caregiver infant interations and role of the father

Question 1

what did schaffer and emerson (1964) find?

Answer 1

The found that most babies did develop a secondary attachment after the mother (7 months) In 75% of the infants studied, an attachment was formed with the father by the age of 18 months. They also found that 27% of fathers were joint first for the object of attachment and 3% were purely the 1st sole of attachment

Question 2

which study identifies that the role of the father is not important?

Answer 2

Grossman (2002) carried out a longitudinal study where he looked at the quality of children’s attachments into their teens. Where he found that the attachment with the mother in infancy was related to attachment in their adolescence, but not for the father. suggesting that the father attachment is less important.

Question 3

what did Grossman (2002) also find out about fathers (counterpoint)

Answer 3

However, they also found that the quality of fathers okay with babies was related to the quality of adolescence of attachments which suggests that fathers have a different role from mothers.

Question 4

which evidence suggests that fathers can adopt the behaviour more typical of mothers

Answer 4

Field (1978) where they filmed 4 month old babies having face to face interactions with pcm pcf and scf. they found that Pcf spent more time smiling, imitating and holding their babies then Scf. This is considered important behaviour in the formation as fathers have the potential to be a more emotional focussed attachment figure.

Question 5

one limitation of the role of fathers

Answer 5

One limitation into the role of the father is the lack of clarity over the question being asked, some researchers attempting to answer this question actually want to understand the role of fathers as secondary attachment figures. The latter have found that fathers can take on a ‘’maternal role’ in high makes it difficult to offer a simple answer as to the “role of the father’ - it really depends on what specific role is being discussed.

Question 6

another limitation of the role of fathers

Answer 6

The Grossman longitudinal study found that rather as secondary attachment figure me did have an important role in their children’s developmental but others such as MacCallum and Golombok (2004) fount that children growing up in single parent or same sex families did not develop differently. This suggests the father’s role is not that important.

Question 7

counterpoint to conflicting evidence as the role of the father

Answer 7

However, these lines of research may not in-fact be in conflict. It could be that fathers typically take on distinctive roles in two parent families. But that parents in single mother, lesbian, simply adapt to accommodate the role played by the father.