Attachment - The Role Of The Father Flashcards
Who is the father in attachment research?
Anyone who takes on the role of the main male caregiver. Doesn’t have to be the biological father
Who found that the majority of babies became first attached to their mother at around 7 months?
Schaffer & Emerson
What % did Schaffer & Emerson find that fathers were the sole object of attachment in babies?
3%
What % of cases was the father the joint 1st attachment object with the mother?
27%
What % of babies studied by Schaffer & Emerson formed an attachment with their father by 18 months?
75%
Who is Grossman et al & what did they do?
They did a longitudinal study where they tested babies’ attachment were studied up until they were teenagers. They looked at both parent’s behaviour & its relationships to the quality of their baby’s later attachments to other people.
What did Grossman et al conclude about attachments in adolescence?
They said that the quality of a babies’ attachment with mothers not the fathers was related to attachments in adolescence. This suggests that attachment to fathers is less important than to mothers.
They also founf that the quality of the father’s play with babies was related to quality of adolescent attachments - suggests that fathers have a different role than mothers that is more to do with play & less to do with emotional development
What does a baby’s relationship with their primary attachment figure form?
A schema on all later close emotional relationships
What evidence is there to suggest that fathers can take on the emotional role more typically associated with mothers when they are the primary caregiver?
Tiffany Field filmed 4 month old babies in face to face interaction with primary caregiver mothers, secondary caregiver fathers & primary caregiver fathers & found that primary caregiver fathers spent more time smiling, imitating & holding babies than secondary caregiver fathers (all a part of interactional synchrony & reciprocity)
What is a strength into research into the role of the father?
Real-world application - can be used to offer advice to parents (lesbian couple/single mothers/ hetero parents) that there children will be fine
What are the limitations of the research into the role of the father?
Confusion over the research question - some researchers are interested in studying different things about the role of the father so it is confusing over what the answer to the question of ‘what is the role of the father’ as it depends on what’s specifically being discussed
Conflicting evidence - Grossman et al suggest that suggested that fathers as secondary attachment figures have a distinct & important role - suggests that lesbian/single mother family’s would have children hat grow up as abnormal (McCallum & Golombok showed that these children dont grow up differently than heterosexual families - question remains unanswered
