Stages of Attachment Flashcards
AO1
Schaffer and Emerson researched the stages of attachment and their aim was to investigate the formation of early attachments, the age they developed and who they were directed to.
It was a longitudinal study on 60 working class new born infants and their mothers from Glasgow. They were visited at their own homes every month for the first year of the infants life and once at 18 months. Observations and interviews were used.
Attachment was measure in two ways. Separation anxiety - the infant would be assessed on being left alone in the room or asking the mother how they reacted in this instance. Stranger anxiety - the researcher would start the home visit by approaching the infant to see if they became distressed. The researcher would ask questions such as who does the infant smile at or respond to.
They found 4 stages of attachment. The first is asocial (first sew weeks) where the infants behaviour to adults and inanimate objects were similar. The next is indiscriminate (2-7 months) where the infant showed a preference to humans over inanimate objects but showed no stranger or separate anxiety. The next is specific (around 7 months) where the infant would start to form attachments and show stranger and separation anxiety. In 65% of cases the specific attachment was to the mother. The final stage is multiple attachment where within a month of specific attachment 29% had formed multiple attachments. By 1 year most children had multiple attachments. At 18 months 75% children had an attachment to their father.
What are the evaluations? (4)
1) High ecological validity
2) Social desirability bias
3) Culture bias
4) Longitudinal study
AO3: Ecological validity
The research into stages of attachment can be praised for having high ecological validity as the observations were carries out in their family homes during ordinary activities such as the parent leaving the room. Therefore it is easier to generalise the findings to real life examples of attachment as the children behaviour is representative of everyday interactions. This increases the external validity of the research into caregiver infant interactions.
AO3: Social desirability
However the research into stages of attachment is prone to social desirability bias as interview were used to gather informations. Mothers could have lied about their infants behaviour to present their parenting in the best possible light for example saying their child was distressed when they left the room when they weren’t. Therefore this reduces the internal validity of the research into stages off attachment because they aren’t truly measuring the stages of attachment.
AO3: Culture bias
The research into stages of attachment can be criticised for having culture bias as the sample was all from the same city (Glasgow). Therefore it is more difficult to generalise the findings of stages of attachment to other cultures. For example, psychologists studying non-western, collectivist cultures where families work together to raise a child found that the infant can form multiple attachments from the outset without forming a specific attachment first. This weakens the external validity of the research into stages of attachment as the formation of attachments may differ between cultures.
AO3: Longitudinal study
A strength of the research into stages of attachment is that it was carried out longitudinally as the same children were followed up and observed regularly (once a month for the first month of their lives). This is a strength as there couldn’t have been a confounding variable such as individual differences between the children for example the natural temperament of the child affecting perception of the stage of attachment, increasing the validity of the research into stages of attachment.
