Attachment: Stages

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Schaffer and Emerson (1964) Attachment: Stages of Development Schaffer and Emerson’s aim was to investigate the age in which one form’s their first attachment. In their investigation, they studied 60 working class infants from Glasgow, aged 5 – 23 weeks until they were one year old. They observed the infants in their own home every 4 weeks, and their mother reported the child’s response to separation. During this, a regular pattern was identified in the development of attachment. The infants were visited on a monthly basis for approximately one year, their interactions with their carer’s were observed and the carers were interviewed. Evidence for the development of attachment was the infant showing separation anxiety when their carer left. …show more content…

This occurred around ages 0 weeks to 6 weeks old. During this stage, the very young infants were asocial in that both social and non-social stimuli would elicit a favourable reaction, such as smiling. During this time period, reciprocity and interactional synchrony played a role in establishing the infant’s relationships with others. Stage 2: the Beginnings of Attachment. This occurred around ages 6 weeks to 7 months old. The infants would indiscriminately enjoy human company, but would get upset when an individual wouldn’t interact with them. From 3 months old, the infants would smile more at familiar faces and were comforted easily by one of their regular care givers. In this stage, the infants were generally sociable. Stage 3: Specific Attachment; the First True Attachment. This occurred around ages 7 months to 9 months old. During this stage, the infants would express protest when separated from one individual in particular. They would attempt to stay close to the individual and would should weariness towards strangers. This attachment forming is towards a primary attachment figure. This relation favours quality over …show more content…

This study may have unreliable data. It is possible that the mother, who was giving reports on the infant’s response to separation was lying. She may not have been happy with her child’s reactions, and so gave socially desirable answers in order to make her family look better in the eyes of society. Particular behaviours may also have been missed during observation of the infant, creating a systematic bias, which would challenge the validity of the data collected. The sample used is biased. Schaffer and Emerson only used working class infants from Glasgow, and so the results may not apply to other locations around the world or other social classes. This investigation was also conducted in the 1960’s when parental care of a child was different. Parental care has changed considerably since then, so the results may yet again not apply to the modern

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