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AQA
A Level: Paper 1
Section C
ATTACHMENT

Name:
Block:
Teacher: Val Hoey

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 SPECIFICATIONS

Attachment
Specifications: Caregiver-infant interactions: reciprocity + interactional synchrony.
KEY TERMS:
Reciprocity - a description, of how two people interact. Caregiver-inphant interaction is reciprocal
in that both the baby and the caregiver respond to each other’s signals and each elicits a responce
from each other
Interactional synchrony - caregiver and baby reflect both the actions and emotions of each otehr
and do this in a co-ordinated way.

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Isabella - 30 mothers and babies were observed together, and were asseced on the amount of
sycrony they had. The reserchers also looked at the degree of mother baby atachement. They
found that high levels of sycrony were asociated with better degrees of mother child
atachement.

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APPLY IT: Helping Helga
→ Helga's psychologist would probably draw a link between Helga's pre-existing stress and
her difficulty in bonding with Wilma.
→ Research has shown that, although mothers typically pick up infant signals around two
therds of the time, this can be lower when mothers are under stress (Finegood 2016).
→ Based on research e.g. by Isabella (1989) we also believe that the quality of the mother–
baby relationship depends on the quality of these early interactions.
→ Therefore, we would expect that Helga's stress would impact on her ability to develop a
good relationship with Wilma.

Caregiver-infant interactions: EVALUATION (AO3) P75

Filmed observations
One strength of research into caregiver-infant interactions is that it is usually filmed in a
laboratory. List 4 positives of this!
1. You can fully controll all of the things that the baby might be inetracting with.

2. Can control who is going to interact with the baby

3. The film can be analysed later. Aditonlay it means that otehr people will be able to view it
at the same time creating inter-rating-reliability

4. It can mean that babies probably wont know that they are being recorded so they are less
likely to change there behaviour.

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Therefore, the data collected in such research should have good reliability and validity.

Difficulty observing babies

One limitation of research into caregiver-infant interaction is that it is hard to interpret a
baby’s behaviour.
List 3 problems with this:
1. Because babies are often very young, it can mean that there is litttle to no co-ordanation of
movements at times. This can be seen in expresion, as a baby could be smiing at you, or
passing wind, or an observed hang twich could be random or a direct responce to a stimuli.

2. This can mean that it is hard to be certain that the behaviour seen in the iteractions have
any special meaning.

3. We don’t know anything from the childs point of view so somthing could be a random
twich or a full responce to an interaction.

This means we cannot be certain that the behaviours seen in caregiver-infant interactions
have a special meaning.

Developmental importance
A further limitation is that simply observing a behaviour does not tell us its developmental
importance.
Feldman (2012) points out that synchrony (and by implication reciprocity) simply gives
names to patterns of observable behaviour.

These are rubust phenominom in the sence that they can be rairly observed, but they still may not be
particualy useful in understanding child developement as it does not tell the purpose of these
behaviours. This can mean that we are not able to be certain from observation alone the reciprocating
and sycrony are key to a childs developement

COUNTERPOINT
There is evidence from some research that suggests early interactions are important (e.g.
Isabella, 1989).
Achievement of interactional synchrony predicted the development of good quality
attachment, this eans that, on balance, caregiver-inphant interactions are probably important
to development.

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Le Vine et al (1994) reported that Kenyan Gusi mothers have little physical interactions or
physical contact with their infants, but such infants do have a high proportion of good and
secure attachments.
P One limitation is that there are cultural differences

E And example of this being the le vine group in kenya. This group has mothers with
little interaction with there cildren, yet they still have good atachments with them.
E This means that there are no universal interaction between mothers and children that
results in secure atachement.

Caregiver-infant interactions Exampro 2021

Q1. Which one of the descriptions below best describes an infant showing reciprocity?
 
A A baby moves her head in time with her mother
B A baby smiles and her mother smiles back
C A mother moves her head in time with her baby
D A mother smiles and her baby smiles back
(Total 1 mark)

Q2. Which one of the descriptions below best describes an infant showing interactional synchrony?
 
A A baby moves her head in time with her mother
B A baby smiles and her mother smiles back
C A mother moves her head in time with her baby
D A mother smiles and her baby smiles back
(Total 1 mark)

Q3. What is meant by ‘reciprocity’ in the context of caregiver-infant interaction? (Total 2 marks)

Q4. What is meant by the term 'attachment'? (Total 2 marks)

Q5. Some researchers believe that caregiver–infant interactions influence the development of
attachment. Explain one reason why it is difficult to draw conclusions about the role of caregiver–infant
interactions in the development of attachment. (Total 2 marks)

Q6. Briefly discuss how researchers might address difficulties encountered when trying to investigate
caregiver-infant interaction. (Total 4 marks)

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Q7. Read the item and then answer the question that follows. 

Proud father Abdul was talking to his friend, as they were both watching Abdul’s wife, Tasneem,
interacting with their baby daughter, Aisha.

‘It’s amazing really’, said Abdul. ‘Tasneem smiles, Aisha smiles back. Tasneem moves her
head, Aisha moves hers, perfectly in time with each other.’

‘Yes’, agreed the friend. ‘It’s almost as if they are one person.’

With reference to Abdul’s conversation with his friend, outline two features of caregiver-infant
interaction. (Total 4 marks)

Q8. Briefly evaluate research into caregiver-infant interaction. (Total 4 marks)

Q9. One situation in which disruption of attachment can occur is when a mother of a young child is
admitted into hospital. A researcher decided to study the behaviour of a two year old boy who
experienced this disruption of attachment.

She decided to use naturalistic observation of the boy both before his mother was admitted into
hospital and after she returned home. Each period of observation lasted for one hour.

(a)     Suggest two suitable behavioural categories the researcher could use to record the boy’s
behaviour. (2)

(b)     How might the researcher record the boy’s behaviour during the one-hour observation?
(2)

(c)     Explain why the psychologist might want to carry out a pilot study before the main
observation. (2) (Total 6 marks)

Q10.
(a)     Describe one way in which psychologists have investigated caregiver-infant interaction in
humans. Refer to a specific study in your answer. (3)

(b)     Evaluate the way of investigating caregiver-infant interaction that you have described in
your answer to part (a). Do not refer to ethical issues in your answer. (3)
(Total 6 marks)

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Schaffer’s stages of attachment
KEY TERMS:
Stages of attachment: There are a sequence of qualitatively different behaviours linked to
specific ages. Different infant behaviours are linked to specific ages and all babies go
through them in the same order.
Multiple attachments: Attachments to two or more people. Most babies appear to
develop multiple attachments once they have formed one true attachment to the main
carer.

Stages of Attachment
Stage 1: Asocial stage (first few weeks) there is almost no social activity. Babies often tand to show a
preference to being around familiar people and will be more comfy with them.
Babies do like inanimate object and people but an amount of preferance is present. These people will be
familar or who makes them the most comfortable

Stage 2: Indiscriminate attachment - 2 to 7 months.

Prefer humans over inanimate objects.
Will still prefer familar people
Will be willing to take hugs from all people.
No real sighns of anxiety from strangers, or from seperation from caregiver.
Stage 3: Specific attachment - starts at around 7 months. This is when people start forming typical
forms of atachement to a spesific person. These can include amounts of anxiety towards strangers
especialy when there atached person is no longer there, in adition to general anxiety when that
person is also generaly absent. At this point it is called spesific atachement, whom the lucky winner is
known as the primery atachement figure. This person in not always who the child spends the most
time with, but the one who interacts best with there signals the best. In about 65% of cases this will
be the mother.
Stage 4: Multiple attachments - from 8 months to a year

Secondary atachements - when the child becomes atached to different people. Within a month of
primery atchement 28% showed secondary atachement. Howevr at a year almost all had a second one.

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 KEY STUDY: Schaffer and Emerson (1964)
Procedure:
How many babies? 60 M=31/F=29?

What city? glasgow What SES? Skiled working class families

How often were they visited? Every month until of age of one year, then again at 18
months

What did the researchers ask the mothers? How there children protested about 7 differnt
types of separation.

This was designed to measure what? There atachement, and there anxiety - how they
resonded to a new situation.

FINDINGS:
→ Between 25 and 32 weeks about 50% of the babies had shown signs of separation
anxiety towards a particular adult (usually the mother – called a “specific” attachment).
→ Attachment tended to be to the caregiver who was most interactive/sensitive to
infants’ signals/facial expressions (i.e. reciprocity). This was not necessarily the person
with whom the infant spent most time.
→ By the time of 40 weeks, 80% of the babies had a specific attachment and almost 30%
had multiple attachments.
RECAPPING SCHAFFER
Work in PAIRS: Try to do this WITHOUT the textbook (3.3)

HW below.

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Will recognise and prefer familiar people. Will prefer faces
to non faces. preference for people and not objects, same
goes for interacting with adults and objects. Will be
happier in the presence of people as oposed to alone.
Smile at all people

Might recognise and prefer specific faces. Will axept

comfort from all strangers. Smile at anyone. Might
recognise specific faces.preference to people over objects

Can show stranger anxiety. Will form primary attachment.

Will base there familiar adults off there atachements. Can
show separation anxiety

Can form secondary attachments with other people hwo

they spend time with

What stage am I in? (3.4)

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 Indisriminent

Recognises humans, but

wont have any major
atachements yet. Good time to
babysit

Spesific atachement

Realy likes spesific

person, bad time to
babysit

Asocial

Best time ever, great

time to babysit. calm

Multiple atachements

This means that there

are other people who
she likes. Slightly hard.

Attachment Schaffer AO3 Evaluation

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 RM Key term: External Validity

One Strength… Good External Validity

• Most of the observations (though not stranger anxiety) were made by perents during normal
activities and reported to the researchers.
• The alterantive would have been to have researchers present to record observations. This
might have…

• This means that it is highly likely that the Ps behaved naturally while being observed.
COUNTERPOINT
• On the other hand there are issues with asking mothers to be the “observers”.
• List the suggested problems:
• unlikely to be objective observers
•may be biased or missremember things

• This means that even if babies behaved naturally their behaviour may not have been
accurately recorded.

Limited sample characteristics + Generalisability

• The sample size of 60 babies and their carers was good considering the large volume of
data that was gathered on each participant.
• All the families involved were from the:
→ Same district → Same social class
→ Same city → Same time (over 50 years ago)
Why is this a limitation?

Schaffer’s Stages of Attachment Exampro 2021

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 Q1. Name three of the stages of attachment identified by Schaffer. (Total 3 marks)

Q2. Briefly evaluate research into caregiver-infant interaction. (Total 4 marks)

Q3.
(a)     Describe one way in which psychologists have investigated caregiver-infant interaction in
humans. Refer to a specific study in your answer. (3)

(b)     Evaluate the way of investigating caregiver-infant interaction that you have described in
your answer to part (a). Do not refer to ethical issues in your answer. (3)
(Total 6 marks)

The Role of the Father

→ Fathers may be important attachment figures.
→ Furthermore, it has been suggested that they have distinctive roles in parenting.
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→ Also, fathers are much less likely to become babies’ first attachment figure compared to
mothers.

Schaffer and Emerson (1964) found that……

Majority of babies did become attached to
their mother first…
The father was the first sole object of
attachment…

The father was the joint first object of

attachment with the mother…
In 75% of the infants studied an attachment
was formed with the father by…
This was determined by the fact that the
babies…..

Distinctive role for fathers

Do male adult caregivers make a unique contribution to early development?
→ Grossman’s (2002) study and findings:
→ Longitudinal study looking at both parents’ behaviour and its relationship to the quality of
children’s later attachments into their teens.
FINDINGS:

◘ However, the quality of fathers’ play WAS related to the quality of adolescence
attachments.
◘ This suggests

Fathers as primary attachment figures

● A baby’s relationship with their primary attachment figure forms the basis for all later
close emotional relationships.
● There is some evidence to suggest that when fathers do take on the role of primary
caregiver they are able to adopt the emotional role more typically associated with mothers.
Field (1978) filmed 4-month old babies in face-to-face interaction with
→ Primary caregiver mothers
→ Secondary caregiver fathers
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→ Primary caregiver fathers
FINDINGS:

CONCLUSION:

What’s important?

APPLY IT: Cheering up Boris (p79)

Suggested answer – fill in the blanks 

► Boris' situation is very common because most children go through a stage of only
accepting comfort from a ________ caregiver who is often their __________.
► This can leave fathers feeling ___________ and excluded from the mother–infant
relationship.
► We could tell Boris that Emily's behaviour is _________ and that it does not mean that
she is not attaching to him.
► We could also cheer him up by telling him about ______________ research showing
that fathers have a ____________ role in children's developing attachment, and that his
role is to ______ with Little Emily. So, he is important.

Grossman's rejected different normal

Mother single play

The Role of the Father AO3

◘ Confusion over research questions

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 P One limitation of research into the role of fathers is the lack of clarity over the question
being asked. The question “what is the role of the father” is much more complicated than it
sounds!
E Some psychologists are interested in under- The former have tended to see…
standing the role fathers have as secondary
attachment figures.
But others are more concerned with fathers as a The latter have found….
primary attachment figure.
E This makes it difficult to offer a simple answer as to the tole of the father. It really
depends what specific role is being discussed.

Conflicting evidence
P ◘ A further limitation of research into the role of the father is that findings vary according
to the methodology used.
◘ Grossman suggested that fathers have a distinct role in their children’s development
(involving play and stimulation).
If fathers have a distinct role - are children without fathers different?
For example, think about single-parent and lesbian-parent families!
E What do studies actually show?

E This means that the question…

COUNTERPOINT
→ The findings from the research above may not be in conflict.
→ It could be that fathers take on distinctive roles in two-parent heterosexual families, BUT
that parents in single-mother and lesbian -parent families simply adapt to accommodate the
role played by fathers.
→ This means that the question of a distinctive role for fathers is clear after all. When
present, fathers adopt a distinctive role BUT families can adapt to not having a father.

Real world application

One strength is that research can be used to offer advice to parents:

This means that parental anxiety about the role of the father can be reduced.

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Fatherly advice 3.6

Attachment Role of the Father Exampro 2021

Q1. Outline findings from research into the role of the father in attachment. (Total 4 marks)

Q2. Brian and Mikhail are discussing how they manage their child care.
Brian: “I take the children to the park most evenings where we run around or play football. Their

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 mum, Julie, makes their evening meal and gives them a bath, before putting them to bed.”

Mikhail: “It must be nice to have time to go to the park. As a single parent, I am the one who
makes the evening meal and does the bedtime routine.”

With reference to the conversation above, briefly discuss what research has shown about the
role of the father in attachment. (Total 4 marks)

Q3. Explain the economic implications of research into the role of the father in attachment.
(Total 4 marks)

Q4. (a)     Describe one way in which psychologists have investigated caregiver-infant interaction in
humans. Refer to a specific study in your answer. (3)

(b)     Evaluate the way of investigating caregiver-infant interaction that you have described in
your answer to part (a). Do not refer to ethical issues in your answer. (3) (Total 6 marks)

Animal studies of Attachment (p78)

PowerPoint: As Lorenz Imprinting
PROCEDURE
• As an adult researcher, Lorenz set up a classic
EXPERIMENT in which he randomly divided a clutch
of goose eggs.

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 • Half the eggs were hatched with the mother goose in their natural environment.
• The other half hatched in an incubator where the first moving object they saw was
Lorenz.
FINDINGS
• The incubator group followed Lorenz everywhere whereas…...
• the control group, hatched in the presence of their mother, followed her.
• This phenomenon is called IMPRINTING.. bird species that are mobile from birth
(like geese and ducks) attach to and follow the first moving object they see.
• Lorenz identified a critical period in which imprinting needs to take place.
• Depending on the species this can be as brief as a few hours after hatching.
• If imprinting does not occur within that time Lorenz found that chicks did not attach
themselves to a mother figure.
SEXUAL IMPRINTING
• The relationship between imprinting and adult mate preferences.
• Lorenz noticed that birds that imprinted on a human would often later display
courtship behaviour towards humans.

• CASE STUDY (Lorenz, 1952)

• A peacock reared in the reptile house of a zoo.
• First moving object the peacock saw were giant tortoises.
• Adult bird would only show courtship behaviour towards giant tortoises
= sexual imprinting.
• Lorenz suggested that imprinting has a permanent effect on mating
behaviour. Some have disputed this!

SEXUAL IMPRINTING AO3 EVALUATION

• For example, Guiton (1966) also showed that chicks would imprint on yellow rubber
gloves!!
• When the chickens matured, the chickens tried to mate with rubber
gloves.
• However, Guiton found that after spending time with their own species,
the chickens were able to engage in normal sexual behaviour with their
own kind.
• What does this suggest??
Lorenz Research EVALUATION (p79)
Research Support
P One strength of Lorenz’s research is the existence of support for the concept of
imprinting
E Regolin (1995): chicks were exposed to simple shapes combinations that moved, such as a
triangle with a rectangle in front
Findings:
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E This supports..

Generalisability to humans????
P One limitation of Lorenz’s studies is the ability to generalise findings and conclusions
from birds to humans.
E

E This means that it is not appropriate to try to generalise Lorenz’s ideas to humans.

Harlow’s Research

Harlow worked with rhesus monkeys, which are much more similar to humans than
Lorenz’s birds!!

The Importance of Contact Comfort

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Harlow observed that new-borns kept alone in a bare cage often
died but that they usually survived if given something soft like a
cloth to cuddle.
Procedure:

Findings:

Maternally deprived monkeys as adults

Harlow also followed the monkeys who had been deprived of a “real”
mother into adulthood to see if this early maternal deprivation had a
permanent effect.
Maternal Deprivation

The researchers found severe consequences!!....... The monkeys reared with the wire
mothers only were the most dysfunctional; however, even those reared with a soft toy as a
substitute did not develop normal social behaviour.

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 The Critical period for normal development
■ Like, _____________, Harlow concluded that there was a critical period for this
behaviour – a mother figure had to be introduced to an
infant monkey within _________ for an attachment to
form.

■ After this time attachment was impossible and the

damage done by early deprivation became
_______________.

Harlow’s Research AO3 Evaluation (p79)

Real-World value
P A STRENGTH OF HARLOW’S research is its important real-world applications.
E For example, it has helped social workers and clinical psychologists understand that a lack
of…

We also now understand the importance of attachments figures…

E This means that the value of Harlow’s research is not just theoretical but also practical.

Generalisability to humans
P One limitation of Harlow’s research is the ability to generalise findings and conclusions
from monkeys to humans.
E Rhesus monkeys are much more similar to humans than Lorenz’s birds, and all mammals
share some common attachment behaviours. However, the human brain/behaviour is still
more complex than that of monkeys.
E This means that it may not be appropriate to generalise Harlow’s findings to humans.
Ethical Issues
P A further LIMITATION of Harlow’s research is that is has been criticised for being
unethical. The monkeys suffered greatly as a result of the procedures.
E The species is considered by some to be similar enough to humans to be able to generalise
the findings, which also means that their suffering was presumably quite human-like.
Harlow himself was well aware of the suffering – he referred to the wire mothers as “iron
maidens’ after a medieval torture devise.

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E The counter-argument is that Harlow’s research was sufficiently important to justify the
effects.

APPLY IT: Deprivation damages brains

1.

2.

3.

Attachment Animal Studies Exampro 2021

Q1. Researcher A found that young animals seemed to attach for comfort rather than for food.
Researcher B found that mobile newborn animals would follow the first large moving object that
they saw.

(a)     Give the name of Researcher A and state the type of animal studied by this researcher.
(2)

(b)     Give the name of Researcher B and state the type of animal studied by this researcher.
(2)
(Total 4 marks)

Q2. Outline the procedure used in one study of animal attachment. (Total 4 marks)

Q3. Briefly outline the findings of one animal study of attachment and explain one criticism of the study.
(Total 4 marks)

Q4. Briefly discuss one limitation of using animals to study attachment in humans. (Total 4 marks)

Q5. Outline how Lorenz and Harlow studied attachment using animals. (Total 6 marks)

Q6. Outline and evaluate research into the effects of failure to form attachment. (Total 16 marks)

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