Lesson 2 - The development of an attachment

Question 1

Schaffer and Emerson (1964)

Answer 1

• 31 male and 29 female infants of 5-23 weeks from working class families in Glasgow and their mothers were visited in their homes every four weeks for a year and then at 18 months.
• The mothers would report their infants behaviour to seven situations at every visit: left alone in a room, left with other people, left in a pram outside of the house, left in a pram outside the shops, left in their cot at night, put down after being held by an adult, passed by while sitting in their cot.
• The mothers were asked to describe the intensity of the child’s protest which was then rated on a four point scale.
• They measured separation and stranger anxiety
• 65% of babies were primarily attached to the mother
• 30% of babies were jointly attached to the mother + one other
• 3% were attached to the father
• 27% were jointly attached to the mother and father.
• As well as this, at 18 months, 75% were jointly attached to both parents, showing how multiple attachments are able to be formed.
• Those who had better quality of CG interaction were more deeply attached. Quality > Quantity

Question 2

Stages of Development

Answer 2

• 0-3 months: Pre-attachment/asocial stage. Baby behaves similarly to inanimate objects and humans. By six months, the baby would show preference to humans and familiar faces.
• 3-6/7 months: Indiscriminate phase. Infants do not show separation or stranger anxiety but prefer familiar adults, but not to a singular adult.
• 7-8 months: Discriminate phase. Infants begin to show separation and stranger anxiety. They have formed an attachment with a primary figure.
• 9 months onwards: Multiple attachments. Infants form secondary attachments and show separation anxiety to these figures.

Question 3

Importance of secondary relationships

Answer 3

• Bowlby said that relationships were hierarchical and that the secondary attachments were minor compared to the primary.
• Rutter (1995) disputed this saying that they were of equal importance in building the infants internal working model.

Question 4

Strengths of Schaffer and Emerson (1964)

Answer 4

• It had good external validity as the scenarios were all everyday conditions and they were carried out by the parents. The infant and caregiver would have behaved naturally as they were notunder the strict controls of a lab study. No one would have showed demand characteristics and the study contained mundane realism, therefore it is more applicable to real life
• The same mothers and infants were longitudinally studied over an 18 months period. This increased internal validity as there would be no confounding variables like individual differences, as opposed to a cross-sectional design, where different children were used at each age.
• Consent was obtained and there were no ethical issues.

Question 5

Weaknesses of Schaffer and Emerson (1964)

Answer 5

• As self reports were used, mothers may have shown social desirability bias. They want to be seen as having a good relationship. As well as this, they may have shown bias as it is their own child in observing their behaviour.
• Possibly a biased sample, because it was only working-c;ass mothers in the study. Can it apply to the rest of society?
• As the sample were all working class families, the results may not apply to other classes.
• It may lack temporal validity as family and parenting techniques and dynamics have changed considerably over the last 60 years, as many fathers have a closer relationship to their child, paternal leave etc. Fathers who stay at home to care for their families has quadrupled in the last 25 years (Cohn et al, 2014). Would S&E’s results be different today?
• Bowlby (1969) stated that the adults who’s infants show separation anxiety to may not necessarily be an attachment but just a play mate. Therefore it then becomes difficult to measure an attachment by separation anxiety, because the adult may just be a playmate to the child.
• Tronick et al (1992) carried out cross-cultural research in Zaire, Africa and saw that forming multiple attachments is the norm, as opposed to other researches that state that a primary attachment needs to be formed FIRST before secondaries. As well as this, the use of stage theories such as this may be inflexible and suggests that primary attachments NEED to be made before secondary attachments. Therefore in some cultures where they happen simultaneously perhaps, this could be wrongly classed as abnormal. Introduces ethnocentricity.