?the role of the father

• intro>>>

  - Often attachment studies mainly focus on mother- baby attachment whilst the role of the father is often neglected.

  - However, recent studies have shown that fathers do play specific roles in development

  - Father~ anyone who takes on the main male caregiver - doesn’t have to be the biological father
• attachment to fathers (1/2)>>>

  - Evidence suggests that fathers are less likely to become babies’ first attachment figure compared to mothers

  - e..g schaffer and emerson (1964) found majority of babies first become attached to their mothers at around 7 months

  - In only 3% cases , the father is the is the first attachment

  - 27% of cases, the father was joint fist object of attachment with mother
• attachment to fathers (2/2)>>>

  • However, appears most fathers move on to become important attachment figures

  - 75% of babies schaffer and emerson studied formed an attachment with their father by the age of 18 months

  - This was determined by the fact that the babies protested when their father walked away – as sign of attachment
• distincitve role of fathers (1/2)>>>

  - Grossmann et al (2002) carried out a longitudinal study where babies attachments were studied until they were teens

  - Researchers looked at both parent’s behaviour and the relationship to the quality of their baby’s later attachments to other people – quality of attachment with mothers but not fathers

  - Suggests that attachment to fathers is less important than attachment to mothers
• distincitve role of fathers (2/2)>>>

  • However, Grossmann et al also found that the quality of father’s play with babies was related to the quality of adolescent attachments

  - ...suggests that fathers have a different role from mothers – more play and stimulation and less to o with emotional development
• fathers as primary attachment figures (1/2)>>>

  - Primary attachments are the first specific attachment and secondary attachments are the later attachments

  - There more to a primary attachment as it has more of a special emotional significance- forms the basis of all later close emotional relationships

  - There's evidence that when fathers do take on the role of being the primary caregiver , they adopt the emotional role which is typically associated with mothers
• fathers as primary attachment figures (2/3)>>>

  Tiffany Field (1978) filmed 4- month babies in face-to-face interactions with the primary caregiver mothers, fathers and secondary caregiver fathers

  - Primary caregiver fathers (like mothers) spent more time smiling, imitating and holding their babies than the secondary caregiver fathers
• fathers as primary attachment figures (3/3)>>>

  - Smiling, imitating and holding babies is all part of reciprocity and interactional synchrony which are part of the process of the formation of attachment

  - Suggests that fathers have the potential to be more emotionally-focused primary attachment figures

  - They can provide the responsiveness required to form close attachment

  - but this might only be expressed when given the role of primary caregiver
• ao3 Confusion over research questions>>>

  - Lack of clarity with questions being asked -The question ‘what's the role of the father?’ - more complex

  - Some researchers attempt to answer the role of fathers as secondary attachment figures whilst others are focus more on the primary attachment figure

  - tend see fathers behaving different and have a distinct role but later found that fathers can take on the maternal role

  - .. difficult to give a simple answer to what the role of the father is – depends on what specific role id discussed
• ao3 conflicting evidence +cp (1/2)>>>

  - Longitudinal studies e.g Grossmann et al suggested fathers as secondary attachment figures, have an important and distinct role in kids’ development involving play and stimulations .However, if true, we would expect that kids growing up with a single mother / lesbian- parent family would turn out different compared to heterosexual families

  - studies (e.g. Mcallum and Golombek 2004 ) show that these kids don’t develop differently

  - .. suggests that the question as to whether fathers have a distinct role is unanswered
• ao3 conflicting evidence +cp (2/2)>>>

  cp// However, some may think that these statement don’t conflict

  - It could be that fathers tend to take on a distinct role for fathers in 2 parent heterosexual families and that lesbain/ single mother parent familes adapt and take on the role of the father

  - Suggests that when present, fathers tend to adopt a distinctive role but families can adapt to not having a father
• ao3 real world application>>>

  - mothers feel pressured to stay at home and fathers feel pressured to focus on work over parenting because of the stereotypical view of mothers and father's roles.

  - research into the role of father could be used to offer advice to adults/ parents -

  - heterosexual parents - fathers are quite capable of becoming the primary attachment figures

  - lesbian parent /single mother families - no father around doesn't affect the child's development

  - … reduce his parental anxieties about the role of the father