Schaffer & Emerson's Stages of Attachment

• Stage 1: Asocial stage (0-6 weeks)


  - Babies' responses to human and inanimate objects are similar.

  - However, they are not entirely asocial as they show a preference to human company rather than with non-human objects.

  - Babies also exhibit a preference for those they are familiar with and are more easily comforted by them.

  - In the asocial stage, the baby is forming bonds which will become the basis of later attachments.
• Stage 2: Indiscriminate attachment (6 weeks-7 months)


  - Babies show a clear preference for humans rather than inanimate objects and recognise and prefer the company of familiar people.

  - At this stage, babies will accept comfort from any person; they are indiscriminate.

  - They do not show stranger anxiety nor separation anxiety.
• Stage 3: Specific attachment (7-9 months)


  - The majority of babies start to show typical signs of attachment towards a person.

  - This can include separation and stranger anxiety.

  - At this point, the baby has formed a specific attachment; the person whom this has been formed with is the primary attachment figure.

  - The PAF may not necessarily be the one the baby spends most time with, but rather, the one who provides the most interaction and responds to the baby's signals with most skill.

  - The PAF is the baby's mother in 65% of the cases.
• Stage 4: Multiple attachments


  - Shortly after babies have formed their first attachment, they are able to extend this to multiple people who they regularly spend time with.

  - These are secondary attachments.

  - Schaffer and Emerson found that 29% of children formed secondary attachments within a month of forming a specific attachment.

  - By one year, the majority of babies had developed multiple attachments.
• Schaffer and Emerson (1964)

  - 31 boys and 29 girls. All children from Glaswegian working-class families.

  - Researchers visited babies and their mothers every month for a year, and again at 18 months.

  - The researchers asked the mothers questions about the kind of protests their baby would make in 7 everyday separations, e.g. the adult leaving the room. This was designed to measure the baby's attachment.

  - The reseachers also assessed stranger anxiety.

  
  

  - From this research, Schaffer and Emerson identified four stages of attachment, characterised by attachment behaviours such as stranger and separation anxiety.
• Evaluating the stages of attachment: Good external validity (with counterpoint)


  - Most of the observations made in Schaffer and Emerson (1964) were made by parents during ordinary activities and reported to researchers.

  - If researchers had observed the babies rather than their parents, it may have distracted them or made them feel more anxious, therefore, it is highly likely that participants acted naturally while being observed.

  
  

  - Counterpoint: However, there are issues with using the mothers as observers, as it is unlikely that they were objective.

  - They may have been biased in what behaviours they reported and/or noticed. For example, they may not have known when the baby was showing anxiety, or they may have not remembered it.

  - This means that, despite babies acting naturally, their behaviour may not have been accurately recorded.
• Evaluating the stages of attachment: Poor evidence for Stage 1

  - A limitation is the validity of the measures they used to assess attachment in the asocial stage.

  - Young babies are fairly immobile and have poor coordination.

  - If babies in the asocial stage showed anxiety, this would've been in a very subtle way. This would've made it difficult for mothers to observe and report back to the researchers on signs of anxiety and attachment in this age group.

  - This means that the baby may actually be quite social, however as a result of flawed methods, they appear asocial.
• Evaluating stages of attachment: Real-world application

  - Another strength of Schaffer and Emerson's stages is that they have had real-world application in day-cares.

  - In the asocial and indiscriminate stages, day-care would be relatively straightforward, since babies can be comforted by any adult.

  - However, going to day-care, specifically starting day-care at the specific attachment stage with an unfamiliar adult can be problematic.

  - This means that parents' use of day-care can be planned using the stages of attachment.
• Evaluating stages of attachment: Generalisability


  - On one hand, Schaffer and Emerson based their stages on a large-scale study with some good design features.

  - However, they only looked at one sample, which had unique features in terms of the cultural and historical context - 1960s working-class Glasgow.

  - In other cultures, such as collectivist cultures, multiple attachments at an early age are the norm - van Ijzendoorn (1993).