Attachment Figures

Question 1

Parent infant interaction

Answer 1

Traditionally we have thought in terms of mother infant attachment.

• shaffer and Emerson 1964 found that the majority of babies did become starched to their mother first (around 7 months)
• then within a few weeks or months formed secondary attachments to other family members, including the father.
• in 75% of the infants studied, an attachment was formed with the father by the age of 18 months

Question 2

The role of the father

Answer 2

GROSSMAN 2002
Carried out a longitudinal study looking at both parent’s behaviour and its relationship to the quality of children’s attachments into their teens.
-quality of infant attachment with mothers but not fathers was related to children’s attachments in adolescence. Suggesting that the father attachment was less important .
- however the quality of fathers play with infants was elated to the quality of adolescent attachments.
-this suggests that fathers have a different role in attachment- one that is more to do with okay and simulation and less to do with nurturing.

Question 3

Fathers as primary carers

Answer 3

There is some evidence to suggest that when fathers do take on the role of being the main caregiver they adopt behaviours more typical of mothers.
TIFFANY FIELD 1978
Found that fathers can take on the nurturing role of mothers as primary care givers

Question 4

Evaluation - inconsistent findings on fathers

Answer 4

Research into the role of fathers in attachment ins confusing because different researches are interested in different research question.

• psychologists of different times have different interpretations of what the role of the father is
• do they have a distinct role?
• this is a problem because the question cannot he easily answered of what is the role of the father

Question 5

Evaluation- if fathers have a distinct role, why aren’t children’s without fathers different

Answer 5

GROSSMAN found fathers as secondary attachment figures had an important role in children’s development
MACCALLUM found that children grousing up in same sex families do not develop different from those in two parent heterosexual families

This would suggest that the father role as a secondary attachment figure is not important

Question 6

Evaluation- why don’t fathers generally become primary attachments?

Answer 6

The fact that fathers tend not to become the primary attachment figure could simply be the result of traditional gender roles, in which women are expected to be caring and nurturing than men. Therefore fathers simply don’t feel they should act like that.
-on the other hand it could be that female hormones (eg oestrogen) create higher levels of nurturing therefore women are biologically pre disposed to be the primary attachment figure