The Role of the Father

Question 1

What does early research suggest about attachment?

Answer 1

Focused mainly on mother and baby attachment and the role of the father in development is often neglected

Question 2

What did Schaffer and Emerson find in terms of if infants attach to their fathers and when?

Answer 2

• Most babies become attached to their mothers around 7 months
• Only 3% of cases showed attachment to the father first
• In 27% of cases the father was the joint first attachment with the mother
• BUT most fathers do go on to become important attachment figures: 75% of babies formed an attachment with their fathers at 18 months

Question 3

What is the study which suggests the role of the father is more to do with play and stimulation?

Answer 3

Grossman (2002)

Question 4

What was Grossman’s study?

Answer 4

Procedure:
- Longitudial study of 44 families
- Compared the mothers and fathers role in the development of their children attachment at 6, 10 and 16
Findings:
- Quality of infant attachment with mothers related to attachment in adolescence
- Quality of fathers play was related to attachment in adolescence

Question 5

What study suggested that fathers can act as primary caregivers?

Answer 5

Field (1978)

Question 6

What was fields study?

Answer 6

Procedure:
- Filmed 4 months old babies interactions with primary caregiver mothers and fathers and secondary caregiver fathers
Findings:
- Primary caregiver fathers had more face to face interactions like primary caregiver mothers compared to secondary caregiver fathers
Conclusion:
- Fathers do have the potential to provide responsiveness required for close emotional attachment but only express this when given the role of primary caregiver

Question 7

What is the strength of the role of the father?

Answer 7

Practical implications- Practical implications- Research such as Field shows that fathers can be primary caregivers. This has important practical applications for maternity/paternity, as this suggests this could be split and would have no impact on the child. It is still the case in the UK that women are more likely to take more time to raise a child than men- research like this could help change this.

Question 8

What are the 3 limitations of the role of thee father?

Answer 8

confusion over research questions- A weakness of the research is lack of clarity over the question being asked. Some psychologists are interested in understanding the role of fathers as secondary attachment figures whereas others are more concerned with fathers as primary caregivers. Researchers looking at the role of the father as a secondary attachment figure tend to see fathers as behaving differently from mothers and having a distinct role, whereas researchers looking at the father as a primary attachment figure have found that fathers can take on a ‘maternal’ role. This makes it difficult to offer a simple answer as to the ‘role of the father’. It really depends what specific role is being discussed.

Why are children without fathers different if they play a distinct role?- Grossman found that fathers as a secondary attachment figure has an important role in their children’s development. If this was the case then why do children without fathers develop no differently? MacCallum and Golombok (2004) found children growing up in single or same-sex parent families do not develop any differently from those in two parent heterosexual families. These results would seem to suggest that the father’s role as a secondary attachment figure is not important.
Counter- It could be that fathers typically take on distinctive roles in two-parent heterosexual families, but that parents in single-mother and lesbian-parent families simply adapt to accommodate the role played by fathers. This means that the question of a distinctive role for fathers is clear- when present, fathers tend to adopt a distinctive role, but families can adapt to not having a father.

No control over other influences- There are numerous other influences which may impact on a child’s emotional development.. For example, their culture, the father’s beliefs, the father’s age, marital intimacy, the amount of time the father spends away from home. It is difficult to control all of these variables and therefore making it hard to draw conclusions about the role of the father.