Paper 1 - Attachment - The Role of the Father Flashcards
What is the difference between the role of the mother and the role of the father?
Mother - Nurturing and affectionate
Father - More of a playmate
What purpose does the role of a playmate in the development of the child?
Building social and problem solving skills
What did the Shaffer and Emerson study find about attachments with fathers?
27% joint attachment
3% just the father
Most of the time the infant had formed an attachment with the father by 18 months
What are the hormonal differences between men and women?
Women - Caring hormones, oestrogen and oxytocin
Men - Aggressive hormone, testosterone
What was the procedure, findings and conclusion about Grossmann’s research into the role of the father?
Procedure - Longitudinal study, following the attachment of babies until they were teenagers as well as the behaviour of the parents.
Findings - Quality of attachment with mothers was related to attachments in adolescence.
Conclusions - Attachment to fathers is less important than that of the mother - supporting the idea of the father being a secondary role model.
What did McCallum and Golombok find about the role of the father?
They found that children who grew up with homosexual parents or just one parent developed the same as children in two-parent heterosexual families, highlighting an inconsistency in the idea of the role of the father as a secondary figure.
What changes in society have occurred which may dispute research into the father being a secondary attachment figure?
10 times more stay at home dads in the UK compared to 10 years ago.
1 in 7 fathers or 1.4 million men act as the primary caregiver.
When acting as the primary caregiver, fathers are known to take on the emotional and nurturing role of the mothers.
What are the economical implications of this research?
If mothers feel as if they need to stay at home to look after their children they may not go to work. This means they won’t be paying taxes and may even claim benefits instead.
Why is the correlational nature of the research an issue?
It means we can’t determine the cause and effect of fathers being an important attachment figure. It could be biological, stigma based or a mix of both. More research is needed to look at causation before a conclusion is made.
