Attachment – Lesson 1 Introduction to Attachment Objectives: To be able to describe caregiver-infant interactions in humans including; reciprocity and interactional synchrony. To be able to evaluate Caregiver-infant interactions.

Attachment - Definition What is attachment? In pairs, create a mind map of any word that you can think of. Who is it about? What does it look like? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRoqk_z2Lgg – Pandora advert showing the bond between mother and child

What will we look at: Attachment Caregiver-infant interactions in humans: reciprocity and interactional synchrony. Stages of attachment identified by Schaffer. Multiple attachments and the role of the father. Animal studies of attachment: Lorenz and Harlow. Explanations of attachment: learning theory and Bowlby’s monotropic theory. The concepts of a critical period and an internal working model. Ainsworth’s ‘Strange Situation’. Types of attachment: secure, insecure-avoidant and insecure resistant. Cultural variations in attachment, including van Ijzendoorn. Bowlby’s theory of maternal deprivation. Romanian orphan studies: effects of institutionalisation. The influence of early attachment on childhood and adult relationships, including the role of an internal working model.

Attachment - Definition “A close two-way emotional bond between two individuals, in which each individual sees the other as essential for their own emotional security. Attachment in humans takes a few months to develop” Why do we need to form these bonds?

Short-term benefits – survival Human babies are altricial, which means that they are born at a relatively early stage of development We need to form bonds with adults who will protect and nurture them Preocial animals – animals born at advanced stage of development e.g foals are able to walk and run soon after birth. Short-term benefits – survival Long- term benefits – emotional relationships. It is believed that this first relationship acts as a template for later relationships

Discussion… How do you know if a mother and their infant have good interactions? What does it look like?

Caregiver-Infant Interactions Possible factors include: Seeking proximity (closeness); Distress on separation; Joy on reunion; Person used as safe base to explore world. Attachment Behaviours

Caregiver-Infant Interactions One of the key interaction between caregivers and infants is their non-verbal communication, i.e. communicating without words and sometimes without sound. Such interactions may form the basis of attachment between an infant and caregiver. It is the manner in which each responds to the other that determines the formation of attachment So, the more sensitive each is to the others’ signals, the deeper the relationship.

Caregiver-infant interactions Reciprocity Research in the 1970s demonstrated that infants coordinated their actions with caregivers which can be described as like a ‘non verbal conversation’ From birth, babies move in a rhythm when interacting with an adult, almost as if they are taking turns, as people do in a conversation. Reciprocity Interactional synchrony

Caregiver-infant interactions Reciprocity Feldman & Eidelman (2007) babies have periodic ‘alert phases’ this signals to the parent they are ready for interaction. An interaction is reciprocal when each person responds to the other and elicits a response from them. Interaction is like a ‘dance’, where each partner responds to each others moves. Reciprocity Interactional synchrony

Caregiver-infant interactions Interactional synchrony Infants move their bodies in tune with the rhythm of carers’ spoken language to create a kind of turn-taking, as seen with two way vocal-conversations. This again serves to reinforce the attachment bond. This is when two people interact and they tend to mirror what the other is doing in terms of their facial expressions and body movements. This includes imitating emotions as well as behaviours.

Interactional Synchrony Meltzoff and Moore (1977) conducted the first systematic study of Interactional Synchrony and found that infants as young as two to three weeks old imitated specific facial and hand gestures. The study was conducted using an adult model who displayed one of three facial expressions or hand movements where the fingers moved in a 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 They found that there was an association between the infant behaviour and that of the adult model Quick video showing an experimenter and baby imitation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2YdkQ1G5QI

Supporting research for interactional synchrony Isabella et al (1989) observed 30 mothers and infants together and assessed the degree of synchrony. The researchers also assessed the quality of mother-infant attachment. They found that high levels of synchrony were associated with better quality infant-mother attachment (the emotional intensity of the relationship)

What’s the difference between reciprocity and interactional synchrony? Reciprocity is where the mother and infant respond to each other’s signals and each elicits a response from the other. Interactional synchrony – mother and infant reflect both the actions and emotions of the other AND they do this in a co-ordinated, synchronised way.

Interactional synchrony is a theory of social communication where behaviours of one or more individuals become synchronised. It starts from the initial consolidation of biological rhythms during pregnancy to the emergence of symbolic and often rhythmic exchanges between parent and child. The distinction is that reciprocity is more about turn taking, whilst synchronicity is behaviours being in tune with each other.

The importance of caregiver- infant interactions in humans Watch the video and make notes… Is the video showing interactional synchrony or reciprocity? Or both? What does this tell us about the importance of caregiver-infant interactions? (Tornicks still face paradigm) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apzXGEbZht0

It is hard to know what is happening when observing infants. Gratier (2003)- many studies involving observation of interactions between mothers and infants have shown the same patterns of interaction. However what is being observed is merely hand movements or changes in expression. Difficult to be certain, based on these observations, what is taking place from the infants perceptive e.g. are the infants imitation of adult signals conscious and deliberate? We cannot know for certain that behaviours seen in mother-infant interaction have a special meaning.

Controlled observations capture fine detail Evaluation Observations of mother-infant interactions are well controlled procedures, with both the mother and the child being filmed, often from multiple angles. Allows very fine details of behaviour to be recorded and later analysed. Babies don't know they are being observed so behaviours does not change in response to controlled observation Means research has good validity.

Observations don’t tell us the purpose of synchrony and reciprocity Evaluation Feldman (2012) says that synchrony simply describes behaviours that occur at the same time. They can be reliably observed, but does not tell us there purpose. Some evidence that reciprocal interaction and synchrony are helpful in the development of mother-infant attachment, empathy, language and moral development.

Socially sensitive research working mothers: Children disadvantaged when mothers return to work shortly after a child is born. Mothers restrict the opportunities for achieving interactional synchrony. Suggest mothers should not return to work so soon has socially sensitive implications.

Evaluation Evaluation Problems with testing infant behaviour: Some doubt about the findings of the research mentioned above because of the difficulties in reliably testing infant behaviour. Infants mouths are in fairly constant motion and the expressions that are tested occur frequently (tongue sticking out, yawning, smiling). Makes it difficult to distinguish between general activity and specific imitated behaviours. To overcome these problems Meltzoff and Moore measured infant responses by filming infants and then asking an observer to judge the infants behaviour from the video. The person doing the judging had no idea what behaviour was being imitated, so increased the internal validity. Failure to replicate Other studies have failed to replicate the findings e.g. a study by Koepke et al. (1983) failed to replicate Meltzoff and Moore findings; however they argued that the research by Koepke et al. failed because it was less carefully controlled.

Evaluation P – A problem with this explanation of caregiver-infant interactions is that it is not found in all cultures E- Le Vine et al (1994) reported that Kenyan mothers have little physical interactions or physical contact with their infants, but such infants do have a high proportion of secure attachments. E – Therefore, the research may be ethnocentric and ignores how attachments may be formed within other cultures. L – This reduces the validity of the research as all cultures should be taken into account in order to generalise as much as possible.

Specimen Question