Stages of Attachment Flashcards
Strength- validity of the findings
strength of Schaffer and Emerson’s research into stages of attachment is that the study has high over of mundane realism.This is because the study was carried out In the families’ own homes and most of the observation was actually done by parents during ordinary activities and reported to the researchers later. This means that the behaviour of the babies was unlikely to be affected by the presence of the observers, meaning that the g participants behaved naturally. However, some of the data was based on mother’s reports of their infants. Some mothers may have been less sensitive to their infants’ protests and therefore less likely to report them. This would create a systematic bias which would challenge the validity of the data.
criticism of stages of attachment- biased sample
criticism of the research into stages of attachment is that of the sample used. This is because they used a small sample of 60 babies and their carers from the same district and social class. This is a limitation as child-rearing practises vary from one culture to another. The research was also conducted in the 1960’s and parental care of children has
changed considerably since that time. More women go out to work so many children are cared for outside of the home by other family members or at day-care settings. This therefore suggests the findings lack temporal validity and questions whether the findings can be generalised to other social and risorcones. Thereore the findings may differ for other cultures.
Another limitation- assessing multiple attachments
limitation of research into multiple attachments is that there may be a problem with how multiple attachment are assessed. Just bc an infant gets distressed when an individual leaves the room does not necessarily mean that the individual is a true’ attachment figure: Bowlby (1969) pointed out that children have playmates as well as attachment figures and they may be distressed when a playmate leaves the room, but this does not signify attachment to them. This is a limitation as Schaffer and Emerson’s view of the stages of attachment does not give us a way to distinguish between behaviour shown towards secondary attachment figures and towards playmates.
