Stages of Attatchment

Question 1

What is the asocial stage?

Answer 1

Infants show a greater preferance for social stimuli. Reciprocity and interactional synchrony are prominent.

Question 2

What is the indiscriminate stage?

Answer 2

Infants descriminate between familiar and unfamiliar people. They do not display stranger anxiety.

Question 3

What is the discriminate stage?

Answer 3

Infants develop a primary attatchement to one person. They display separation anxiety, stranger anxiety and joy on reunion.

Question 4

What is the multiple attatchment stage?

Answer 4

Form secondary attatchments, infants display separartion anxiety in these attatchments.

Question 5

When does the asocial stage take place?

Answer 5

Birth to 3 months.

Question 6

When does the indiscriminate attatchment stage take place?

Answer 6

3 to 6 months.

Question 7

When does the discriminate attatchment take place?

Answer 7

7 months onwards.

Question 8

From what age does the multiple attatchment stage prevail?

Answer 8

10 months onwards.

Question 9

Who researched the stages of attatchment?

Answer 9

Schaffer and Emerson.

Question 10

What was their sample?

Answer 10

60 Glaswegian infants from working class backgrounds.

Question 11

Describe the procedure.

Answer 11

• Mother reported infant’s responses to separation in seven everday situations.
• They also assesssed the levels of stranger anxiety displayed by the infants.

Question 12

What did Schaffer and Emerson find?

Answer 12

• First attatchment was formed between 6 and 8 months.
• By 18 months, 65% of infants had developed a primary attatchment to the mother and only 3% to the father.
• By 18 months, 31% had formed multiple attatchments.

Question 13

Give an advantage of their study.

Answer 13

Advantages:

• Mundane realism - infants’ own homes - normal situations.
• Little to no Hawthorne Effect - infants are covertly observed by their mothers - findings will be accurate.

Question 14

Give a disadvantage of Schaffer and Emerson’s study.

Answer 14

Disadvantages:

• Lack of temporal validity - taking place in the 1960s - child rearing practices have changed considerably - zeitgeist.
• Ethnocentric sample - sample from the same location and social grade.
• Bowbly contradicted the findings arguing that children show separation anxiety when a playmate leaves yet no primary attatchment is formed.
• Self - report technique - mothers are less sensitive to infant’s protests and less likely to report them.
• Thomas suggested that a tendancy to form primary attatchment to one person is bad for psychological development - may be more desirable to have a variety of attatchments.