Schaffer and Emmerson's stages of attachment Flashcards
(17 cards)
who carried out the study?
Schaffer and Emmerson
what was the aim?
to investigate the formation of early attachment between infants and caregivers
What was the procedure?
60 Glaswegian babies for 18 months
mothers/babies were visited and observed once a month for a year ten once again at 18 moths
researchers asked parents to observe their children in different circumstances, keep a diary of their observations and report back to the researchers e.g separation anxiety, stranger anxiety
what type of study was it?
longitudinal
what type observation?
natural
What stage of attachment happens at 0-3/4 months?
Asocial/pre-attachment phase
What stage of attachment happens at 3/4-7 months?
Indiscriminate attachment
What stage of attachment happens at 7-9 months?
specific/discriminate attachment-first true attachment
What stage of attachment happens at 9 months onwards?
multiple attachments
What is the asocial phase?
Both social and non-social stimuli produce a negative and positive response
What is the indiscriminate phase?
can recognise some faces but humans in general produce a positive response and will be upset when not around humans
What is the specific attachment phase?
Separation anxiety when separated from a particular individual and wary of strangers
What is the multiple attachment phase?
Begin to form multiple attachments to familiar and trusted ppl
What is the primary attachment figure?
the first person that an infant attaches to
What is a strength of Schaffer and Emerson’s stages of attachment?
P-One strength of Schaffer and Emerson’s stages of attachments is that it has high external validity.
E-The observations took place within the children’s own home’s and so they were likely to be acting like they usually would. The alternative would have been to have researchers present to record the sessions which could have been distracting or made the children anxious.
C-This means that there is a high likelihood that participants were behaving naturally while being observed.
CP- However there is a problem in asking the mothers to be ‘observers’ They were unlikely to be objective observers. they may have been biased in what they did and did not notice and record. For example they may not have noticed when their child was anxious or may have misremembered it. This means that even if the babies were behaving naturally the researchers may never know about all the behaviours exhibited.
What is a strength of Schaffer and Emerson’s stages of attachment?
P-Another strength of Schaffer and Emerson’s stages of attachment is that it has a lot of application to the real world.
E-Their findings have been used within daycares
. Within the Childs asocial and indiscriminate stages daycare is likely to be straightforward as babies can be conformed by any skilled adult. However, Schaffer and Emerson’s research suggests that once the child reached the discriminate stage there will be some issue as they will only want their primary attachment figure.
C-This means that Schaffer and Emerson’s stages of attachment can aid parents to know when to introduce their children to daycare.
What is a weakness of Schaffer’s and Emerson’s stages of attachment?
P-A limitation of Schaffer and Emerson’s stages of attachment is that the study is longitudinal, which often means that attraction bias plays a part.
E-The study took place for more than a year with long gaps between each visit from the investigator meaning that there was plenty of time for some participants from the original sample to drop out. This leads to attrition bias as certain types of people will drop out of this type of study leaving the sample unrepresentative meaning that the data will be skewed.
C-This then means that the data collected from the study cannot be generalised to the rest of the population as the data only relates to a small minority of people within it.
