Role of the Father

• Reasons why fathers are rarely the primary attachment figure

  • Schaffer & Emerson (1964) found that the primary attachment figure was the mother in 65% of cases
  • Social factors: Traditional gender roles mean that women are expected to be more caring and nurturing than men
  • Biological factors: The female hormone oestrogen causes caring behaviour which means that women are generally more caring than men
• The role of the father as a secondary attachment figure


  • Fathers have an important role to play as secondary attachment figures
  • Fathers are more playful and physically active than mothers
  • Their role is more to do with play and stimulation, and less to do with nurturing
• However, there is evidence that when fathers take on the role of being the main caregiver, they are able to adopt caring behaviours more typical of mothers. For example, Field (1978) filmed 4-month-old infants in face-to-face interaction with primary caregiver mothers, secondary caregiver fathers or primary caregiver fathers. They found that primary caregiver fathers, like mothers, spent more time smiling, imitating and holding infants than secondary caregiver fathers. This suggests that fathers can be caring and nurturing.
• There is evidence that fathers play an important role as secondary attachment figures. Grossman (2002) conducted a longitudinal study and found that the quality of fathers’ play with infants was related to the quality of the infants’ later relationships. This suggests that the play and stimulation that fathers provide is important for healthy social development.
• There is evidence on the contrary. For example, MacCallum & Golombok (2004) found that children growing up in single or same-sex female parent families do not develop any differently to those growing up in two-parent heterosexual families. This suggests that the father’s role as a secondary attachment figure is not important.