schaffers stages of attachment

• 60 babies (31 male, 29 female)
• All were from Glasgow and majority were from working class families
• Researchers visited mothers and their babies in their own homes every month for the first year and again at 18 months.
• Mothers were asked questions about the protest their babies showed in seven everyday separations e.g adult leaving room (measuring separation anxiety). Designed to measure babies attachment
• Stranger Anxiety was also assessed, by measuring babies response to unfamiliar people
• Findings: Identified 4 distinct stages in development of infant attachment behaviour - Asocial Stage, Indiscriminate Attachment, Specific Attachment & Multiple Attachments
• Stage 1: Asocial Stage Age: 0-2months Behaviour towards people and inanimate objects similar. But not completely asocial, babies shows signs that they prefer to be with other people. Babies tend to show preference to the company of familiar people and are more easily comforted. Baby is forming bonds with certain people and these form basis of later attachments.
• Stage 2: Indiscriminate Attachment Age: 2-7 months Babies start to display observable social behaviours. Show clear preference for being with other humans rather than inanimate objects. Recognise and prefer the company of familiar people. However, babies usually accept cuddles and comfort from any person (indiscriminate) They do not usually show separation anxiety when caregivers leave or stranger anxiety in presence of unfamiliar people.
• Stage 3: Specific Attachment Age: From 7 months Majority of babies display signs of attachment towards one particular person. These signs include stranger anxiety, especially when primary attachment figure is not present. Separation anxiety from primary attachment figure. Primary attachment figure is not necessarily person they spend most of their time with but the person who offers most interaction and responds to the baby's signals with the most skill. This is the baby's mother in 65% of cases.
• Stage 4: Multiple Attachments Age: Shortly after attachment is made. 8months + (By the age of 1). Shortly after baby's show attachment behaviour (Separation and stranger anxiety) towards one person they usually extend this behaviour to multiple attachments with other people whom they regularly spend time with. These relationships are called secondary attachments. 29% of children form secondary attachments within a month of forming a primary attachment figure (Specific attachment). By the age of 1, the majority of babies have developed multiple attachments.
• used a longitudinal method where they studied people over time
• Most of the observations were made by parents during ordinary activities and reported to the researchers. If researchers were present and had to record observations this may have distracted babies or made them feel anxious and their behaviour would not be authentic. = Meaning behaviour observed was natural, and so findings should be able to be generalised to real-world situations so good external validity.
• Issues with asking the mothers to be the observers, they were unlikely to be objective, they may have been bias in terms of what they noticed/reported and could have misremembered. Therefore, even if babies' behaviour was natural, it may not have been accurately recorded so lack of internal validity.
• weakness: Young babies have poor coordination and are fairly immobile. If babies less than 2 months old felt anxiety in everyday situations they might have displayed this in quite subtle, hard to observe ways. This made it difficult for mothers to observe and report back to researchers on signs of anxiety and attachment in this age group. This means that babies may actually be sociable but because of flawed methods they appear to be asocial.
• They have practical application in day care. In the asocial and indiscriminate stages day care is likely to be straightforward as babies can be comforted by any skilled adult. However, Schaffer & Emmerson's research tells us that day care, especially starting day care with an unfamiliar adult may be problematic during the specific attachment stage. Meaning parents' use of day care can be planning using these stages.
• weakness: However, they only looked at one sample, from one culture/country and within a certain historical context - Working class families from Glasgow in the 1960s. In other cultures, e.g collectivist cultures multiple attachments from a very early age are more the norm so may lack generalisbility.