Role Of The Father Flashcards
Bowlby (1988)
- Bowlby suggests that fathers can fill a role closely resembling that filled by a mother but this is uncommon.
- According to Bowlby, a father is more likely to engage in physically active and novel play and is the child’s preferred play companion.
Schaffer and Emerson (1964)
- Found that the majority of babies attached to mother first at around 7 months (father only first in only 3% of cases, father joint first attachment with mother in 27% of cases).
- Additional attachments developed in the proceeding months (4th stage- Multiple Attachment) to secondary attachments including the father.
- In 75% of infants studied, by 18 months, they had formed an attachment to the father (babies protested when father’s walked away, indicating attachment).
Field (1978)
- Compared the behaviours of primary caretaker mothers with primary and secondary caretaker fathers.
- Face-to-face interactions were analysed from video footage with infants at 4 months of age.
- Secondary caregiver fathers engaged more in game playing and held their infants less.
- Primary caretaker fathers engaged in significantly more smiling, imitative grimaces, and imitative vocalisations and these were comparable with mothers’ behaviour
- These behaviours are related to interactional synchrony and the formation of an emotional attachment (Isabella et al, 1989).
Grossman (2002)
- Conducted a longitudinal study of 44 families comparing the role of fathers’ & mothers’ contribution to their children’s attachment experiences at 6,10 and 16 years.
- Quality of infant attachment with mother was related to children’s attachments in adolescents, fathers attachment less important.
- Therefore, fathers may be less important in long-term emotion development
- But, also found the quality of the fathers play with infants was related to the quality of adolescent attachments.
- This suggests fathers have a different role in attachment, one that is more to do with play and stimulation (less to do with emotional care).
Brown et al (2012)
- Investigated father involvement, paternal sensitivity, and father−child attachment security at 13 months and 3 years.
- Results: involvement and sensitivity influenced father−child attachment security at age 3.
Involvement was a greater predictor of secure attachment when fathers were rated as less sensitive. - This research indicates that the gender of a caregiver is not crucial in predicting attachment types, rather it is the extent of caregiver involvement.
Strength
Using findings in parenting advice
- Mothers may feel pressured to stay at home and fathers to focus on work
- Research on the flexibility of the role of the father can be used to offer reassuring advice to parents
- This means that parental anxiety about the role of fathers can be reduced and parenting decisions made easier
Weaknesses
Different research question
- Some researchers look at the father as a secondary figure and others look at fathers being a primary figure.
- This means some see the father as acting differently than the mother and a distinct role. - - Others state that the father can take on a maternal role.
- Therefore there is no agreement on the role of the father and psychologists cannot easily answer the question: what is the role of the father?
Conflicting evidence from different methodologies
- Grossmann et al (2002) suggests fathers have a distinct role in children’s development, involving play and stimulation
- However, McCallum and Golombok (2004) found that children without a father do not develop differently
- This means the question of whether fathers have a distinctive role remains unanswered
- It has been found that children growing up in single or same-sex parent families do not develop any differently from those in two- parent heterosexual families. Other family structures adapt to not having fathers
- This means that findings may be clear after all there may be a distinctive role for fathers when present, but families adapt to not having one
