Essay Plans
Attachment
Paper 1 - Section C
,Caregiver-infant interactions
Discuss infant-caregiver interactions + reciprocity / interactional synchrony (16)
Discuss research into caregiver-infant interactions in humans (16)
(don’t need all info - tailor to question)
Para 1 → Outline: caregiver infant interaction (AO1)
● Interactions between babies / PCG are baby led, adult responds to babies behaviour
● Early interactions have important functions for the child’s social development
● The responsiveness of the caregiver to the infant’s signals has profound effects
● 2 main aspects: reciprocity and interactional synchrony
Para 2 → Outline: reciprocity (AO1)
● Two-way interaction between caregiver and child
● Caregiver-infant interaction is a two-way / mutual process
● Each party responds to the other’s signals to sustain interaction (turn-taking)
● The behaviour of each party elicits a response from the other
● Behaviour is matched during interaction e.g. smiling back when someone smiles
● E.g Infant smiled, produces a smile from the PCG (normally baby led)
● Reciprocity influences a child’s physical, social and cognitive development
Para 3 → Outline: interactional synchrony (AO1)
● Simultaneous co-ordinated sequence of movements, communication, emotions
● Parent's speech / infant's behaviour become finely synchronised - in direct response
● Two people interact / mirror what the other is doing e.g facial / body movements
● Form of rhythmic interaction between infant and PCG
● Infants coordinate actions with PCG in a kind of conversation
● Infant / PCG anticipate how other will - elicits a particular response from the other
● E.g A PCG who laughs in response to their infants giggling sound and tickles them,
is experiencing synchronised interaction
Para 4 → Strengths: research into reciprocity - Brazelton (AO3)
● Observed mums / babies during interactions
● Reported existence of reciprocity - babies / caregivers respond to actions of other
● Primary attachment figures were told to not respond to babies signals
● Babies initially showed signs of distress, when the attachment figures continued to
ignore the babies some responded by curled up and lying motionless
Para 5 → Strengths: research into interactional synchrony - Meltzoff and Moore (AO3)
● Observational experiments to study start of interactional synchrony in infants
● Adults displayed distinctive facial gestures (tongue out) - infant responses observed
● Results indicated infants could imitate these facial and manual gestures
● Argue this interactional synchrony is important for development of attachment
● Suggest higher interactional synchrony associated with better quality attachment
Para 6 → Weakness: research is socially sensitive (AO3)
● Socially sensitive for / implications for working mothers
● Time consuming
● Babies are always sleeping so it is hard to find a time when they are alert
,Para 7 → Weakness: difficulties in reliability when testing infant behaviour (AO3)
● Infants mouth are always moving - hard to tell what’s general / imitated behaviour
● Expressions in the tests (smiling, yawning…) occur in infants so hard to distinguish
● Cause and effect - ethically impossible to manipulate variables e.g amount and
quality of interaction between baby and their caregiver
● M+M overcame this by measuring responses by filming just behaviour in interaction
● Then got an independent observer to judge the baby's behaviour
● They didn’t know which behaviour was being imitated and which behaviour wasn’t
● This increased the validity of the data
Para 8 → Weakness: failure to replicate (AO3)
● Other studies have failed to replicate findings of research
● Koepke failed to replicate the findings of Meltzoff and Moore
● Found babies were no more likely to stick out their tongue when the researcher did
compared to if they smiled
● Suggesting infant imitation / reciprocity / interactional synchrony may need to be
modified or abandoned
Issues with research into infant caregiver interactions → how they’re dealt with
● Context affects behaviour → natural setting (at home)
● Observational (bias0 → use more than one observer
● Practical issues → shorter observations
● Ethics → protection from harm
, Stages of attachment
Describe / evaluate stages of attachment identified by Schaffer and Emerson (16)
Para 1 → Outline: Schaffer (AO1)
● Newborn babies don’t have any attachments
● Schaffer’s theory on the stages of attachment is one of the most widely accepted
● His theory shows us what an attachment is / why we develop it in the first place
Para 2 → Outline: stages of attachment (AO1)
1. Indiscriminate attachments (0-8 weeks)
Behave similar between humans / non-human objects but prefer faces to non-faces
Happier with humans than when alone - Smile at anyone
2. Beginnings of attachments (2-7 months)
Recognise/prefer familiar people / faces but accept comfort from any adult
Preference for people rather than inanimate objects
3. Discriminate attachments (7-12 months)
Primary attachment to particular individual (person who shows most sensitivity)
Fear strangers (stranger anxiety) / unhappy when separated (separation anxiety)
4. Multiple attachments (1 year<)
Form secondary attachments with familiar adults they spend …time with e.g dad
Attachment to special person remains strongest
Baby is more independent / forms more attachments - fear of strangers weakens
Para 3 → Outline: longitudinal study (AO1)
● Schaffer and Emerson conducted a study on the development of attachment
● Followed 60 infants from mainly working class families in Glasgow
● Infants observed every 4 weeks until 12 months / again at 18 months
● Attachment was measured in 2 ways:
- Separation protest in 7 situations (left alone in a room/cot at night and so on)
Info obtained by interviewing the mums about the 7 situations
- Stranger anxiety ( researcher approached infant / noting when they whimper)
started to whimper
● Found attachments most likely to form with who responds accurately to the baby's
signals, NOT the person they spent more time with (RESPONSIVENESS)
● Mums who respond quickly to babies = intensely attached infants.
● Responsiveness seems the key to attachment
Para 4 → Weakness: issues with the study (methodology) (AO3)
● Data may be unreliable
● Behaviour monitored by mums - may have be less sensitive to infants' protests or
less likely to report them (also affected by DCs / socially acceptable behaviour)
● Creates a systematic bias which questions validity
● Longitudinal study - affected by drop out rates
● Control of EVs - babies become familiar with researcher affecting stranger anxiety
Attachment
Paper 1 - Section C
,Caregiver-infant interactions
Discuss infant-caregiver interactions + reciprocity / interactional synchrony (16)
Discuss research into caregiver-infant interactions in humans (16)
(don’t need all info - tailor to question)
Para 1 → Outline: caregiver infant interaction (AO1)
● Interactions between babies / PCG are baby led, adult responds to babies behaviour
● Early interactions have important functions for the child’s social development
● The responsiveness of the caregiver to the infant’s signals has profound effects
● 2 main aspects: reciprocity and interactional synchrony
Para 2 → Outline: reciprocity (AO1)
● Two-way interaction between caregiver and child
● Caregiver-infant interaction is a two-way / mutual process
● Each party responds to the other’s signals to sustain interaction (turn-taking)
● The behaviour of each party elicits a response from the other
● Behaviour is matched during interaction e.g. smiling back when someone smiles
● E.g Infant smiled, produces a smile from the PCG (normally baby led)
● Reciprocity influences a child’s physical, social and cognitive development
Para 3 → Outline: interactional synchrony (AO1)
● Simultaneous co-ordinated sequence of movements, communication, emotions
● Parent's speech / infant's behaviour become finely synchronised - in direct response
● Two people interact / mirror what the other is doing e.g facial / body movements
● Form of rhythmic interaction between infant and PCG
● Infants coordinate actions with PCG in a kind of conversation
● Infant / PCG anticipate how other will - elicits a particular response from the other
● E.g A PCG who laughs in response to their infants giggling sound and tickles them,
is experiencing synchronised interaction
Para 4 → Strengths: research into reciprocity - Brazelton (AO3)
● Observed mums / babies during interactions
● Reported existence of reciprocity - babies / caregivers respond to actions of other
● Primary attachment figures were told to not respond to babies signals
● Babies initially showed signs of distress, when the attachment figures continued to
ignore the babies some responded by curled up and lying motionless
Para 5 → Strengths: research into interactional synchrony - Meltzoff and Moore (AO3)
● Observational experiments to study start of interactional synchrony in infants
● Adults displayed distinctive facial gestures (tongue out) - infant responses observed
● Results indicated infants could imitate these facial and manual gestures
● Argue this interactional synchrony is important for development of attachment
● Suggest higher interactional synchrony associated with better quality attachment
Para 6 → Weakness: research is socially sensitive (AO3)
● Socially sensitive for / implications for working mothers
● Time consuming
● Babies are always sleeping so it is hard to find a time when they are alert
,Para 7 → Weakness: difficulties in reliability when testing infant behaviour (AO3)
● Infants mouth are always moving - hard to tell what’s general / imitated behaviour
● Expressions in the tests (smiling, yawning…) occur in infants so hard to distinguish
● Cause and effect - ethically impossible to manipulate variables e.g amount and
quality of interaction between baby and their caregiver
● M+M overcame this by measuring responses by filming just behaviour in interaction
● Then got an independent observer to judge the baby's behaviour
● They didn’t know which behaviour was being imitated and which behaviour wasn’t
● This increased the validity of the data
Para 8 → Weakness: failure to replicate (AO3)
● Other studies have failed to replicate findings of research
● Koepke failed to replicate the findings of Meltzoff and Moore
● Found babies were no more likely to stick out their tongue when the researcher did
compared to if they smiled
● Suggesting infant imitation / reciprocity / interactional synchrony may need to be
modified or abandoned
Issues with research into infant caregiver interactions → how they’re dealt with
● Context affects behaviour → natural setting (at home)
● Observational (bias0 → use more than one observer
● Practical issues → shorter observations
● Ethics → protection from harm
, Stages of attachment
Describe / evaluate stages of attachment identified by Schaffer and Emerson (16)
Para 1 → Outline: Schaffer (AO1)
● Newborn babies don’t have any attachments
● Schaffer’s theory on the stages of attachment is one of the most widely accepted
● His theory shows us what an attachment is / why we develop it in the first place
Para 2 → Outline: stages of attachment (AO1)
1. Indiscriminate attachments (0-8 weeks)
Behave similar between humans / non-human objects but prefer faces to non-faces
Happier with humans than when alone - Smile at anyone
2. Beginnings of attachments (2-7 months)
Recognise/prefer familiar people / faces but accept comfort from any adult
Preference for people rather than inanimate objects
3. Discriminate attachments (7-12 months)
Primary attachment to particular individual (person who shows most sensitivity)
Fear strangers (stranger anxiety) / unhappy when separated (separation anxiety)
4. Multiple attachments (1 year<)
Form secondary attachments with familiar adults they spend …time with e.g dad
Attachment to special person remains strongest
Baby is more independent / forms more attachments - fear of strangers weakens
Para 3 → Outline: longitudinal study (AO1)
● Schaffer and Emerson conducted a study on the development of attachment
● Followed 60 infants from mainly working class families in Glasgow
● Infants observed every 4 weeks until 12 months / again at 18 months
● Attachment was measured in 2 ways:
- Separation protest in 7 situations (left alone in a room/cot at night and so on)
Info obtained by interviewing the mums about the 7 situations
- Stranger anxiety ( researcher approached infant / noting when they whimper)
started to whimper
● Found attachments most likely to form with who responds accurately to the baby's
signals, NOT the person they spent more time with (RESPONSIVENESS)
● Mums who respond quickly to babies = intensely attached infants.
● Responsiveness seems the key to attachment
Para 4 → Weakness: issues with the study (methodology) (AO3)
● Data may be unreliable
● Behaviour monitored by mums - may have be less sensitive to infants' protests or
less likely to report them (also affected by DCs / socially acceptable behaviour)
● Creates a systematic bias which questions validity
● Longitudinal study - affected by drop out rates
● Control of EVs - babies become familiar with researcher affecting stranger anxiety
