Evaluation of attachment

• Stages of attachment


  Investigating early attachment and the emotional intensity, 60 babies from Glasgow. Asked about separation anxiety and stranger anxiety. Asocial, behaviour to non-human objects, the same preference for familiar adults. Indiscriminate, prefer people accept comfort from anyone. Specific, stranger and separation anxiety. Multiple, secondary attachments with familiar people.
• stages of attachment


  Good external validity, Schaffer and Emerson in families home. Activities record by the parents in day to day activities.
• Stages of attachment


  Longitudinal study, same children observed regularly, increased internal validity. No confounding or ppt variables.
• Stages of attachment, conflicting evidence in multiple attachments. Van Ijzendoorn, in collectivist cultures multiple attachment is normal families work together. So more likely to be formed faster in collectivist cultures.
• Stages of attachment


  Limited sample, 60 babies all from the same district, social class and city. Research was carried out 50 years ago. Cultural bias.
• Role of the father

  Grossmann, quality of father attachment was less important in teenager attachment than mother attachment was. Verrisimo, suggested that better quality of father toddler relationships the more friends a child will have in pre-school. Field, filmed 4 month old babies and found that fathers who were primary caregivers could adapt to the behaviour of mothers. Schaffer and Emerson, found that 75% of infants formed secondary attachments with their father during the multiple attachment phase.
• Role of the father

  Lack of clarity over the question, some researchers answer the question of the role of the father as a secondary attachment figure however some try to answer if the father could be the primary attachment figure. Fathers have been found to have a distinct role of play and behave less caring than mothers. So it can be difficult to identify what the role of the father is.
• Role of the father. Contradictory evidence MacCallum and Golombock, children growing up in same sex families do not develop differently than children growing up in a heterosexual family. Therefore children without dads wouldn't develop differently as it doesn't play a role in emotional development.
• Role of the father

  Practical application, offers advice to parents. Rejects the stereotypical views that mothers need to stay at home and gives reassuring advice that fathers can be the primary caregiver. Parental anxiety reduced.
• Role of the father

  No clear evidence to why fathers cannot be primary caregivers. Could be due to the fact that fathers do not produce oestrogen, therefore they cannot carry out caring behaviours associated with the hormone. Could also be due to the fact that stereotypical views get in the way of what fathers and mothers think is the social norm and what they must abide to.
• Caregiver infant interactions


  Reciprocity, when caregiver and infant respond to each others signals and each elicit a response from one another. Fieldmann and Eidelmann, mothers respond to alertness 2/3 of the time. Interactional synchrony, caregiver and infant reflect both the actions and emotions of each other and do this is an co-ordinated way. Meltzoff and Moore, association between adult gesture and baby reactions.
• caregiver infant interactions


  Hard to observe baby behaviour, observing movements and behaviours of babies may not have a meaning. There is an unknown infant perspective we do not know if the behaviour is conscious and deliberate. Therefore we cannot draw conclusions.
• Caregiver and infant interactions

  Controlled observations, Meltzoff and Moore, mother and infant filmed from different perspectives. Babies don't experience demand characteristics therefore good validity.
• Caregiver infant interactions


  Practical application, interactions have been proved to improve interactions in the long term. Grossmann, suggested that the quality of mother infant attachment was more important that father infant attachment when forming adolescent attachments.
• Caregiver infant interactions. Role of the father ungeneralisable, Grossmann, children in same sex families do not develop any differently than children in heterosexual families.
• Animal studies


  Lorenz, randomly divided goose eggs, half hatched with mother and half hatched with Lorenz in incubator. Imprinting, birds attach to first moving object during critical period is a few hours. Sexual imprinting, birds are imprinted on humans they will display them courtship behaviour. Harlow Rhesus monkeys, half wire mother and half soft clothes mother, monkeys cuddled soft and only went to hard for food. Contact comfort was more important than food.
• Animal studies


  Generalisability to humans, mammalian attachment is different to birds, it is more emotional and intense and therefore harder to form an attachment therefore less theoretical value.
• Animal studies


  Practical application, Helps social worked to understand the risk factors in child neglect to intervene and prevent it. More understanding of how to increase the effectivity of zoo's and breeding programmes.
• Animal studies


  Theoretical value, increased understanding of human mother and infant attachment. Concept of contact comfort is more important that food rejecting the idea of learning theory. Symbolises the importance of early relationships on later adult relationships
• Animal studies


  Ethical issues. Long term psychological harm, removed from biological mother, reared in cages therefore suffer from social isolation.