Stages of attachment

• Describe Schaffer and Emerson’s study on the development of attachment.

  60 infants from working class families in Glasgow were studied, ranged from 5-23 weeks. They were visited every 4 weeks and the mother reported the infants response to separation. Stranger anxiety was also measured when the interviewer was present. results were rated on a 4-point scale.
• Describe the discriminate stage?

  At 2 months they become more social and prefer human company to inanimate objects. Begin to distinguish between familiar and unfamiliar faces, but don’t show stranger anxiety.
• name the 4 stages of attachment

  asocial stage

  indiscriminate stage

  discriminate state

  multiple attachment stage
• describe the asocial stage 


  from birth till 2 months infants produce similar responses to all objects. towards the end of the period they show preference for social stimuli. interactional synchrony and reciprocity play a key role.
• Describe the discriminate stage of attachment

  At 7 months, infants show separation anxiety to the primary caregiver, and joy when reunited. They also begin to display stranger anxiety.
• describe the multiple attachment stage

  after the main attachment is formed, the infant begins to form attachments with others, called secondary attachments. this is often wit siblings, grandparents etc. Schaffer and Emerson found that 29% of infants had multiple attachments 1 month after fist becoming attached.
• Describe the role of the father

  Fathers have more of a secondary role to play to their

  children. They are more physically active and better ad providing challenging situations for their children (Grossman).
• describe the issues with Schaffer and Emerson’s research

  Some mother’s may have been less sensitive to their infant’s needs but are not going to report this in case it paints them in a bad light. This could therefore cause a

  systematic bias and would challenge the validity of

  the data. However, it does have good external validity. The sample was also biased as came from just a working population. It was also from the 1960s, and parental care has changed massively since then, with many more fathers staying at home.
• Discuss the cultural variations in stages of development

  In individualist cultures, people put their own needs first, but in collectivist cultures, people put the needs of the group before their own, and often share things like possessions or childcare. Sagi et al compared attachments in infants who were raised in communal environments to those who were raised in family based environments. Closeness of attachment was 2x as common in family based environments. This suggests that the stages of attachment only applies to individualist cultures.
• suggest one difficulty with stage theories in attachment

  the theory proposes a fixed order in which development occurs. however, this isn’t the same for everyone and in some cultures, multiple attachments come before single attachments. the theory could also be problematic if families view they are judged and abnormal for not following the fixed order of development.