Stages of attachment

• Who conducted a study on the development of attachments?

  Schaffer and Emerson
• What was the procedure of Staffer and Emerson?

  60 infants from working class homes in Glasgow.

  At the start they ranged from 5-23 weeks of age.

  Mother were visited every 4 weeks.

  At each visit mother reported on their infants response to separation in 7 everyday situations.

  The mother was also asked to describe the intensity of the protest which was rates on a 4 point scale.
• What were the results from study used for?

  To construct a description of how attachment develops.
• What were the 4 stages of attachment?

  1 - Indiscriminate attachments

  2 - The beginnings of attachment

  3 - Discriminate attachment

  4 - Multiple attachments
• What happens during indiscriminate attachments?

  Infants produce similar responses to all objects, be they inanimate or animate. Towards the end they are beginning to show greater preference for social stimuli, such as a smiling face. Reciprocity and interactional synchrony play a role in establishing the infant's relationships with others.
• What age is indiscriminate attachments?

  From birth to around 2 months
• What is the beginnings of attachment?

  Infants become more social. The prefer human company to inanimate objects. They can distinguish between familiar and unfamiliar people. Still relatively easily comforted by anyone, so do not show stranger anxiety.
• What age is the beginning of attachment shown?

  Around 4 months
• What are is discriminate attachment shown?

  7 months
• What is discriminate attachment?

  Infants begin to show a distinctly different sort of protest when one particular person puts them down (separation anxiety).

  Show joy at reunion.

  Said to have formed a specific attachment to one person.

  Also begin to display stranger anxiety.
• When is multiple attachments stage?

  Very soon after the main attachment is formed.
• What happens during multiple attachments?

  The infant develops a wider circle of attachments depending on how many consistent relationships they have. These are secondary attachments. The infant also shows separation anxiety with these relationships.
• By the age of one year, the majority of infants had formed multiple attachments. These usually developed after the infant had formed their specific attachment to the primary attachment figure.
• What are examples of secondary attachments?

  father, grandparents, sibling
• What are some drawbacks of the stages of attachment?

  • unreliable data - self report
  • temporal validity - ways of parenting have changed since then
  • biased sample - working-class families
  • implications - the research suggests that children make multiple attachments in stage 4 but are the multiple attachments equivalent.