ATTACHMENT- the role of the father

Question 1

who is the father?

Answer 1

Anyone who takes on the role of the main male caregiver. This does not necessarily have to be the biological father.

Question 2

what did Schaffer and Emerson (1964) find about the role of the father in attachment with babies?

Answer 2

• fathers are secondary attachment figure
• in only 3% of the cases= father was the sole object for attachment
• 27% of the cases= father was the joint first object of attachment with the mother

-after age of 18 months = 75% of babies formed attachment with father - determined by the way babies protested when their fathers walked away.

Question 3

How important are fathers in children development? Outline Grossman et al (2002)

Answer 3

• carried out a longitudinal study
• observed both parents behaviour + relationship and saw how it affected the quality of children’s attachment w/others into their teenage years.

FINDINGS
- quality of a baby’s attachment with mothers not fathers was related to attachments in adolescent years = suggesting fathers attachment was less important

• HOWEVER… quality of fathers’ play w/babies was also related to the quality of adolescent attachment= suggesting that fathers have a different role from mothers = to do more with play rather than emotional development.

Question 4

Explain how fathers are also seen to be as primary attachment figures? What does this teach us about key attachment?

Answer 4

• fathers who are able to adopt the emotional role are capable of being primary care giver
• eg Tiffany field (1978)
• filmed 4 month old babies face-to-face interaction with:
  primary caregiver mother + father
  secondary caregiver father
  FINDINGS:
• primary care giver mother like fathers spent more time smiling, imitating and holding infants more than secondary fathers = primary fathers take on the role of mothers
• key attachment is level of responsiveness not gender

Question 5

Give the STRENGTHS of research into the role of the father?

Answer 5

+ real world application
mothers are able to overcome traditional rules where they are expected to stay at home and care for the baby and the father works and provides for the household.
This allows the roles of the mothers and fathers to become more diverse where the father can also be the primary care giver.

+ single mother/lesbian parents can be advised that not having a father does not affect a child’s development.
Families can adapt to not having a father

Question 6

Give the LIMITATIONS of research into the role of the father?

Answer 6

• there is confusion over research questions psychologists are interested in different areas, some interested in fathers as primary or secondary figure. Research into the secondary attachment figure find that fathers behaviour differently to primary father attachment figure.
  This makes it harder to answer the question “what is the role of the father?”
• there is conflicting evidence
  MacCallum and Golombok (2004) - found that single or same sex families don’t develop differently which suggests that fathers role as a secondary attachment figure isn’t important.
  This means that questions of the importance as to whether fathers have a distinctive role is unanswered.
• bias in research
  Stereotypes can cause unintentional observer bias whereby observer sees what they expect to see it rather than recording objective reality.
  Stereotypes include fathers are not primary caregivers, fathers are stricter. This decreases the validity of findings.