Attachment: SCHAFFER’S STAGES OF ATTACHMENT Flashcards
What is the first stage of attachment in babies?
Asocial stage
In a baby’s first few weeks of life, observable behavior towards humans and inanimate objects is fairly similar.
What do Schaffer and Emerson believe about the asocial stage?
It is not entirely asocial; babies show signs of preferring to be with other people
Babies also show a preference for familiar people and are more easily comforted by them.
What is the age range for the indiscriminate attachment stage?
2 to 7 months
During this stage, babies display more social behaviors and prefer being with humans over inanimate objects.
What behaviors do babies exhibit during the indiscriminate attachment stage?
Preference for humans, recognition of familiar people, accepting comfort from any person
They do not usually show separation anxiety or stranger anxiety.
At what age do babies typically start to form specific attachments?
Around 7 months
This is when they begin to show signs of separation anxiety and stranger anxiety.
What is the primary attachment figure?
The person with whom the baby has formed a specific attachment > the person who offers the most
interactions and responds to the babies signals with the most skill.
usually the mother in 65% of cases
What is the final stage of attachment?
multiple attachment
They extend attachment to multiple attachments with other adults
These relationships are called secondary attachments.
What percentage of children formed secondary attachments within a month of forming a primary attachment according to Schaffer and Emerson?
29%
By the age of one year, the majority of babies had developed multiple attachments
.
Fill in the blank: The stage of attachment where babies show attachment behavior towards one adult is called _______.
Specific attachment
True or False: Babies in the indiscriminate attachment stage show separation anxiety.
False
What is the significance of the bonds formed in the asocial stage?
Even in the asocial stage, babies are forming bonds with certain people.
They form the basis of later relationships
AO3: high external validity
Most of the observations were made by parents during ordinary activities and reported to the researcher. The
alternative would have been to have researchers present to record observations. This might have distracted the
babies or made them feel more anxious.
This means it is likely that the babies behave naturally, making the findings valid.
BUT, there are issues with asking the mother to be the observer.
Mothers are unlikely to be objective observers. They might have been biased in terms of what they noticed and what they reported.
For example they might not have noticed when their baby was showing signs of anxiety or they may have
misremembered it.
This means that while babies behaved naturally their behaviour may not have been accurately recorded
AO3: poor evidence for asocial stage
They describe the first few weeks of life as the asocial stage. Although important interactions take place in those weeks, the problem is that babies are young have poor coordination and are generally pretty much immobile. If babies less than two months old felt anxiety in everyday situations they might have displayed this in quite subtle, hard- to-observe ways.
It is therefore difficult to make any judgments about them based on observations of their behaviour. This means babies may actually be quiet social but because of the flawed method of assessing attachment in asocial stage, they appear asocial.
Such methods lack validity
AO3: real life application
Schaffer and Emerson’s theory of attachment have been applied to day care
In the asocial and indiscriminate stage of attachment, day care is likely to be straight forward as babies can be comforted by any skilled adult > as they do not show stranger anxiety
But in the specific stage of attachment, day care will likely be problematic as the baby will show strange anxiety with an unfamiliar adult
This is a strength as **parents are able to plan the appropriate and easiest times when to start using day care **
