-Left alone in a room.
-Left with other people.
-Left in their pram outside the house.
-Left in their pram outside the shops.
-Left in their cot at night.
-Put down after being held by an adult.
-Passed by while sitting in a cot or chair.
Mothers were also asked generally about situations where separation protest was shown and whom these protests were directed to. This meant researchers could rate the intensity of attachment at each monthly visit. They used a four-point scale where zero was ‘no protest recorded’ and 3 ‘the infant cries loudly on each occasion’. Schaffer and Emerson also measured stranger anxiety by starting every visit by approaching the infant and noting at what point the infant started to whimper, therefore showing some anxiety.
The findings of their study re shown below:
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Age of onset-Half of the children showed their first specific attachment between 25 and 32 weeks (6-8 months). Four of the children were slightly younger and six of the children were older than 11 months. Fear of strangers occurred approximately a month later in all children.
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Intensity-This rose in the first month after attachment behaviour first appeared. It was measured by the strength of separation protest. However, there were large individual differences. Intensely attached infants had mothers who responded quickly to their demands and who offered the child the most interaction. Infants who were weakly attached had mothers who failed to interact.
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Objects of attachment-After one main attachment was formed, the infants also became attached to other people. By 18 months, 13% were attached to only one person and 31% had five or more attachments, such as the father, grandparent, or older sibling. In 65% of the children, the first attachment was to the mother. In 30%, the mother was the first joint object of attachment. Fathers were rarely the first sole objects of attachment (3%), but 27% of them were the first joint objects of attachment.
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Time spent with infant-In 39% of the cases, the person who usually fed, bathed, and changed the child was not the child’s primary attachment object. In other words, many of the mothers were not the person who performed these tasks, and yet they were the main attachment objects.
The researchers also concluded that most infants maintained at least one principal object of attachment in terms of intensity. They found out that there was little relationship between the time spent together and attachment. Responsiveness appeared to be the key to attachment. Intensely attached infants had mothers who responded quickly to their demands and who offered the most interaction. Infants who were weakly attached had mothers who failed to interact.
I believe this research is useful in real life because it suggests that if a mother responds to their infant and offers interaction the development of the child would be more effective as the attachment is secure. In turn, the child would be more confident and would explore the environment. Whereas a child with a weak attachment would be less confident and lees likely to explore the environment.
A criticism that has been made of this study is that the idea of stages suggests that early development is ‘fixed’- that children automatically go through particular stages, in fact, development is more fluid than this. Although most children do appear to follow this general path of development, the age at which they do varies more than the model suggests.
Another criticism of this study is that there are important differences between infants in terms of their attachment behaviour. Some may become more securely attached than others. These criticisms are valid as they are seen as flaws in the study. They are valid strongly as they show not every child forms an attachment with their mother in the same way and they certainly do not follow strict stages as every infant is different and their interaction with their mother is different.
