Development - Shaffer and Emerson

• Seperation anxiety


  The distress shown by an infant when seperated from their caregiver
• Shaffer and Emerson (1960) - Aim


  To understand the stages of attachment and how seperation anxiety changes over time
• Shaffer and Emerson - procedure 


  60 infants, aged 5-23 weeks until a year, from working class homes in Glasgow were visited every 4 weeks

  Seperation anxiety - each visit, the mother would report their infants response to seperation and stranger interaction, through intensity of protest and who it was directed to (using a four point scale)

  Stranger anxiety - assessing infants response to interviewer at each visit
• Findings - Stage 1

  Pre-attachment / asocial attachment

  • Birth - 2 months
  • Produce a similar response to most objects, then begin to show preference to social stimuli
  • Reciprocity and Interactional Synchrony play an important role
• Findings - Stage 2 


  Indiscriminate attachment

  • 2-4 months
  • Infants start to become more social - preferring human company
  • Can distinguish between familiar and unfamiliar people
  • Do not show much anxiety with strangers
• Findings - Stage 3


  Discriminate attachment

  • 7 months onwards
  • A distinctly different protest when put down (seperation anxiety)
  • Showing joy when reunited with that person (primary attachment figure)
  • Start to display stranger anxiety - intensely attached infants had mothers who responded quickly and sensitively to signals, where’s infants who showed no attachment had mothers who didn't respond to cues
  • 65% of Shaffer and Emerson’s participants showed attachment to the mother
  • 30% were joint attachment figures
  • Fathers were rarely the sole attachment, but 27% were joint first attachment
• Findings - stage 4 


  Multiple attachments

  • As soon as the infant has formed their first attachment - they start to form a wider circle of attachments
  • Shaffer and Emerson found that within one month of forming an attachment, 29% of the infants formed attachments with others (secondary attachment)
  • Within 6 months, this figure had risen to 78%
• Shaffer and Emerson (1960) - Conclusion 


  By a year, most infants have developed multiple attachments - 1/3 developed five or more secondary attachments

  Seperation anxiety can occur with e=secondary attachments
• Weakness - Unreliable data


  The data is unreliable as its based on mothers reports of their infant - some may be more or less sensitive to their childs needs

  This creates symptomatic bias - reducing validity
• Weakness - Biased sample

  Working class population - results cannot be applied to a wider population / carry ecological validity

  More women care for children as opposed to men
• Weakness - Cultural representation

  The study reflects an individualistic culture, rather than a collectivist one - they’re more concerned with the needs of themselves rather than the community

  In a collectivist culture - communities share childcare and would therefore bring entirely different results
• Weakness - Stage Theories 


  This type of theory suggests development is inflexible and therefore not relevant or applicable to many

  states that we form attachment before multiple - whereas in many cases its the other way around

  This may then set a standard process for development - and others are considered abnormal