The document discusses several studies on caregiver-infant interactions and attachment. It finds that mother-infant interaction is reciprocal, with both responding to each other's signals in a coordinated, synchronous way. Higher degrees of synchrony are correlated with better quality attachments. Reciprocity and synchrony can be observed but do not indicate what these behaviors mean. There is also evidence they help develop attachments, stress responses, empathy and more. However, it is difficult to understand interactions from the infant's perspective alone.

1. Caregiver-Infant Interactions
 Reciprocity – mother-infant interaction is reciprocal in that both the infant and
mother respond to each other's signals, and each elicits a response from the other.
 Brazleton et al (1975) described reciprocity as a 'dance' of action and response.
 Interactional Synchrony – mother and infant reflect both the actions and emotions
of the other in a co-ordinated (synchronised) way.
 Isabella et al (1989) observed 30 mothers and assessed both degree of synchrony
and quality of attachment. Found a correlation between higher degree of
synchrony and better quality attachments.

2. Caregiver-Infant Interactions - EVAL
 It is difficult to be certain of what is taking place from the infant's perspective. This
would mean that the infant's reciprocity or interactional synchrony may not be
intentional, and we cannot tell for certain whether such behaviours have special
meaning.
 Observations of caregiver-infant interactions are usually very well-controlled, giving
them high validity as they capture fine detail without changing infant behaviour (they
are unaware that they are being watched).
 Reciprocity and synchrony can be robustly observed, but it does not tell psychologists
what these behaviours mean or their purpose. However, there is evidence that
these interactions are helpful in developing attachments, stress responses, empathy,
language, and moral development.

3. Attachment Figures/Role of Father
 Parent-infant attachment – Schaffer and Emerson (1964) found that most infants
attached to the mother first, and 75% of infants studied had an attachment to the
father by 18 months.
 Role of the father - Grossman (2002) carried out a longitudinal study looking at
quality of parental attachments and their effects on children, teens, and
adolescents. Quality of attachment to the father did not relate to childhood
attachments; but quality of father's play did affect quality of adolescent
attachments. This suggests the secondary caregiver's role is more about play and
less about nurturing.
 Fathers as primary carers - primary caregiver fathers are noted to imitate infants
more than secondary caregiver fathers, suggesting level of responsiveness is key
to attachment, not gender.

4. Attachment Figures/Role of Father - EVAL
 There are inconsistent findings on fathers, as different researchers wish to answer
different questions. Some findings suggest fathers with a distinct and different
role, some suggest they can take on the 'maternal' behaviours, making it difficult
to precisely answer what the role of the father is.
 Studies have found children without fathers (or with two) do not develop any
differently than those in two-parent heterosexual families, so this would
suggest the role of the father as a secondary figure is unimportant.
 There is no concrete evidence as to why fathers are not generally primary carers-
it could be because of heteronormative gender roles, or it could be biological and
to do with women being predisposed to more nurturing hormones.

5. Schaffer’s Stages of Attachment
 Schaffer and Emerson (1964) investigated the formation of early attachment using a
study of 31 male and 29 female babies from working class families in Glasgow, visiting
them at home every month up to a year and then again at 18 months to study their
levels of attachment and who they were attached to (via observation and
questionnaires to parents).
 By the age of 40 weeks 80% had specific attachments and 30% had multiple.
 Four stages: Stage 1 – asocial (baby's behaviour towards non-human objects and
humans is quite similar, no preference); Stage 2 – indiscriminate attachment (2-7
months, recognise and prefer familiar adults but will accept comfort from anyone);
Stage 3 - specific attachment (<7 months, stranger anxiety and separation anxiety from
PAF); Stage 4 - multiple attachments (babies extend attachment behaviour to further
adults, by 1 year most infants have multiple attachments)

6. Schaffer’s Stages of Attachment - EVAL
 Good external validity due to natural observations done in the home.
 Internal validity – longitudinal design using the same children rather than different children using cross-
sectional.
 Limited sample – only 60, all from same place in mostly the same working class, no economic or regional
diversity in sample.
 The asocial stage is hard to study as most gestures babies make during this stage are mechanical rather
than learnt, no telling what is purposeful and what is nature, as well as little observable behaviour
present.
 Conflicting evidence on multiple attachments, some cultures report multiple attachments from the
outset because collectively raising babies is the norm.
 Measuring multiple attachments is difficult because separation anxiety is not necessarily a sign of
attachment.
 Limited measures were used to observe attachment, needed more fine detail.

7. Animal Studies
 Lorenz divided a clutch of goose eggs, half to hatch with its mother and half to hatch
in an incubator where he would be the first thing they saw. The incubator group
imprinted on Lorenz and followed him everywhere, even when interacting with the
other group and the mother goose. Lorenze identified a critical period within which
many species imprinted, being from an hour to a few months depending on the
animal.
 Harlow (1958) reared 16 baby monkeys with two wire model mothers- in one
condition, the plain wire mother dispensed milk, and in the other the cloth covered
mother did so. Findings showed the baby monkeys exhibited preference to the cloth
mother for comfort regardless of who dispensed milk, so Harlow theorised that contact
comfort was more important than food providing in attachment.
 Monkeys deprived of mothers were dysfunctional in their adulthood: they were more
aggressive, less sociable, and as mothers these monkeys would neglect their young or
abuse them.

8. Animal Studies - EVAL
 Lorenz:
 This research is not very generalisable to human/mammal attachment research. Mammals
have more emotional attachment to young and can form attachments at any time.
 Harlow:
 High theoretical value – shows the importance of relationships in childhood for normal
development, importance of comfort.
 Practical value - helps social workers understand and prevent child neglect, important in
the care of captive monkeys + wild breeding programmes.
 Ethical issues - monkeys suffered greatly as a result of this research, generalisability also
means human-like suffering.
 Debatable how generalisable the research is - humans are not monkeys.

9. Learning Theory
 Dollard and Miller (1950) proposed that caregiver-infant attachment can be explained by
learning theory. Often called a 'cupboard love' approach, as they propose children learn to
love whoever feeds them.
 Classical conditioning - food as unconditioned stimulus, happiness/fullness as
unconditioned response. Baby associated PCG with the food and therefore the happiness,
so eventually when they food is taken out of the equation the happiness associated with
PCG still remains.
 Operant conditioning - two-way process. Baby receives food in return for crying, which is
a positive reinforcement as this behaviour is then encouraged. Caregiver experiences
negative reinforcement, as the baby stops crying if fed, which means that the caregiver
will then think to feed the baby if it is crying again.
 Attachment is a secondary drive; Sears et al (1957) suggested the primary drive of hunger
becomes generalised, and attachment is learned through association of satisfaction of the
primary drive and the caregiver.

10. Learning Theory - EVAL
 A range of animal research has shown that comfort is more important in forming
attachments than feeding is. Lorenz/Harlow, and learning theorists believe in the similarity
between animals and humans.
 Schaffer and Emerson provide human research disagreeing, many of the babies in their
study formed a primary attachment to their mother even if other figures did feeding,
showing that feeding is not the key to attachment.
 Reductionist theory, as it ignores other factors associated with forming attachments such
as interactional synchrony and response to infant signals.
 However, some conditioning elements may still be involved in attachment formation,
though not as adamantly as this theory suggests.

11. Bowlby’s Monotropic Theory of
Attachment
 Monotropy: specific emphasis on attachment to one particular caregiver- that this attachment is different to all
others, called the ‘mother’ but not always necessarily the biological mother.
 Two principles of attachment:
 Law of continuity – more constant and predictable the child’s care, the better the quality of their
attachment.
 Law of accumulated separation – the effects of every separation from the mother adds up.
 Social releasers: innate ‘cute’ behaviours designed to activate the adult attachment system, attachment as a
reciprocal process.
 Critical period: around two years where the infant attachment system is active, and is a ‘sensitive period’ in
which any attachments will be strongest. Attachments formed after this will not be as strong or harder to form.
 Internal working model: the mental representations we all carry with us of our attachment to our primary
caregiver. They are important in affecting our future relationships because they carry our perception of what
relationships are like.

12. Bowlby’s Monotropic Theory of
Attachment - EVAL
 Mixed evidence for monotropy – Schaffer and Emerson (1964) found that a significant amount of
children have the ability to form multiple attachments at the same time. It is also unclear whether or not
the first attachment is actually unique, it might just be stronger than others instead of actually different.
 Support for social releasers – Brazleton et al. (1975) found that when caregivers were instructed to
ignore babies’ social releasers, they reacted very strongly, supporting the significance of infant social
behaviour in eliciting caregiving.
 Support for internal working models – Bailey et al. (2007) found that caregivers who had reported poor
attachment to their own parents had poorer attachment to their children in observations, supporting
the idea that the IWM of attachment is passed through families.
 Socially sensitive research – feminists have pointed out that theories such as this place a majority of
parental responsibility unfairly on the mother, limiting or being critical of their lifestyle choices and
setting them up to take blame if their children have issues later on.
 Temperament – some say that some babies are just genetically more anxious than others, and their
temperament may explain their later social behaviour more than attachment quality.

13. Ainsworth’s Strange Situation
 Ainsworth (1969) wanted to observe key attachment behaviours as a means of assessing the
quality of a child’s attachment to a caregiver.
 Procedure:
 Controlled observation in a laboratory setting with observation through a two-way
mirror.
 Behaviours used to judge attachment – proximity seeking, exploration and secure-
base behaviour, stranger anxiety, separation anxiety, and response to reunion.
 Seven stages each lasting three minutes – child encouraged to explore, stranger enters
+ attempts to interact, caregiver leaves, caregiver returns + stranger leaves, caregiver
leaves again, stranger returns, caregiver returns.
 Findings:
 Three types of attachment – secure attachment (B, 60-75%), insecure-avoidant (A, 20-
25%), insecure-resistant (C, ~3%).

14. Ainsworth’s Strange Situation - EVAL
 Support for validity – strongly predictive of later development. Babies with secure
attachment are associated with best outcome, whilst babies with insecure-resistant
attachment are associated with bullying behaviour in childhood and mental health issues
in adulthood. Gives validity.
 Good reliability – inter-rater. Many other researchers have successfully replicated the
Strange Situation and generally agree on the average proportions of attachment type.
 Temperament – Kagan (1982) has suggested that temperament may have more of an
influence on how an infant will react to the SS, as opposed to its attachment quality.
 Disorganised attachment – subtype of attachment, wherein babies show characteristics of
all three main types. Suggests the SS is too reductionist and there may be more
attachment types that have been missed.

15. Cultural Variations
 Key study, Van Ijzendoorn + Kroonenburg:
 Meta-analysis of attachment proportions in other countries, 8 countries using 1990 children
 Countries such as Japan and Israel had higher proportions of type C than they did type A, all
countries were primarily type B but some were 75% B whereas some were only 50%. There was
more variation within country samples than across countries.
 Italian study – Simonella et al. (2014) studied 76 12-month-olds, found 50% securely attached with 36%
insecure-avoidant, lower secure proportion than other countries. This is suggested to be because of the
rising number of families using childcare services due to work hours.
 Korean study – Jin et al. (2012) assessed 87 children. Proportions of secure attachment were similar to
other countries, however the remainder of the children were all type C, only one child being type A. This
may be due to child-rearing style and importance of family bonds in Korean culture.
 Conclusions: secure attachment is the norm in a wide range of cultures, supporting Bowlby’s theory of
innate attachment. However, the remainder of attachments vary across cultures.

16. Cultural Variations - EVAL
 Large samples – such large sample sizes increase internal validity and decrease the influence that
anomalous results have on the final conclusion.
 Unrepresentative – the meta-analysis had disproportionate representation of certain cultures. Of the 32
studies used, most were USA. As well as this, they were comparisons of countries, not culture: another
meta-analysis by Ijzendoorn and Sagi found that attachment proportions in urban Tokyo was more
similar to western countries, whereas a rural sample had an over-representation of type C infants.
 Biased method – the SS was designed with primarily western culture in mind. It enforces an idea of
ethnocentrism and imposed etic. For example, lack of reunion behaviour in USA may be a sign of
insecure-avoidance, but in Germany may just be a (desired) sign of independence.
 Alt. explanation for cultural similarity – with the new age of internet and international publishers,
parenting tips from all cultures are shared across the world, which may influence how one raises their
child although it is not ‘primary’ to their culture.
 SS lacks validity – SS may be measuring anxiety not attachment, following Kagan’s temperament theory.

17. Bowlby’s Theory of Maternal Deprivation
 Maternal deprivation – the emotional and intellectual consequences of separation between a child and their
mother.
 Suggests brief separation is not an issue, only detrimental when child is deprived of an element of care.
 Critical period – first 30 months of life, if a child is deprived of a mother’s emotional care during this time
Bowlby believed damage was irreversible.
 Effects on development: intellectual – believed that deprived children would have lower IQ; emotional – believed
that deprived children would be affectionless psychopaths and have the inability to form normal relationships
and a higher likelihood of criminal activity.
 44 Thieves Study:
 Bowlby assessed 44 criminal juveniles accused of stealing. Observed for signs of AP and interviewed
families for maternal deprivation. Control group of emotionally disturbed young people used to
determine how often maternal deprivation occurred in non-criminals
 Found that 14 of the 44 could be affectionless psychopaths, and of these 12 had experienced maternal
deprivation. Only 5 of the remaining 30 had experienced maternal deprivation. In the control group,
there was no AP and only 2 had experienced maternal deprivation.

18. Bowlby’s Theory of Maternal Deprivation -
EVAL
 Evidence is poor – Bowlby drew on a number of resources for evidence, including WW2 orphans.
However, these orphans were likely traumatised or had poor after-care which may have influenced
later behaviour. As well as this, his 44 Thieves study has major methodical flaws, seeing as Bowlby
himself carried out assessments and knew what he wanted to find.
 Counter-evidence – Lewis (1954) replicated the study on a larger scale of 500 + found that a history
of separation did not directly produce criminal behaviour or AP. Suggests other variables have more
influence on outcome.
 Critical period – suggested this is more of a sensitive period. Those with deprivation at this time
may recover fully provided that they have appropriate and consistent care following the
deprivation.
 Animal studies – Levy et al. (2003) found separating baby rats from their mother for as little as a
day had a permanent affect on social development but not other aspects.
 Deprivation and privation – Rutter (1981) claimed Bowlby was muddling two concepts together.
Deprivation means the loss of primary attachment figure post-attachment whereas privation is
failure to form attachment in the first place, suggesting Bowlby’s claims of damage are actually
caused by privation and not deprivation.

19. Romanian Orphan Studies
 Opportunity studies of orphans in 1990s Romania post-revolution.
 Rutter’s ERA:
 Following a group of 165 British-adopted Romanian orphans, testing physical, emotional, and cognitive
development at ages 4, 6, 11, and 15. Compared against a control group of 52 British adoptees adopted
at around the same time.
 Upon first arrival, majority were undernourished and half were behind UK counterparts. Rate of recovery
is associated with age at adoption- those adopted before 6 months of age had a mean IQ of 102, post-6
months had 86 and those adopted after two years had a mean of 77. Differences remained at 16.
 Children adopted after 6 months showed disinhibited attachment- attention seeking, clinginess, and
inappropriately friendly behaviour towards strangers.
 Bucharest Early Intervention Project:
 Zeanah et al. (2005) assessed attachment in 95 children ages 12-31 months who had spent the majority
of their life in institutional care. Compared with non-institution group of 50.
 65% were disorganised, only 19% were securely attached. 44% matched description of disinhibited
attachment.
 Effects of institutionalisation: disinhibited attachment, intellectual disability.

20. Romanian Orphan Studies - EVAL
 Real-life application – led to improvements in institution care, specific training for
caregivers, specified ratio of caregiver:child, valuable practically.
 Extraneous variables – this study has fewer extraneous variables. Orphan studies often
involve traumatised children, but these children were largely not previously
traumatised. Increased internal validity.
 Atypical orphanages – Romanian orphanages had very bad conditions, unusual
situational variables decrease generalisability.
 Ethical issues – ERA did not interfere with adoption process, so early adoptees may
have just been more sociable. BEIP did, randomly assigned to fostering or
institutionalisation, but this creates heavy ethical issues.
 Long-term effects – not yet clear. Has not followed into adulthood, many of the
‘behind’ children may have the ability to catch up in adulthood.

21. Early Attachment on Later Relationships
 Relationships in later childhood – attachment type is associated. Insecure-avoidant
children more likely to be victims of bullying and insecure-resistant the
perpetrators.
 Adulthood, romantic – in a survey, 56% of respondents were securely attached,
25% IA + 19% IR. Those securely attached reported longer and more lasting
romantic experiences, whereas insecure-avoidant ppts reveals jealousy and fear of
intimacy.
 Adulthood, parent – majority of mothers in a study had the same attachment type
as their children, suggests parenting style is generational and attachment type is
influenced by parental attachment type.

22. Early Attachment on Later Relationships -
EVAL
 Evidence for continuity is mixed – not all studies support internal working models.
Zimmerman (2000) found little relationship between quality of infant and adolescent
attachment.
 Issues of validity – much assessment relies on unreliable self-report techniques and
interviews. Validity of such is limited due to dependence on honesty and unbiased
observation.
 Association is not causation – environmental and biological factors may affect
attachment nature, as well as the matter of temperament. Parenting style may also have
an effect.
 Probabilistic – early attachment is not set-in-stone to influence later attachment, and
researcher such as Bowlby may have exaggerated influence. There is just greater risk.