stages of attachment

• what did schaffer and emerson aim to do?


  assess whether or not there was a pattern of attachment formation that wass shown by all infants.
• what procedure did schaffer and emerson follow?


  • they conducted a longitudinal study on 60 newborns and their mothers from glascow
  • they studied the mothers and their babies for the first year after they were born and then again at 18 months
  • they conducted observations and interviews with the mothers
  • questions were asked such as: who does the baby smile at, who do they respond to, who caused them distress etc
• in what two ways did schaffer and emerson measure attachment?


  separation protest-

  this was assessed through everyday situations:

  • being left alone in a room
  • left alone with others
  • left in their pram outside the house
  • left in the cot at night
  • being put down after being held
  • being passed by while sitting in a chair / cot / pram

  stranger anxiety-

  assessed by the researcher approaching the infant at the start of every visit to see if it made the child anxious or distressed
• what did schaffer and emerson find?

  • most infants started showing separation protest when parted from their attachment figure at 6 - 8 months
  • stranger anxiety was shown at 9 months
  • infants who were strongly attached had mothers who responded to their needs quickly and gave them more opportunities for interaction
  • weakly attached infants had mothers who responded to their needs slower and did not provide as many opportunities for interaction
• what did schaffer and emerson conclude?

  they found there was a pattern of attachment common to all inffants. this suggests that the process is biologically influenced / controlled. they found that attachments are more easily made with those who show sensitive responsiveness, while recognising and responding accordingly to their needs. this can overwhelm the bonds even between those who spend the most time with the child. they found that multiple attachments being formed is normal for infants, this opposes Bowlby's no evidence to suggest that mothering cant be shared by several people
• evaluation of schaffer and emersons study

  + the data was collected by observation from the mothers or from the mothers themselves. both are high in bias and inaccuracy.

  + it has slight realism as it ws conducted under everyday conditions meaning that the conclusion can be seen as having high validity

  -there was a lot of individual differences in when the attachments were formed which puts doubt on the proces of the forming of attachments being solely biological

  + babies lack demand characteristics, higher validity
• what is the Asocial stage

  [0 - 6 weeks]

  in this stage infants are unable to properly distinguish between people and objects. however, they show a preference for eyes and faces
• what is the pre-attachment stage


  [ 6 weeks - 3 months]

  infants become attracted to other humans. they show emotional behaviour such as smiling and crying. howeve, it does not seem to be directed at one individual
• what is the indicriminate attachments stage?

  [ 3 - 7 months]

  infants start to discriminate between familiar and unfamiliar people. they smile more at people they know. they seek attention from multiple different people are generally content recieving attention
• what is the specific / discriminate atttachment stage

  [ 7 - 8 months]

  infants start to form a strong bond / attachment to one individual
• what is multiple attachment stage?

  [ 9 months onwards]

  infants form strong emotional ties with others but attachment to the main caregiver remains the strongest
• Carpenter

  they presented infants with familiar and unfamiliar voices and faces. sometimes the face and voice would be of the same person and sometimes it wouldn't. he found that 2 week old babies looked at a face the longest when it was accompanied by their mothers voice and were distressed when seeing their mothers face with a different voice. this suggests babies recognise and are attached to their mothers from an early stage, contradicting schaffer and emersons belief