Attachment

Attachment
Read the attachment
handout and complete
the activities as
directed.

Attachment
• Developmental Psychology is the area of psychology
that focuses on how the human mind develops and
changes over time.
• The development of the mind from birth to childhood
has been studied intensively by developmental
psychologists.
• The type of relationships that a child has with
caregivers has a significant effect on their cognitive and
emotional development.

Attachment
• Psychologists call these important early relationships
attachment relationships.
• One way to define attachment is:
• A strong, long-term, emotional and psychological bond
that develops over time between a child and its
caregivers.

Attachment
How do psychologists know a child has made an
attachment to someone?
• A child gets upset if separated from a particular
individual.
• This is known as separation protest.
• A child spends most of its time looking at and
wants to be close to a particular individual when
in a group.
• This is known as proximity seeking.

Separation
Protest

Proximity
Seeking

Attachment
How do psychologists know a child has made an
attachment to someone?
• A child will go to a particular person when
frightened, hurt, or upset, to be taken care of
and comforted.
• A child will go to a particular person if
approached by someone they don’t know.
• This is known as stranger anxiety.

Attachment
• Attachment develops over time.
• Attachment starts with the relationship between
the caregiver and the child.
• Psychologists have found that the way the
caregiver responds to the child’s needs is
important in the development of a secure
attachment.

Attachment: caregiver – infant interactions
• One important way a secure attachment is created
between a child and their caregiver is reciprocity.
• Reciprocity = the caregiver responds in a sensitive way
to their child’s verbal and non-verbal signals and in turn
the child responds to their caregivers signals.

Attachment: caregiver – infant interactions
• Interactional synchrony is also important
for the development of a secure
attachment.
• Interactional synchrony means the
caregiver and child mirror each other’s
actions and emotions.

Attachment

Caregiver – infant interactions: evaluation
• Reciprocity and interactional synchrony
have been identified in caregiver – infant
interactions in controlled studies.
• It has proven difficult to establish the
motivation of the child in caregiver -infant
interactions.

Caregiver – infant interactions: evaluation
• It is assumed that they are important for
the child’s social and emotional
development.
• Psychologists can’t say that reciprocity and
interactional synchrony are the basis for
the development of a secure attachment.

Caregiver – infant interactions: evaluation
• Attachment is a strong
emotional bond that
develops over time
between a child and their
caregivers.
• Schaffer & Emerson
(1964): the Glasgow baby
study

Schaffer & Emerson (1964)
• The aim of this study was to find out:
• How old infants are when they form an attachment.
• Who do infants make an attachment to?
• How strong the attachment is.
• Did infants display different attachment behaviours?

Schaffer & Emerson (1964)
• Schaffer & Emerson carried out a longitudinal
observational study.
• They observed mothers and infants in their home.
• They measured attachment by:
• Rating separation anxiety.
• Rating stranger anxiety.

Schaffer & Emerson (1964)
• Read p.7 & 8 of the attachment booklet
and complete the key study table: Schaffer
& Emerson (1964)

Schaffer & Emerson: stages of attachment
• Schaffer & Emerson identified 4 stages in the
development of attachment:
• Stage 1: asocial stage 0 – 2 months
• Stage 2: indiscriminate attachment 2 – 7 months
• Stage 3: specific attachment 7 months onwards
• Stage 4: multiple attachments 7 months onwards
• Schaffer & Emerson found that the first specific
attachment that babies formed was with the mother.