Schaffer's stages, caregiver-infant interactions, role of the father

Question 1

Schaffer and Emerson aim?

Answer 1

To investigate the formation of early attachments, including what age, how intense and who with.

Question 2

Schaffer and Emerson method?

Answer 2

-Studied 60 babies & their mother’s in a working-class Glasgow area, and studied their attachment through observation & interview.
-Visited every month for 12 months and then again at 18 months.
-Asked mothers questions and observed.
-Measured separation protest, when the infant was left alone in several everyday situations, and stranger anxiety, in the form of the researcher approaching the infant.

Question 3

Schaffer and Emerson findings?

Answer 3

-Attachments develop in 4 stages
- Attachments were most likely to form with the person who most accurately responded to the babies’ needs (carers high in “sensitive responsiveness”), not just the person that spent most time with them (in 39% of cases it wasn’t the mum).
-Between 25/32 weeks, 50% showed signs of separation anxiety.
-By 40 weeks, 80% had specific and 30% had multiple attachments.

Question 4

Schaffer and Emerson strengths?

Answer 4

-Good ecological validity. Conducted in their own homes and the mothers themselves did most of the observations. Can generalise to real life situations.
-Longitudinal design. Observed regularly so had good internal validity.

Question 5

Schaffer and Emerson weaknesses?

Answer 5

-Limited sample size and all babies were from the same area and social class. Could be a confounding variable, so harder to generalise to all babies.
-Could be a bias view of the mothers due to social desirability or not noticing anxiety.

Question 6

Stage 1?

Answer 6

Asocial stage.
-First few weeks.
-Behaviour towards human and non human objects is similar.
-Shows some preference for familiar adults and are happier in the presence of other humans.

Question 7

Stage 2?

Answer 7

Indiscriminate attachment.
-2-7 months.
-More social behaviour and show preference to people rather than inanimate objects.
-Accept comfort from any adult.
-No separation anxiety.

Question 8

Stage 3?

Answer 8

Specific attachment.
-7 months.
-Show separation and stranger anxiety.
-Have a primary attachment figure who responds to the baby’s signals the most.

Question 9

Stage 4?

Answer 9

Multiple attachments.
-Secondary attachment figures are formed.
-In Schaffer’s stduy, 30% has secondary figures 1 month after forming primary attachment.

Question 10

Strengths of Schaffer’s stages?

Answer 10

-Real life application to childcare and when parents should return to work after having children.

Question 11

Weaknesses of Schaffer’s stages?

Answer 11

-Poor evidence for asocial stage.
-Babies are fundamentally immobile so any signs of anxiety may be too subtle to notice. So babies may be social at this age but seem asocial.

Question 12

What is attachment?

Answer 12

A two way bond between two individuals where each individual is seen as essential for emotional security.

Question 13

What behaviours display attachment?

Answer 13

Proximity seeking- desire for physical closeness.
Separation anxiety- distress caused by being separated.
Secure base behaviour- ability to be independent knowing we can return to attachment figures as a safe base.

Question 14

What is reciprocity?

Answer 14

how 2 people interact
both infant and mother respond to each others signals and elicit a response. Babies have alert phases when they signal they are ready for interaction.

Question 15

What is active involvement?

Answer 15

Babies as well as caregivers take active role where both initiate interactions + take turns. Braz Elton describes this as a dance where each partner responds to the other’s moves

Question 16

Still face experiment?

Answer 16

Tronick.
-When mothers faced the baby with a still face, the response of the baby was recorded.
-Baby tried to gain attention back, and this attempt became increasingly desperate, until eventually caused a negative emotional reaction.
-Shows when the babies’ safe base is unavailable they lose control emotionally.

Question 17

What is interactional synchrony?

Answer 17

Mother and infant reflect both the actions and emotions of the other and do this in a synchronised way.

Question 18

Meltzoff and Moore 1977?

Answer 18

• Modelled tongue protrusion, mouth opening, lip protrusion and sequential finger movement to 18 newborns aged 12-21 days in two separate experiments.
• The results of the study indicated that when infants viewed a modelled gesture, they produced significantly more matching responses to the modelled gesture than when viewing a different modelled gesture.
  -The baby’s reactions were filmed and independent observers identified them.

Question 19

Fieldsman 2007?

Answer 19

Mothers pick up on alert phases 2/3 of the time. From three months the interactions become more frequent and involves paying close attention to each others facial expression and verbal singals.

Question 20

Strengths of caregiver interactions research?

Answer 20

-Observations filmed in a lab environment, things that may have distracted the baby were controlled. High internal validity.
-Babies don’t know they are being observed so there is no social desirability bias.

Question 21

Weaknesses of caregiver interactions research?

Answer 21

-Ethical issues- deliberately causing distress is failure to protect from harm. Babies cannot give informed consent.
-Babies’ body language is hard to detect. They have little control over their limbs, so are small hand movements or subtle expressions. Therefore we don’t 100% know if the movements are caused by the reaction.
-Cannot establish a link between interaction and child development, because can’t view from babies’ perspective.

Question 22

What is the father in research?

Answer 22

The closest male caregiver, not necessarily the biological father.

Question 23

What research looks into the specific role of the father?

Answer 23

Grossman et al 2002.
-Was a longitudinal study that looked into the quality of attachment to fathers as babies and how this related to attachment in adolescence.
-The quality of attachment in mothers related to the attachment is adolescence whereas the fathers did not. Therefore suggests mother’s attachment is more important.
-The quality of the father’s play related to attachment.
-This therefore suggests that fathers have a more mate-like role centred around fun and play, compared to mothers who have a role in emotional development.

Question 24

What research looks into fathers as primary attachment figures?

Answer 24

-Tiffany Field (1978) looked 4 month old babies in face to face interactions with their fathers.
-The primary figures spent more time holding and smiling at the baby, showing reciprocity and interactional synchrony.
-This suggests that when fathers take on the primary caregiver role, they become more emotionally involved in attachment.

Question 25

What research looks into if babies attach to their fathers?

Answer 25

Schaffer and Emerson.
-Found that only 3% on the babies primarily attached to their fathers.
-27% attached as a joint object with the mother.
-However by 18 months, 75% of the babies had formed attachment with their fathers. This was shown when the babies protested when the father left the room.

Question 26

What factors affect the role of the father?

Answer 26

-Cultural factors- until recently fathers were expected to be the breadwinners and the mothers were expected to take care of the children.
-Social policy- fathers were not given parental leave until recently in the UK. This implicitly gives the caregiver role to the mother.
-Biological factors- the female hormone oestrogen is associated with emotional response. This is not produced by men.
-Gender of the child- research shows that male children were more likely to prefer the father figure in attachment than female children. Freeman et al.

Question 27

Strengths of role of the father research?

Answer 27

-Real world application when planning childcare. The mother becoming the caregiver may not be the best option for a family socio-economically. The research provides reassurance and encourages change to social policy.

Question 28

Weaknesses of role of the father research?

Answer 28

-Bias in the research- Preconceptions of the role can cause unintentional observer bias where the observers see what they expect to rather than reality.
-Confusion about the research questions- some looks at the role as primary figures and some looks as secondary figures. There is no simple answer to the question.
-Conflicting research evidence- some support the importance of the father and some dismiss it.