schaffer's stages of attachment evaluation

Question 1

what does it mean when we say that S and E’s study had good external validity

Answer 1

S and E’s study was carried out in the families own homes and most of the observation ( other than stranger anxiety) was actually done by parents during ordinary activities and reported to researchers later

This means that the behaviour of the behaviour was unlikely to be affected by the presence of observers

There is an excellent chance that participants behaved naturally while being observed

we can therefore say that the study has good external validity

Question 2

why is the longitudinal design a strength of the S and E study

Answer 2

strength of the study was that it was carried out longitundinally

This means that the same children were followed up and observed regularly
The quicker alternative would have been to observe different children at each age

This is called a cross- sectional design.
However, longitudinal designs have better internal validity than cross - sectional designs because they do not have the confounding varibale of individual differences between participants

Question 3

why is the limited sample characteristics of S and E study a limitation

Answer 3

sample size of 60 babies and their carers was good considering the large volume of data that gathered on each participants

HOWEVER, the families involved were from the same district and social class in the same city over 50 yrs ago is

-Child - rearing practices vary from culture to another one historical period to another. These results do not necessarily generalise well to other social and historical context

Question 4

what is the problem to studying the asocial stage

Answer 4

S and E describe the first weeks of life as the “asocial stage”, although important in these weeks interactions take place in those weeks

The problem here is that babies that are young have poor co - ordination and are generally pretty much immobile
It is therefore very difficult to make any judgement about them based on observations of their behaviour

There just isn’t much observable behaviour. This does not mean the child’s feelings and cognition are not highly social but the evidence cannot be relied on

Question 5

There are conflicting evidence on multiple attachments

Answer 5

POINT: although there is no doubt that children become capable of multiple attachments at some point, it is still not entirely clear when

EVIDENCE: some research seems to indicate that most if not all babies form attachments to a single main carer before they become capable of developing multiple attachments

Other psychologists, in particular those who worl in those cultural contexts where multiple caregivers are the norm, veliev babies fork multiple attachments from the outset (van Ihzendoorn et al) - these cultures are collectivist cultures

EXPLAINATION:this therefore limits staffers and Emerson generalisablity to other cultures

Question 6

Measuring multiple attachments

Answer 6

There may be a problem with how multiple attachments are assessed

Jut because a baby gets distressed when an individual leaves the room does not necessarily mean that the individual is a “true” attachments
Bowlby pointed out that children have playmates as well as attachments figure’s and may et distressed when a playmate leaves the room but this foes not signify attachment

This js a problem for Shaffer and Emerson’s wages because their observations does not leave us a way to distinguish between behavior shown towards secondary figures and shown towards playmates