Stages Of Attachment

Question 1

Strength: high ecological validity

Answer 1

Observations were carried out in families own homes during ordinary activities, eg parents leaving the room, makes it easier to generalise findings to real life examples of attachment, children’s behaviour is likely to be representative of everyday interactions, increasing external validity

Question 2

Weakness: Social desirability

Answer 2

Prone to social desirability bias as interviews were used, mothers could have lied about their child’s behaviour, present parenting in best possible light, may say child is distressed when parent leaves the room even if they are not, results may have lacked internal validity, not measuring true stages of attachment

Question 3

Weakness: Culture bias

Answer 3

Sample all from same city (Glasgow), difficult to generalise findings to other cultures, psychologists studying collectivist cultures where families work together to look after a child found that infants can form multiple attachments from the outset, limits external validity of research as formations of attachment may differ between cultures