Ignoring the importance of the role of the father

• P- a further limitation of this theory is that it ignores the importance of the role of the father
• E- when bowlby developed his theory, he was very clear it was the mother that should be the primary attachment figure. In doing so he minimised the importance of the father
• E- however, Gottman and Katz (1995) found that involved fathers had children who were more popular, less aggressive and had high quality friendships, which implies that They had good levels of emotional reasoning.
• E2- this suggests that fathers also Contribute to a child’s emotional development
• E3- Tiffany Fields (1978) has argued that fathers have the ability to be the sole primary caregiver like mothers as they can provide high levels of international synchrony/ reciprocity, which are 2 key interactions that facilitate attachment
• L- this is a limitation because providing that the child who is deprived of the mother has an involved father the child may not suffer the damage/ consequence that this theory proposes