Stage 3: Specific attachment

• • By seven months, most infants show different sorts of protest when one particular person puts them down (separation anxiety) ​
• • Equally, they show special joy at reuniting with that person, and are most comforted by this person ​
• • They have formed a specific attachment to one person, their primary attachment figure ​
• • The infant also displays stranger anxiety, another sign of a specific attachment having formed ​
• ·       Schaffer & Emerson found that primary attachments were not always formed with the person who spent that most time with the infant ​
• ·       Intensely attached infants had mothers who responded quickly and sensitively to their ‘signals’ and offered the infant the most interaction ​
• ·       Infants who were poorly attached had mothers who failed to interact ​
• ·       They concluded that is the quality of the relationship, not the quantity, that mattered most in the formation of attachment ​
• the percentages