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Stages of Attachment - Coggle Diagram
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 proposed that there were four identifiable stages of attachment
Stage 1: Asocial stage
In the first few weeks of a baby's life, their behaviour is usually asocial.
However, Schaffer and Emerson did not believe that it is entirely asocial because even at this stage babies show signs that they prefer to be with 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
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A03: Evaluation
Good external validity: One strength of Schaffer and Emerson's research is that is has good external validity. Most of the observations 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
Counterpoint: On the other hand there are issues with asking the mothers to be the 'observers'. They were unlikely to be objective observers. They might have been biased in terms of what they noticed and what they reported, for example, they might not have noticed when their baby was showing sings of anxiety or they may have misremembered it This means that even if babies behaved naturally their behaviour may nit have been accurately recorded
Real-world application: Another strength of Schaffer and Emerson's stages is that they have practical application in day care. In the asocial and indiscriminate attachment stages day care is likely to be straight forwards as babies can be comforted by any skilled adult. However, Schaffer and Emerson's research tells us that day care, especially starting day care with an unfamiliar adult, may be problematic during the specific attachment stage. This means that parents' use of day care can be planned using Schaffer and Emerson's stages
Poor evidence for the asocial stage: One limitation of Schaffer and Emerson's stages is the validity of the measures they used to assess attachment in the asocial stage. 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 mother to observe and report back o researchers on signs if anxiety and attachment in this age group. This means that the babies may actually be quite social but, because of flawed methods, they appear to be asocial