stages of attachment

Question 1

stages of attachment

Answer 1

the different stages of attachment qualitively different infant behaviours are linked to specific ages and all babies go through them in the same order

Question 2

multiple attachments

Answer 2

attachments to 2 or more people, most babues appear to develop multiple attachments once they have formed one strong attachment to one of their carers

Question 3

stage 1: asocial stage

Answer 3

• first few weeks of life, its observable behaviour towards humans and inanimate objects is fairly similar
• recognise specific faces
• happier in presence of humans than when alone
• smile at anyone
• prefer faces to non-faces

Question 4

stage 2: indiscriminate stage

Answer 4

• 2-7 months start to display more obvious and observable behaviours
• clear preference for being with humans
• recognise and prefer company of familiar people
• accept cuddles and comfort from anyone
• don’t show seperation anxiety or stranger anxiety

Question 5

stage 3: specific attachment

Answer 5

• from around 7 months
• start to show signs of attachment to one particular person
• anxiety towards direct strangers and seperation anxiety
• formed specific attachment to a primary caregiver
• not necessarily the one that spends the most time with the child, but the one who offers the most interaction and response
• 65% of the time is the babies mother

Question 6

stage 4: multiple attachments

Answer 6

• secondary attachments with other people who they regularly spend time with
• 29% of infants form a secondary attachment within a month of forming a primary one

Question 7

strength: good external validity

Answer 7

• observations were made by parents during ordinary activities and reported to researchers
• the alternative would’ve been to record observations
• this may have distracted the babies or made them feel more anxious
• means participants behaved naturally whilst being observed

Question 8

counter to external validity

Answer 8

• other hand, issues around asking mothers to be observers
• unlikely to be objective, they may have been biased in terms of what they observed and reported, may not have noticed when their baby was showing signs of anxiety
• this means babies natural behaviour may not have been accurately recordedsc

Question 9

schaffer and emmersons research

Answer 9

• based their theory on an observation of the formation of early infant-adult attachments
• 60 babies, 31 boys 29 girls from Glasgow
• from skilled working-class families
• researchers visited babies and their mothers in their own homes every month for the first year and again at 18months
• the researchers asked the mothers questions about the kind of protest their babies showed in seven everyday seperations
• this was to measure the babies attachment and measured their stranger anxiety

Question 10

schaffer and emmerson findings

Answer 10

• the data about attachments is shown in the table on the left, they identified 4 distinct stages in the development of infant attachment behaviour

Question 11

strength of schaffer and emmerson

Answer 11

• longitudional study
• nomothetic approach