Stages of Attachment

Stages of Attachment in Psychology

The stages of attachment in infants are the developmental stages in which infants form attachments to their primary caregiver and others in their environment.

Before we dive into the stages of attachment, let's first understand the components of attachment. This includes:

• Safe Haven: the child goes to their caregiver for comfort or soothing if they feel threatened.

• Proximity Maintenance: the child desires to stay close to their caregiver, who provides a sense of safety.

• Secure Base: as a child explores the new world around them, they can depend on their caregiver to provide security.

• Separation Distress: if the child is ever separated from their caregiver, they become distressed and upset by their absence.

Several researchers in psychology have designed studies to understand better how these stages develop and what they are. Below, we'll discuss how essential psychologists, including Mary Ainsworth, John Bowlby, Rudolf Schaffer, and Peggy Emerson, understood the stages of attachment.

Stages of Attachment Theory

Psychologists theorise attachment in several different ways. One important question they ask is why we develop an attachment bond with our caregivers and under what circumstances. John Bowlby, one of the first to suggest stages of attachment theory, introduced the idea of an infant-caregiver bond in his ethological theory of attachment.

However, Bowlby stressed that feeding does not facilitate attachment but is rather used for comfort or soothing.

Both Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth believed that how well a child is attached to their caregiver can greatly affect that child's sense of security and ability to form trustworthy relationships. Ainsworth included two primary attachment types in her attachment theory: secure and insecure.

Fig 1. The infant-caregiver attachment influences the child's behaviour.

Stages of Attachment Development

Later, we'll discuss the stages of attachment in infants according to Schaffer and Emerson (1964). But according to Bowlby, there are also stages of attachment development.

According to Bowlby, there are four attachment development stages, summarised in the table below.

Stages of Attachment in Infants

Rudolf Schaffer and Peggy Emerson (1964) sought to formulate clear stages of attachment in infants.

They designed a study to examine how infants become attached to their caregivers, from asocial attachments to multiple attachments.

Stages of Attachment: Procedure

Schaffer and Emerson wanted to determine at what age infants begin to form attachments. They also wanted to find out to whom these attachments infants form and how strong they are.

The researchers sampled 60 infants from a working-class neighbourhood in the Scottish city of Glasgow. As part of a longitudinal study, the researchers observed the babies in their homes at the following intervals:

• Every four weeks during the baby's first year of life.

• Once at 18 months of age.

The researchers measured attachment by observing the baby's behaviour in the following scenarios:

Stages of Attachment: Results

Schaffer and Emerson found that babies develop a primary attachment to their mothers at 6-7 months. A secondary attachment to the father and other family members developed at about ten months.

From these observations, Schaffer and Emerson concluded that infants go through the following stages of attachment.

Stages of Attachment: Conclusion

Schaffer and Emerson concluded that infants go through each of the above attachment stages and that infants' mothers are still the most crucial attachment figures at 18 months of age. Infants had a 'hierarchy' of other attachments based on how important each attachment was to the infant. The sensitive responsiveness of the adult determined the importance.

The researchers concluded that sensitive responsiveness is more critical in infants than in those who spend more time with the infant.

Fig. 2 Schaffer and Emerson's theorised there are four stages of attachment in infants,

Evaluation of Schaffer and Emerson Stages of Attachment

This study has impacted the field of developmental psychology, but how can we evaluate Schaffer and Emerson's study on the stages of attachment?

First, since the infants were observed in their own homes and their behaviour was more natural, this observational study had high external validity.

However, the study lacked population validity. The sample consisted of only 60 Glasgow working families, which is not representative of a broader population. Thus, the results are not generalisable to caregivers and babies from different backgrounds or countries.

Finally, mothers who reported their child's behaviour may not have reported the most accurate information. Many had a case of social desirability bias, so they wanted to appear favourable to the researcher. As a result, they may have altered their responses.