attachment: stages of attachment Flashcards
what was the aim of schaffer’s research?
investigate development of attachment, longitudinal study
what was schaffer’s research?
observed 60 babies from working class over a year and a half, collected information from mothers via self report.
he collected data on two behaviours:
stranger distress: form of distress that children experience when exposed to strangers,
separation anxiety: anxiety provoked in child by separation from its mother.
what were the findings from schaffer’s research?
first attachment formed by 8 months - monotropic,
stranger distress usually 1 month later.
65% attach to mother only,
30% attach mother and father,
3% attach father.
responsiveness, play and social interactions matter for attachment formation- not person who fed/ washed child.
what is the conclusion from schaffer’s research?
monotropic attachment to mother is not ‘innate’- disagrees with bowlby.
food is not cause of attachment- disagrees with learning theory.
what is the first stage of attachment?
indiscriminate- birth until 2mths:
infants produce similar response to all people/ objects.
towards end of stage, they start to prefer social stimuli.
reprocity and interactional synchrony start to play a role.
what is the second stage of attachment?
discriminate attachments- 2-7mths:
separation anxiety: cry when primary carer puts them down, show joy when they return.
stranger distress: picked up by someone unfamiliar.
what is the third stage of attachment?
multiple attachments:
occurs after main attachment is made- based on how many consistent relationships child has.
what is the strength of longitudinal design?
not just a snapshot, regularly looked at behaviour over a long time
why is there good internal validity?
they used the same children to observe so no confouding variables
why is there good external validity?
study carries out in own home and observation done by parents so they were comfortable and no extravenous variables. their behaviour was unlikely to be affected and a good chance they behaved naturally
what is the weakness?
unreliable data as mothers did a self report, and some mothers may be less sensitive to their infants protests and less likely to report it, this creates systematic bias and challenge validity of data. there could have been socially desirable things in self report.
why can’t we apply these findings to other groups?
the sample was of a working class population so can’t be applied to other social groups, and was taken from 1960. parental care has changed since then and women go to work and children are cared for outside the home. the number of fathers who stay at home has quadrupled- out of date study.
