AO3 - Schaffer's Stages of Attachment

• Schaffer & Emerson (1964) has low population validity. The infants in the study all came from Glasgow and were mostly from working class families.
• In Schaffer & Emerson parents kept daily diaries, which makes the results more subjective.
• Diaries are very unreliable with a risk of demand characteristics and social desirability, as parents would have wanted to look like 'perfect' parents.
• Schaffer & Emerson lacks temporal validity, as it was conducted in the 1960s when gender roles were different.
• Schaffer & Emerson has high ecological validity as children were studied in their homes.
• It is hard to test behaviour in the asocial stage of attachment as babies have poor co-ordination and are fairly immobile.
• There are many practical applications from knowing about the stages of attachment, it can help with daycare provisions or external childcare.
• Field experiments and naturalistic observations have high ecological validity.
• Schaffer & Emerson has reasonable generalisation as they used a sample of 60 babies.
• Schaffer & Emerson is culturally biased as it was only conducted in Glasgow, Scotland (ethnocentric).