Schaffer's stages of attachment (2)

Stages of attachment

- Schaffer and Emerson (1964) studied the attachment behaviours of babies. Their findings led them to develop an account of how attachment behaviours change as a baby gets older

- They found this through an observational study of the formation of early-infant adult attachments. The study involved 60 babies that were observed in their homes for the first year and again at 18 months. This was designed to measure the babies' attachment, also assessing stranger anxiety

Antisocial Stage

- In a baby's first few weeks of life its observable behaviour towards humans and inanimate objects is fairly similar

- However, Schaffer and Emerson stated that babies may show signs that they prefer to be with other people. Babies also tend to show a preference for the company of familiar people and are more easily comforted by them

- At this stage the baby is forming bonds with certain people and these form the basis of later attachments

Indiscriminate attachment

- From 2 to 7 months babies start to display more obvious and observable social behaviours. They now show a clear preference for being with other humans rather than inanimate objects. They also recognise and prefer the company of familiar people

- However, at this stage babies usually accept cuddles and comfort from any person. They do not usually show separation anxiety when caregivers leave their presence or stranger anxiety in the presence of unfamiliar people

Discriminate attachment

- From around 7 months the majority of babies start to display the classic signs of attachment towards one particular person. These signs include stranger anxiety, especially when their attachment figure is absent, and separation anxiety when separated from their attachment figure

- The person with whom the attachment is formed is called the primary attachment figure. This person is not necessarily the individual the child spends most time with but the one who offers the most interaction and responds to the baby's signals with the most skill. This is usually the baby's mother

Multiple attachments

- Shortly after babies start to show attachment behaviour (e.g. stranger anxiety and separation anxiety) towards one person they usually extend this behaviour to this type of attachment with other people with whom they regularly spend time with

- These relationships are called secondary attachments

- Schaffer and Emerson observed that 29% of the children formed secondary attachments within a month of forming a primary (specific) attachment. By the age of one year the majority of babies had developed this type of attachment

Evaluation- Strengths

- Schaffer and Emerson's research has good external validity

- Most of the observations (though not stranger anxiety) were made by parents during ordinary activities and reported to the researchers. The alternative would have been to have researchers present to record observations. This might have distracted the babies or made them feel more anxious

- This means it is highly likely that the participants behaved naturally while being observed

- However, it must be said that, as the mothers were the observers, they might have been biased in terms of what they noticed and what they reported, meaning their behaviour may not have been accurately recorded

Evaluation- Weaknesses (1)

- The validity of the measures they used to assess attachment in the asocial stage is low

- Young babies have poor co-ordination and are fairly immobile. If babies less than two months old felt anxiety in everyday situations they might have displayed this in quite subtle, hard-to-observe ways. This 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 babies may actually be quite social but, because of flawed measures, they appear to be asocial

Evaluation- Strength (2)

RWA

What are the stages of attachment?

1. Asocial: 0-6 Weeks

2. Indiscriminate: 6 Weeks to 6 Months

3. Discriminate: 7 to 12 Months

4. Multiple: 1 Year +

Weakness 2

• All the children are from the same background and area so its an unrepresentative sample which may bias the results

Collectivist cultures more likely to form multipleattachments earlier.