AO3 stages of attachment

• unreliable data

  data based on mothers’ reports of infants

  some mothers might have been less sensitive to their infant’s protests and would’ve been less likely to report them

  • systematic bias which would challenge the validity of the data
• biased sample


  working-class population

  sample from 1960s

  parental care of children changed considerably since that time

  • more women go out to work, children cared for outside the home, fathers stay at home and become main carer.

  Cohn et al - men who choose to stay home and take care of family quadrupled over the past 25 years
• challenging monotropy


  Bowlby - infant forms one special emotional relationship. secondary attachments important as emotional safety net or to meet other needs.

  Rutter - all attachment figures are equivalent, all attachments being integrated to produce an infant’s attachment type.
• cultural variations


  individualist cultures - everyone in society concerned with their own needs and the needs of their immediate family group.

  collectivist cultures - people more concerned with the needs of the group rather than the needs of individuals. share things like possessions and childcare.

  Sagi et al - attachments in infants raised in family based sleeping arrangements and infants raised in communal environments. closeness of attachment with mother almost twice as common in family-based arrangements than in the communal environment.
• stage theories


  problem is they suggest development is inflexible

  proposes that there is a fixed order for development.

  e.g. suggests that single attachments come before multiple attachments, in some situations and cultures this is incorrect.