CAREGIVER-INFANT INTERACTIONS
Feldman & Eidelman: mothers pick up on and respond to infant alertness
around 2/3 of the time
Meltzoff & Moore: adult displayed a facial expression and the child showed
synchrony, their response was filmed and identified by observers
Schaffer & Emerson: most babies attached to their mother by 7 months
and attachment was formed with their father by around 18 months in 75%
of infants studied
Field: filmed 4-month-old babies interacting with parents, found that
primary caregiver fathers spent more time smiling and holding infants
than secondary caregiver fathers
Grossman: the father's role is to stimulate the child (play with them)
STAGES OF ATTACHMENT
Schaffer & Emerson: studied 60 babies from working-class families in
Glasgow, visited babies and mothers at home for 18 months, by 40 weeks
80% had a specific attachment and almost 30% had multiple attachments,
identified four stages of attachment from this study: asocial (0-2 months),
indiscriminate (2-7 months), specific (7-12 months) and multiple (12+
months)
ANIMAL STUDIES
Lorenz: found that geese attached themselves to the first moving object
they saw (him), birds that imprinted on a human would display courtship
behaviour towards a human - he found that a peacock would try to court
giant tortoises (sexual imprinting), critical period could be as short as a
few hours
Guiton et al: chickens imprinted on yellow washing up gloves, tried to
mate with them but eventually learned to mate with chickens
Harlow: tested the idea that a soft object serves some of the functions of a
mother on rhesus monkeys, cloth mother and wire mother (some
variations just the wire mother dispensed milk), found that food was not
as important as contact comfort, monkeys reared with just the wire
mother were most dysfunctional, critical period of 90 days
EXPLANATIONS
Feldman & Eidelman: mothers pick up on and respond to infant alertness
around 2/3 of the time
Meltzoff & Moore: adult displayed a facial expression and the child showed
synchrony, their response was filmed and identified by observers
Schaffer & Emerson: most babies attached to their mother by 7 months
and attachment was formed with their father by around 18 months in 75%
of infants studied
Field: filmed 4-month-old babies interacting with parents, found that
primary caregiver fathers spent more time smiling and holding infants
than secondary caregiver fathers
Grossman: the father's role is to stimulate the child (play with them)
STAGES OF ATTACHMENT
Schaffer & Emerson: studied 60 babies from working-class families in
Glasgow, visited babies and mothers at home for 18 months, by 40 weeks
80% had a specific attachment and almost 30% had multiple attachments,
identified four stages of attachment from this study: asocial (0-2 months),
indiscriminate (2-7 months), specific (7-12 months) and multiple (12+
months)
ANIMAL STUDIES
Lorenz: found that geese attached themselves to the first moving object
they saw (him), birds that imprinted on a human would display courtship
behaviour towards a human - he found that a peacock would try to court
giant tortoises (sexual imprinting), critical period could be as short as a
few hours
Guiton et al: chickens imprinted on yellow washing up gloves, tried to
mate with them but eventually learned to mate with chickens
Harlow: tested the idea that a soft object serves some of the functions of a
mother on rhesus monkeys, cloth mother and wire mother (some
variations just the wire mother dispensed milk), found that food was not
as important as contact comfort, monkeys reared with just the wire
mother were most dysfunctional, critical period of 90 days
EXPLANATIONS
