The Role of the Father

Question 1

What percentage of babies had their fathers as their first sole attachment?

Answer 1

3%

Question 1

What percentage of babies had a joint first attachment to their fathers and mothers?

Answer 1

27%

Question 2

What percentage pf infants had formed an attachment with their fathers by 18 months?
How was this discovered?

Answer 2

75%
This was discovered when babies would protest if their fathers walked away from them.

Question 3

What did Grossman study?

Answer 3

The distinctive role of fathers.

Question 4

What was the aim of Grossman’s research?

Answer 4

To find out whether attachment to fathers holds specific value in child development, and if so, whether it plays a different role in child development to attachment to mothers.

Question 5

What type of study did Grossman carry out?
Generally, how long were the babies studied for?

Answer 5

Longitudinal study.
The babies were studied into their teen years.

Question 6

In Grossman’s study, what did they look at the relationship between?

Answer 6

Both parent’s behaviour and the relationship to the quality of babies later attachments to other people.

Question 7

Describe what Grossman found about the quality of the mother’s and father’s attachment to the child and the child’s later attachment to others.
What do these findings suggest about the father’s attachment?

Answer 7

Quality of the baby’s attachment to the mother was linked to the child’s attachments with other people in the future.
Attachment to fathers was not linked to this. This suggests that attachment to the father is less important.

Question 8

What did Grossman find out about how the quality of the father’s play affected the child?

Answer 8

Quality of play with the baby affected the child’s attachment to their father as teenagers.

Question 9

What did field investigate in his study?

Answer 9

Fathers as a primary attachment figure.

Question 10

What did Field say fathers typically do when they become the primary caregiver?

Answer 10

They adopt a more emotional role, which is typically associated with mothers.

Question 11

How old were babies in Field’s study?

Answer 11

4 months old.

Question 12

Babies in Field’s study were filmed doing what in front of which people? (divide these people into 3 categories).

Answer 12

They were filmed doing face to face interactions with their primary caregiver.
- Primary caregiver mothers
- Primary caregiver fathers
- Secondary caregiver fathers

Question 13

How did primary caregiver father’s behaviour compare to primary caregiver mother’s and secondary caregiver father’s behaviour in Field’s experiment?

Answer 13

Like primary caregiver mothers, primary caregiver fathers spent more time imitating, smiling and holding their babies more than secondary caregiver fathers.

Question 14

Explain the strength that research into the role of the father can be used to offer advice to parents.
Explain the example that parents sometimes cant decide on who the primary caregiver should be, and how mothers may feel pressured to be the primary caregiver due to stereotypes.
Use another example that explains how advice can be offered to lesbian couples about how no father figure.

Answer 14

Parents sometimes can’t decide who should be the primary caregiver. Mothers may feel pressured to stay at home due to stereotypes of roles, whereas fathers may feel pressured to work. In some families, this may not be the economical solution. Research into the role of the father can be used to offer reassuring advice to parents. For example, heterosexual parents can be informed that fathers are capable of being the primary attachment figure, and lesbian parents/single mothers can be aware that not having a father figure wont impact development. This means that parental anxiety about the role of the father can be reduced.

Question 15

Explain the limitation that research into the role of the father lacks clarity over the question bring asked.
Use the example that the question ‘what is the role of the father’ is very complex, and consider how some researchers see fathers as the primary attachment figure, while others are more concerned about fathers as the secondary figure. Explain what role some fathers take on.

Answer 15

The question about what the role of the father is very complex. Some researchers have attempted to answer this question by trying to understand the father as the secondary attachment figure. But others are more concerned with fathers as the primary attachment figure. The former tended to see fathers as having differently to mothers and having a distinct role. The latter have found that fathers can take on a maternal role. This makes it hard to answer the question of what the role of the father is.

Question 16

Explain the limitation that research around the role of the father has varying findings due to various methodologies used.
Use the example of how Grossman’s longitudinal study has shown the importance of father’s play on child development, but consider how this may impact children who have grown with lesbian parents/single mothers.

Answer 16

Longitudinal studies, such as those used by Grossmann have suggested that fathers as secondary attachment figures have an important role in child development, involving play and stimulation. However, if fathers have a distinctive and important role we would expect that children growing up in single mother/lesbian parent households would develop differently to those in heterosexual families, but there is research from fact studies which disproves this. This means that the question as to whether fathers have a distinctive role remains unanswered.

Question 17

Explain the limitation of bias within research into the role of the father.
Use the example that researchers may hold an unconscious bias towards fathers due to stereotypes.

Answer 17

Observers may expect fathers to act in a certain way due to stereotypes and personal beliefs. These stereotypes risk observer bias so observers may record what they expect to see rather than recording objective reality. This leads to us not fully understanding the role of the father, as findings from research may reflect someone else’s beliefs and not fact.