AQA Attachment

What is an attachment?

• Emotional bond between an infant and their caregiver

• Emotional bond with the infant

• A bond a child has with their mother

• Emotional bond between a child and their father

What does 'reciprocity' mean in caregiver-infant interaction?

• When the infant /caregiver responds to the action of each other with a similar action.

• When an infant copies their caregiver

• When a caregiver copies their infant

• When two people interact they tend to mirror what the other is doing such as their facial and body movements

What does interactional synchrony mean?

• Observing and imitating behaviour

• When two people respond to one another almost like a conversation

• When two people interact they tend to mirror what the other is doing such as their facial and body movements

• Talking to eachother

Reorder Schaffer's stages of attachment

• Discriminate

• Pre-attachment

• Multiple attachments

• Indiscriminate

Meltzoff and Moore provided support for

Field found that

• Fathers play with the child while mothers comfort their child.

• Fathers can never become primary caregivers.

• Infants only get attached to their primary caregiver and this is usually its mother.

• Gender does not matter in attachment, responsiveness does.

Lorenz found

• All the goslings followed Lorenz around.

• Rhesus monkeys formed an attachment with the cloth covered mother over the wire mother

• Newly hatched goslings would attach to the first moving thing they saw.

• The goslings followed their biological mother around despite imprinting on Lorenz

Harlow found...

• Rhesus monkeys faced no issues after being separated from their biological mother

• Rhesus monkeys formed no attachment to to wire mother or the cloth mother

• Rhesus monkeys preferred food over contact comfort.

• Rhesus monkeys preferred contact comfort over food.