The Role Of The Father

In attachment, what is a Father?

Anyone who takes on the role of the main caregiver. This can be but is not necessarily the biological father.

What is the most basic question about the role of fathers?

Whether babies actually attach to them and if so, when. Available evidence suggests fathers are much less likely to become babies’ first attachment figures compared to mothers.

What did Schaffer and Emerson find?

That the majority of babies first became attached to their mother at around 7 months. In only 3% of cases, the father was the first sole object of attachment. In 27% of cases, the father was the joint first object of attachment with the mother.

What do most fathers go on to become?

Important attachment figures, 75% of the babies studied by Schaffer and Emerson formed an attachment with their father by the age of 18 months, determined by the fact that the babies protested when their father walked away.

What is a different question surrounding the role of the father?

Whether attachments to fathers holds some specific value in a child’s development and if so, whether it plays a different role in a child’s development from attachment to the mother.

What kind of study did Grossman et al. (2002) carry out?

A longitudinal study where babies’ attachments were studied until they were into their teens. The researcher’s looked at both parents’ behaviour and its relationship to the quality of their baby’s later attachment to other people.

What were the findings of Grossman et al.?

Quality of a baby’s attachment with mothers but not fathers was related to attachments in adolescence, suggesting that attachment to fathers is less important than attachment to mothers.

What else did Grossman et al. find?

He also found that the quality of fathers’ play with babies was related to the quality of adolescent attachments, suggesting fathers have a different role from mothers - one that is more to do with play and stimulation, and less to do with emotional development.

What is there a distinction made between?

Primary and secondary attachment figures.

What does a baby’s relationship with their primary figure form?

The basis of all later close emotional relationships.

What does evidence say about fathers as primary caregivers?

That when fathers do take on the role of primary caregiver they are able to adopt the emotional role more typically associated with mothers.

What did Field find?

That primary caregiver mothers spent more time smiling, imitating and holding babies than secondary caregiver fathers. These behaviours are all part of reciprocity and interactional synchrony, which Isabella et al. found are part of the process of attachment formation.

What do fathers have the potential to be?

The more emotion-focused primary attachment figure - they can provide the responsiveness required for a close emotional attachment, but perhaps only express this when given the role of primary caregiver.

What is the strength of research into the role of fathers?

Real-world application.

How is real-world application a strength of research into the role of fathers?

Research into the role of the father can be used to offer advice to the parents. Parents and prospective parents sometimes agonise over decisions like who should take on the primary caregiver role. For some, this can even mean worrying about whether to have children at all. Mothers may feel pressured to stay at home because of stereotypical views of mothers and fathers roles. Fathers may be pressured to focus on work rather than parenting. In some families, this might not economically be the best solution. Heterosexual parents can be informed that fathers are capable of becoming primary attachment figures. Lesbian-parent and single mother families can be informed that not having a father around does not affect a child’s development.

What does the real-world application mean?

That parental anxiety about the role of fathers can be reduced.

What are the limitations of research into the role of fathers?

• Confusion over research questions.

• Conflicting evidence.

How is confusion over research questions a limitation of research into fathers?

The question ‘what is the role of the father‘ in the context of attachment is complex. Some researchers attempting to answer it actually want to understand the role of fathers as secondary attachment figures while others are more concerned with fathers as a primary attachment figure. The former have tended to see fathers as behaving differently from mothers and having a distinct role. The latter have found that fathers can take on a ‘maternal’ role.

What does confusion over research questions mean for research into the role of fathers?

It makes it difficult to offer a simple answer as to ‘the role of the father‘. It really depends on what specific role is being discussed.

How is conflicting evidence a limitation of research into the role of fathers?

Longitudinal studies such as that of Grossman et al. have suggested that fathers as secondary attachment figures have an important and distinct role in their children’s development, involving play and stimulation. However, if fathers have a distinctive and important role, we would expect that children growing up in single mother and lesbian parent families would turn out in some way different from those in two parent heterosexual families. In fact, studies (McCallum and Golombok) show that these children do not develop any differently.

What does conflicting evidence say about research into the role of fathers?

That the question as to whether fathers have a distinctive role remains unanswered.

What is the counterpoint to the conflicting evidence?

These lines of research may not in fact be in conflict, it could be that fathers typically take on distinctive roles in two parent heterosexual families, but parents in dingle mother and lesbian parent families simply adapt to accommodate the role played by fathers.

What does the counterpoint to the conflicting evidence say about research into the role of fathers?

That the question of a distinctive role for fathers is clear after all. When present, fathers tend to adopt a distinctive role, but families can adapt to not having a father.

How is bias an issue in research into the role of fathers?

Perceptions about how fathers do or should behave can be created by stereotypical accounts and images of parenting roles and behaviour may cause unintentional observer bias whereby observers ‘see‘ what they expect to see rather than recording objective reality.