Schaffer’s Stages of Attachment AO3

• +Real world application

  One strength of Schaffer and Emerson’s stages is that they have practical application in day-cure. In the asocial & indiscriminate stages, daycare is likely to be straightforward as babies can be comforted by any skilled adult. However research tells us that day care, especially starting daycare with an unfamiliar adult may be problematic during the specific attachment stage. This means that parents use of day care can be planned using Schaffer and Emerson’s stages.
• -Poor evidence for the asocial stage

  One limitation of S&E stages is the validity of the measures used to assess attachment in the asocial stage. Young babies have poor coordination and are fairly immobile. If babies less than 2 months old felt anxiety in everyday situations they might‘ve displayed this in 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 quite social but, because of flawed methods, they appear to be asocial.
• +Good external validity

  Another strength of StE 's research is that it has good external validity. Most of the observations (excluding stranger anxiety) were made by parents doing ordinary activities and reported to the researchers. The alternative would've been to have researchers present to record observations. This might've distracted the babies or made them feel more anxious.
• +-There are issues with asking the mothers to observe. They were unlikely to be objective observers. They may've been biased in terms of what they noticed and what they reported. eg may not have noticed when their baby was showing signs of anxiety or they may've misremembered it. This means that even if babies behaved naturally, their behaviour may not have been accurately reported.