stages of attachment

• Stages of attachment


  • Stage 1: Asocial stage
  • Stage 2: Indiscriminate attachment
  • Stage 3: Specific attachment
  • Stage 4: Multiple attachments
• Stage 1: Asocial stage


  • Babies prefer the company of familiar people, can be easily comforted by the presence of certain people, and are forming bonds with these people
• Stage 2: Indiscriminate attachment

  • Babies start to display more social and observable behaviour, show a clear preference for being with other humans rather than inanimate objects, recognise and prefer the company of familiar people, but will usually accept cuddles and comfort from any person
• Stage 3: Specific attachment

  • Majority of babies display clear signs of attachment towards one particular person, including anxiety during separation and joy upon reunion with the attachment figure
• Stage 4: Multiple attachments


  • Shortly after forming a specific attachment, babies start to extend this attachment behaviour to multiple other people with whom they regularly spend time, forming secondary attachments
• Schaffer and Emerson's research involved 28 babies - 3 boys and 25 girls - from Glasgow, visiting them and their mothers monthly for the first year and again at 18 months
• Schaffer and Emerson assessed the babies' attachment by asking the mothers questions about the kind of protest their babies showed in seven everyday separations, and also assessed stranger anxiety
• Schaffer and Emerson's stages may not generalise well to other populations, as they only looked at one sample from 1960s working-class Glasgow, and other cultures may have different norms around multiple attachments