Role of the Father

• • Schaffer and Emerson found that 75% of the infants in their study formed a secondary attachment to their father by the age of 18 months, with 29% doing so within a month of forming a primary attachment, as demonstrated by separation anxiety.
  • This suggests that the father is important, but is unlikely to be the first person to which the child develops an attachment to.
• • However, this does not mean that the father cannot become the primary attachment figure, as suggested by Tiffany Field.
  • Field observed interactions between infants and their primary caregiver mothers or fathers, and found that primary caregivers, regardless of gender, were more attentive towards the infant and spent more time holding and smiling at them.
• Although mothers are often expected to become primary attachment figures, this does not always have to be the case!
• There is still a lack of agreement over the extent of the influence of the father as a primary attachment figure. For example, MacCallum and Golombok demonstrated that children growing up in homosexual or single-parent families were not different compared to children with gay parents
• If the father was so crucial in the development of an attachment with the infant, then there would be a difference between those who grew up with a father versus without. This suggests that the exact role of the father is still disputed.
• It could also be that the gender of the primary caregiver is largely dictated by society, where women in particular are expected to be caring and sensitive, and biology, where women have higher levels of oestrogen and lower levels of testosterone compared to men. Therefore, this suggests that there are social and biological constraints on who the primary attachment figure is.
• • Research into the importance of primary attach figures is socially sensitive, as later abnormalities in development are often blamed on the parent.
  • This means that a single father or mother may be pressured to return to work at a later point in order to increase the likelihood that their child will form a secure attachment.