the role of the father

Question 1

is the father always the actual father?

Answer 1

no not always a biological one just child’s closest male caregiver

Question 2

what did Schaffer and Emmerson find?

Answer 2

• father only primary attachment figure for 3% of families
  —> by 18 months 75% of infants formed attachment to father (determined by separation anxiety when father walks away)= suggests father plays a role
• multiple attachments by 10/11 months
• 18 months 31% had 5+ attachments

Question 3

what is the biological evidence for men?

Answer 3

• men are led receptive and sensitive to needs of an attachment due to hormonal differences
  e.g. women= have more oestrogen (hormone linked to nurture) = modifies neurotransmitter’s responsible for cognitive and emotional processes = women more naturally emotionally sensitive
  BUT
• men don’t have oestrogen= not equipped for caregiving –> idea is socially sensitive as saying father can’t do it!

Question 4

what did Grossman et al do?

Answer 4

• longitudinal study to see if male adult caregivers make unique contribution to early development —> he looked at attachment in infants until teenage years studied both parents and their relationship with their child and how this predicted future attachment in adolescence—> found fathers quality of play and stimulation with babies = related to child’s quality of attachment in adolescence—> suggests fathers plan different role to mother

Question 5

Whag did Field 1978 find

Answer 5

• evidence that when father take on primary attachment figure they adopt more nurturing and sensitive behaviors
  —> Field 1978 filmed 4 month old babies interacting with :
  primary caregivers who were mother
  primary caregiver who were fathers
  secondary caregivers who were fathers
  —> found primary caregiver father spent more time smiling and interacting and holding their babies compared to secondary —> behaviors part of reciprocity and interactional synchrony

Question 6

eval point 1

Answer 6

real world application- helps parents choose who to make primary caregiver
—> research helps parents make informed decisions on which parents return to work = implications on society e.g. heterosexual parents informed that the father is capable of being primary attachment figure so mother not pressured to not work —> paternity and maternity leave now etc and less parental
anxiety

Question 7

eval point 2

Answer 7

Grossman study doesn’t account for non-heterosexual parents
he suggests fathers have distinct role in child’s development for plan and stimulation BUT studies such as McCallum and Golomba found single mums/lesbians children do not develop any differently which would be expected from Grossman findings - suggests role of father isn’t as important as study suggests

Question 8

eval point 3

Answer 8

difficult to research the role of the father —> influenced by factors like work - life balance, age , health, social roles for me. —> means role of father is unclear and not definitive
—> researcher may also be stereotypical e.g. father are not primary caregivers etc = unintentional bias and not objective reality

Question 9

What did Lamb 1987 suggest?

Answer 9

• Doesn’t support biological evidence
• fathers as main caregiver quickly develop same level of sensitivity–> there are biological differences but they don’t have the same impact

Question 10

Who supports biological evidence?

Answer 10

• Hardy (1999)–> supports idea of biology —> fathers are less able to detect low levels of infant distress than mothers.

Question 11

Key statistics

Answer 11

• Average% of working mothers globally= 50% vs 75% in UK
• 2023- 16% single fathers UK

Question 12

How has the role of the father changed- Traditional approach?

Answer 12

• Father= seen as playmate, rough + tumble play, fun parent, risk taker
  vs
  mother= nurturer + emotional

Question 13

How has the role of the father changed- modern approach?

Answer 13

• modern role of father= play bases, providing stimulation, less predictable play than mothers

Question 14

Is talking style of mother and father the same?

Answer 14

NO different (way of talking to child)
- Father= structure around active play
- Mother= primarily emotional, soothes + reassures infant, use wider range of vocab

Question 15

what are some issues with research into talking styles?

Answer 15

• cultural differences in research –> same talking style not shown in middle class Indian families –> likely we’re cultual bias as usually tailored towards Western cultures

Question 16

Issues with psychology- WEIRD?

Answer 16

Research is often conducted in
Westernised
Educated
Industrialised
Rich
Democracies
–> and then it is applied to everyone –> can’t assume the fathers role is the same in all cultures

Question 17

what did Pleck suggest? (2010)

Answer 17

• suggested amount of time a father spends with an infant is a measure of involvement in parenting —> saying its quantity of time spent
  BUT
  other researchers suggests its quality (Lamb and Tamis- Le Monda (2004))

Question 18

what are Lamb et al’s 3 dimensions to capture fathers involvement?

Answer 18

Interaction- quantity of father engage with child (quantity)
Accessibility- how physically and emotionally accessible he is (quality)
Responsibility- extent to which he takes on ‘caretaking’ tasks

Question 19

study on social development?

Answer 19

Verissimo et al (2011)
- examined relationships between children’s attachment to both of their parents and late popularity in nursery scl
—> quality of relationship between fathers and toddlers significantly correlated with number of friends at pre school
—> appears to be more important than toddler mother relationships
—> positive correlation
BUT correlation does not equal causation so you don’t know for certain if it wasn’t because of the father

Question 20

what was the marital context research?

Answer 20

Belsky et al 2009- males higher levels martial intimacy= secure-father-infant attachment, males with lower = insecure father-infant attachment

Question 21

some other eval ideas (Belsky)

Answer 21

• self report techniques in research (Belsky) = unaware of quality of evidence = lower validity
• lots of subjective answers (Belsky)- what is intimacy?

Question 22

other eval ideas for role of father

Answer 22

VERY deterministic
nomothetic as it applies laws to general population of fathers and is very broad, general explanation
- those showing up in single sex parent families/same sex show no development differences —> takes away ideas of biology is a very traditional view to assume there would be a father (lacks temporal validity) as society now a lot more diverse
- socially sensitive- fathers may feel guilty, under pressure etc

Question 23

what are the 2 types of gender bias?

Answer 23

Alpha bias
- exaggerates difference between males and females
Beta bias
- minimises and ignores differences between males and females

Question 24

what side of gender bias does the role of the father fall tend to fall on?

Answer 24

• alpha bias as research suggests there are very distinct roles for mothers and fathers (nurturer vs provider)