is less important.
The Father as a Playmate Argument –
However, Grossman found that the quality of the fathers play with their infants was related to the quality of attachment in adolescence i.e. if the father had positive playful experiences with their child, this was a good predictor for positive attachments in the future. This suggests that fathers are not necessarily less important, but instead, they have a different role in attachment- play rather then nurturing. Fathers were shown to have an important role in developing play behaviour which is widely seen as crucial in cognitive development.
The Father as a Nurturing Care-giver –
Field (1978)
Conducted research which compared the behaviours of primary caretaker mothers with primary (main care-giver i.e. stay at home dad) and secondary caretaker fathers. Face-to-face interactions were analysed from video footage with infants at 4 months of age. Primary caregiver fathers focused more on attachment building behaviours compared to secondary care giver fathers. These behaviours shown in primary caregiver fathers are called ‘sensitive responsiveness’ and have been typically associated with mothers. This discredits the biological argument because there is evidence to suggest that males are capable of taking on a nurturing approach.
Economic implications – Role of the father
- Impact on employment laws and policy: Showing the relative importance of fathers and their ability to play an equal role of caregiver sensitivity has led to changes in paternity laws. Shared parental leave has been introduced so that the father can spend more time at home with their new born baby. Previously it was only possible for the father to have 2 weeks paternity leave. This has implications for the employers as they will need to provide pay for the father whilst they are off work.
- The shared parental leave however is a double edged sword, whilst it may reduce males in the workforce as they seek to take more leave when they have children, this would allow mothers to take less leave and therefore return to work, allowing them to resume contribution to the employer.
- Or is some cases parents may choose to divide the leave so each works part time, which may mean less cover issues in some workforces. Consequently the impact is likely to be one which levels the gender pay gap as parents seek more equality in the workplace and childcare – taking equal advantage of the roles played by mothers and fathers or taking joint primary attachment status.
CGS Psychology Blog: Mrs Harris 