Multiple Attachments & Role of Father

• What was the traditional Role of the Father?

  They would have played a minor role.

  Mothers = Stay at home and look after the children.

  Fathers = Went out to work.

  Single parent families, or families with a working mother were rare.
• What are the modern Role of the Father?

  • Mothers are much more likely to work (5.3 million in 2013)
  • Stay at home fathers are on the increase (14% of stay at home parents are male).
  • 10% of single parents in the UK are male.
• What does that demonstrate?

  That fathers now have a significantly larger role in parenting than they did in the past and therefore, it is important to re-examine the role of fathers in attachment.
• What are the mediating factors that relate to the type of attachment a father has with his children?

  1. Interaction - how much the father engages with the child.
  2. Accessibility - how physically and emotionally accessible he is.
  3. Responsibility - the extent to which he takes on 'caretaking' tasks.
• Who instigated Sensitivity of Fathers?

  Hrdy (1997)
• What did he find out?

  Fathers are less able than mothers to detect low levels of infant distress, which suggests males as less suitable as primary caregivers.
• Who counterarguments this?

  Lamb (1987) found that fathers who became the primary caregivers quickly develop more sensitivity to children's needs which suggests that sensitive responsiveness not a biological ability limited to women.
• What do these findings support?

  The important of sensitivity and indicate that differences in males and females in responsiveness may be down to differences in time spent with their children, NOT biological differences.
• Who investigated Biological Differences? (Can Dads be a primary caregiver?).

  Frodi et al (1978)
• What did he find out?

  Evidence to challenge the view that mothers have a greater psychological response to infant distress: They showed video tapes of infants crying and found no differences in the psychological responses of men and women, suggesting that biological factors may not explain the gender differences in attachment relationships between parents and infants.
• Who investigated Different Roles?

  Many researchers, including Geiger (1996) have found that fathers play a different role to mothers.
• What did he find out / show?

  That fathers' play interactions are more exciting and pleasurable than mothers', while mothers are more nurturing and affectionate which supports the idea of fathers being playmates rather than caregivers, complementing the mothers role in the child's development.
• What do these findings support?

  The idea that the roles of mothers and fathers are complementary and that BOTH roles are important rather than a hierarchal system suggested by BOWLY.