Role of the father

What does research suggest about the role of the father?

Attachment to the father may be more focused on play than nurture (still an important contribution to development)

What do Schaffer and Emerson suggest about the role of the father?

Majority of babies attached to their mothers first - 3% of cases found that the father was the primary attachment figure

Schaffer and Emerson: by 18 months, how many babies formed an attachment to the father?

75%

Schaffer and Emerson: what was the case for 27% of cases?

Both the mother and the father were joint primary attachment figures

What did Grossmann et al. (2003) study?

Longitudinal study - babies’ attachments studied into their teens - researchers looked at parent’ perhaviour and its relationship to the quality of baby’s later attachments to people

What did Grossmann et al. find?

Quality of baby’s attachment to mother was associated with later attachments, but quality of father’s play was associated with quality of later attachment

What does Grosssmann et al. suggest about the role of the father?

• Attachment to fathers is less important than mothers

• Fathers have a role of play and stimulation rather than emotional development

What does Field (1978) suggest about the role of the father?

Fathers have just as much potential to be an emotionally-focused primary attachment figure, but this may only be expressed when they are also primary caregiver

What did Field (1978) study?

Filmed 4-month-old babies during face-to-face interactions with p.c mothers, p.c fathers and secondary caregiver fathers.

What were Field’s findings?

Both primary caregiver mothers and fathers spend more time smiling, imitating and holding babies (part of reciprocity and interactional synchrony) than secondary caregiver fathers.

What does Field’s findings show?

Fathers have just as much potential as mothers to be an emotion-focused primary attachment figure, but this is only expressed when they are also in the role of primary caregiver

What happens when a child doesn’t have two parents of the opposite sex?

Research suggests that having a single parent or two same-sex parents ode snot have any negative impact on children’s development

How does research into role of the father have real-world application?

• Research can be used to give advice to parents who may agonise over decisions

• Fathers may feel pressure to work and mothers pressure to stay at home → not always best solution

• Heterosexual couples will know that fathers can take the role of primary caregiver, and families without a father know that a child’s development will not be affected.

• Can reduce parental anxiety

Can the role of fathers be accommodated by mothers?

Fathers, in heterosexual families, usually take on distinct roles, but single mothers and lesbian parent families adapt to accommodate - father does have a distinctive role but families can adapt

Why is there lack of clarity over what exactly the role of the fathers is?

Research is complicated as some look at fathers as p.c, whilst others look at fathers as s.c. Some see father as having a distinctive role from mothers, whereas others believe fathers can take on ‘maternal’ roles

What conflicting evidence is there for the role of the father?

• Longitudinal studies, such as Grossman et al. suggest fathers have a distinctive role as s.c in child development.

• However, if fathers have a distinctive role, it would be expected that children with single mothers/lesbian parents would turn out differently → McCallum & Golombok (2004) show that these children develop the same.

What observer bias is there in research of role of the father?

• Preconceptions about how fathers should behave can be created by stereotypical accounts/images of parental roles/behaviour - eg adverts.

• This may cause unintentional observer bias - researchers seeing what they ‘expect’ rather than objective reality.