Schaffer-Emerson stages of attachment

• Stage 1: A social stage

  • infants respond similarly to human objects and non-human object although still respond more to familiar humans
  • reciprocity and IS plays a role
• stage 2 : Indiscriminate stage

  • infants are more social and prefer human company than inanimate objects and can distinguish between familiar and unfamiliar people
  • don't tend show separation anxiety or stranger anxiety
• stage 3 : specific attachment stage

  • start to show separation anxiety when particular person leaves
  • start to show signs of stranger anxiety
  • 65% signals of the time it is with the mother
• stage 4 : multiple attachment

  • develop a wider circle of multiple attachments
  • display separation in theses relationship
  • 29% of babies had multiple attachment within a month of forming a primary one
  • by 1 year had 75% of multiple attachment
• Schaffer and Emerson Glasgow project:

  • investigate formation of early attachment, in particular the age at which they developed their emotional intensity
  • 60 infants 31 male 21 female 
  • mothers were visited every 4 weeks and then again at 18 months
  • mothers kept a diary
  • 50% showed separation anxiety towards a particular adults between 25-32 weeks and formed a primary attachment
  • 65% usually mother
  • 29% attached to mutiple
  • 75% had an attachment with their fathers as a secondary attachment
• argued that the study had good external validity

  • Schaffer and emerson study was carried out in the families own homes and done by parent
  • means that babies behaviour was not affected by external people
  • took place largely in every day setting, it could be said to have good external validity
• however, mothers carried observations by themselves

  • may have reported biased findings eg/ if they were tired, they may have not been so positively receptive to their babies who may then demonstrate anxiety
  • may not have been truthfully recorded
  • therefore even if babies were natural, may not have been recorded accurately
• evidence may be poor for the asocial stage

  • babies may have poor coordination and are generally pretty much immobile, difficult to make judgements about them based on observation of their behaviour
  • difficult to come to strong conclusions
  • therefore babies may actually be quite social but due to flawed methods in observations of caregivers, they appear to be not social
• another problem is that the sample was very specific geographically and socially

  • sample size was 60 and large amount of data gathered
  • same part of glassgow and working class familiy 
  • child rearing practices differe from culture to culture and have changed alot since that 1960s
  • eg/ collectivist cultures, multiple attachment form from an earlier age
  • does not generalise well to other social and historical context