Schaffer's stages of attachment

• Shaffer and Emerson studied attachment behaviours of babies. Their findings led them to develop an account of how attachment behaviours change as a baby gets older:

  • asocial stage
  • indiscriminate attachment
  • specific attachment
  • multiple attachment
• stage 1: Asocial stage

  A baby's first few weeks of life it's observable behaviour towards humans and inanimate objects are fairly similar.

  -however Shaffer and Emerson believed babies show signs that they prefer to be with other people.

  -tend to show a preference for the company of familiar people and are more easily comforted by them.
• Stage 2: Indiscriminate attachment

  From 2-7 months babies start to display more obvious and observable social behaviours.

  -start to show a clear preference for being with humans rather than inanimate objects.

  -recognise and prefer the company of familiar people, but still accept comfort from any person.

  -don't show signs of separation anxiety when caregiver leaves.

  -no signs of stranger anxiety.
• Stage 3: Specific attachment

  From around 7 months babies start to display signs of attachment towards 1 person.

  -anxiety directed towards strangers when caregiver is absent.

  -formed attachment with a primary attachment figure- person who spends most time and interaction and responds to baby's signals with the most skill.
• Stage 4: Multiple attachment

  Babies start to extend this behaviour to multiple attachments with other people (secondary attachments)

  -Shaffer and Emerson observed that 29% of children formed secondary attachments within a month of forming primary attachment.
• Evaluation- Good external validity

  Most observations were made by parents during ordinary activities and reported to the researchers.

  -alternative= researchers would be present to record observations- this might have distracted the babies or made them feel more anxious.

  -so participants behaved naturally while being observed.
• Evaluation- counterpoint

  However mothers being observers are unlikely to be objective observers- they might have been biased in terms of what they noticed and what they reported.

  -eg: might not have noticed when their baby was showing signs of anxiety or they may have misremembered it.

  -so even if babies behaved naturally their behaviour may not have been accurately recorded.
• Evaluation- poor evidence for the asocial stage

  Babies have poor co-ordination and are fairly immobile. If a baby felt anxiety in everyday situations they might have displayed this in quite a subtle, hard-to-observe way.

  -so made it difficult for mothers to observe and report back to researchers on signs of anxiety and attachment.

  -so that babies may actually be quite social but, because of flawed methods, they appear to be asocial.
• Evaluation- real world application

  practical application in day care.

  • in the asocial and indiscriminate attachment stages day care is likely to be straightforward as babies can be comforted by any adult.
  • however, Shaffer and Emerson's research tells us that day care with an unfamiliar adult may be problematic during the specific stage of attachment.
  • so parents use of day care can be planned using Shaffer and Emerson's stages.