Schaffer's Stages of Attachment

• STAGE 1: ASOCIAL STAGE

  FIRST WEEKS:

  •Babies in the first few weeks of life are said to be in this stage. During this stage the baby recognises and starts to form a bond with its carers. However, the baby’s behaviour towards non-human objects and humans is quite similar.•Babies show some preference for familiar adults, in that those individuals find it easier to calm them. Babies are also happier when in the presence of other humans.•During this stage, reciprocity and interactional synchrony play a role in establishing the infant’s relationship with others.
• STAGE 2: INDISCRIMINATE STAGE

  FROM 2 TO 7 MONTHS:

  •From 2-7 months babies display more observable social behaviour.•They show a preference for people rather than inanimate objects and recognise and prefer familiar adults.•They can distinguish between familiar and unfamiliar people.•At this stage babies usually accept cuddles and comfort from any adult, and they do not usually show separation or stranger anxiety. Their attachment behaviour is therefore said to be indiscriminate because it is not different towards any one person, which is where the name of the stage came from.
• STAGE 4: MULTIPLE ATTACHMENTS

  7 MONTHS +:

  •Shortly after babies start to show attachment behaviour towards one adult, they usually extend this attachment behaviour to multiple attachments with other adults with whom they regularly spend time.•These relationships are called secondary attachments.•In Schaffer and Emerson’s study, 29% of the children had secondary attachments within a month of forming a primary (specific) attachment.•By the age of 1 year the majority of infants had developed multiple attachments.
• STAGE 3: SPECIFIC ATTACHMENT


  •The third stage is called ‘specific attachment’ and occurs from 7 months.•The majority of babies start to display anxiety towards strangers and to become anxious when separated from one particular adult (the biological mother in 65% of cases).•Equally, they show especial joy at reunion with that particular adult and are most comforted by them. At this point the baby is said to have formed a specific attachment.
• STAGE 3: SPECIFIC ATTACHMENT


  •This adult is termed the primary attachment figure. This person is not necessarily the person the child spends most time with the, but the one who offers the most interaction and responds to the baby’s ‘signals’ with the most skill.
• Ao3 – undermining the asocial stage


  •The first stage of attachment is called the ‘asocial’ stage, but many important interactions take place in these weeks. The problem is that babies that are young have poor coordination and are generally pretty much immobile. It is therefore very difficult to make any judgements about them based on observations of their behaviour. There just isn’t much observable behaviour.•
• Ao3 – undermining the asocial stage


  •This does not mean that the child’s feelings and cognitions are not highly social. It just means that the research evidence can’t be relied upon and so may not provide as strong support for the theory as previously thought.
• Ao3 – cultural relativism?

  •In collectivist cultures, people are more focused on the needs of the group rather than the individuals (unlike individualist cultures like ours). In such societies, we might expect multiple attachments to be more common.•Research by Ijzendoorn supports this. It has been found that collectivist cultures share everything, including child rearing which helps multiple attachments to be formed quicker that individualistic cultures.•
• Ao3 – cultural relativism?

  •This suggests that the stage model applies specifically to individualist cultures and so lacks external validity. It may tell us less about how attachments develop in other cultures.
• Ao3 – are stages appropriate?

  •One difficulty with stage theories is that they suggest that development is inflexible. In this case, it suggests that normally specific attachments come before multiple attachments. In some situations and cultures, multiple attachments may come first.•
• Ao3 – are stages appropriate?

  •This is a problem because the stages become a standard by which families are judged and may then be classed as abnormal. However, this is because the stage model tells us less about how attachments develop in other cultures and situations beyond those studied in Schaffer and Emerson’s study.
• Ao3 – how are multiple attachments measured?

  •There may be a problem with how multiple attachments are assessed. Just because a baby gets distressed when an individual leaves the room does not necessarily mean that the individual is a ‘true’ attachment figure.•Children have playmates as well as attachment figures and may get distressed when they leave, but this does not signify attachment.
• Ao3 – how are multiple attachments measured?

  •This is a problem for the stages because their observation does not leave us a way to distinguish between behaviour towards secondary attachment figures and playmates. Consequently the results may not be validly measuring multiple attachments.