Attachment: Lesson 1 - Stages of Attachment

Question 1

What is developmental psychology?

Answer 1

A branch of psychology concerned with the progressive behavioural changes that occur in individual across their lifespan

Question 2

What is attachment?

Answer 2

An emotional bond between two people
It is a two-way process that endures over time
It can lead to certain behaviours such as proximity seeking

Question 3

Who formed the “Staged of Attachment” based in a longitudinal study where they followed sixty infants for two years?

Answer 3

Schaffer and Emerson

Question 4

What are the stages of Attachment?

Answer 4

1. Pre-attachment (0-3 months)
2. Indiscriminate attachment (3-7 months)
3. Discriminate attachment (7 months onwards)
4. Multiple attachments (7 months onwards)

Question 5

What is Pre- Attachment?

Answer 5

From six weeks of age, infants become attracted to other humans, preferring them to objects and events
This is evident because they smile at peoples faces

Question 6

What is Indiscriminate Attachment?

Answer 6

When infants begin to discriminate between familiar and unfamiliar people, smiling more at people they know
They will allow strangers to handle them

Question 7

What is Discriminate Attachment?

Answer 7

When infants develop as specific attachment to their primary attachment figure, staying close to that person

• They show separation protest (the distress an infant shows when their primary attachment figure leaves them) when that person leaves, and they show joy when they are reunited with that person
• They begin to display stranger anxiety (the distress an infant shows when approached by someone they don’t know)

Schaffer and Emerson noticed that the primary attachment figure was not always the person that they infant spent the most time with, concluding that it was the quality of the relationship that mattered, and not the quantity of time spent

Question 8

What is Multiple attachment?

Answer 8

• when infants develop strong emotional ties with other major caregivers, such as grandparents, and non-caregivers, such as siblings
• These are called secondary attachmentsand infants can also show separation anxiety in these relationships
• The fear of strangers weakens but their attachment to their primary attachment figure remains the strongest
• Within one month of first becoming attached 29% of infants had multiple attachments, this had risen to 78% six months later.

Question 9

Evaluation for Stages of Attachment (unreliable) (-)

Answer 9

• The data collected by Shaffer and Emerson (1964) may be unreliable because it was based on mothers’ reports of their infants. Some mothers might have been less sensitive to their infant’s protests and therefore been less likely to report them

Question 10

Evaluation of Stages of Attachment (biased working class) (-)

Answer 10

• the sample was biased because it only included infants from a working-class population and thus might not apply to other social groups

Question 11

Evaluation of Stages of Attachment (biased: cultures) (-)

Answer 11

• the sample was biased because it only included infants from individualist cultures
  Infants from collectivist cultures could form attachments in different ways

Question 12

Evaluation of Stages of Attachment) (temporal validity) (-)

Answer 12

• the study was conducted in the 1960s and parental care of children has changed considerably since then.
  More women go out to work and more men stay at home

Question 13

Evaluation of Stages KF attachment (inflexible) (-)

Answer 13

Stages theories like this one are often inflexible

Some infants may form multiple attachments initially rather than stating with a single one