SCHAFFER’S STAGES- EVALUATION

• Strength- Usefulness to parents:

  • Understanding of stages- may be useful to parents
  • Daycare- straightforward for babies in asocial / indiscriminate attachment stage- can be comforted by any skilled adult 
  • Schaffer & Emerson’s research- may be problematic during specific attachment stage (unfamiliar adult)
  • Explanation of stages- practical application, can influence parents’ decision to send children to daycare 
• Weakness- Stages lack testability: 

  • Schaffer & Emerson based theory on research findings that reflect child-rearing practices of 1960s- using working class population
  • Decreases validity- lacks generalisability, not applicable to life nowadays 
• Strength- Supporting Evidence for Specific attachment stage: 

  • Schaffer & Emerson- studied 60 infants from working class homes in Glasgow
  • Studied until the age of 1 year, visited again at 18 months 
  • Observations / interviews were used- most babies started to show separation anxiety from their attachment figure from around (25-32 weeks)- supports specific attachment stage
  • However- some data collected unreliable, based on mothers’ reports on their infants / social desirability issues (wonder what investigators would think of them)
  • Creates systematic bias- would decrease validity of the data