schaffer's stages of attachment

• Schaffer and Emerson's stages (1964)

  conducted a longitudinal study of 60 Glaswegian babies in the first 18 months and analysed the interactions between infants and careers

  the mother kept a diary to track infants behaviour based on the following measures: separation anxiety, stranger anxiety and social referencing
• stages of attachment findings

  stage 1 - asocial attachment(birth-2 months)the baby doesn't attach to anyone but does have a preference to people over objects

  stage 2 - indiscriminate attachment(2-7 months)now has a preference for certain people but doesn't show stranger/separation anxiety

  stage 3 - specific attachment(around 7 months)child has formed a attachment to a specific adult, the primary attachment figure and shows stranger/separation anxiety

  stage 4 - multiple attachments(after 9 months)begin to form secondary attachments
• stages of attachment evaluation strengths

  high ecological validity as there is observation in a real setting meaning participants behaved naturally
• stages of attachment evaluation limitations

  the study lacked population validity as it was only focused on Glaswegians who are considered working class

  
  

  may lack internal validity as it uses self report measures as they kept a diary meaning the accuracy of the data may not have been the best or could be responding to demand characteristics bu changing the results as the think they know the aims of the study