Schaffer & Emerson (1964) conducted an observational study of 60 children in Glasgow, Scotland, to understand how babies form and develop attachments.

They note that human infants take a significantly longer time to form a bond than newborn animals, such as ducks.

Human infants' attachments develop in four stages:

1) The Asocial Stage - usually lasts up to six weeks after birth. Newborns don't tend to discriminate between humans, but do demonstrate a preference for humans over non-humans.

2) The Indiscriminate Stage - from six weeks to six months. Babies can tell people apart, so start to develop a stronger attachment with familiar adults. Babies don't yet show an aversion to strangers.

3) Specific Attachment - from seven months. Infants demonstrate separation anxiety when separated from their primary attachment (usually a parent). Babies also begin to demonstrate a fear of strangers at this stage.

4) Multiple Attachments - finally, from around 10 months babies demonstrate a significantly increased interest in friends, grandparents and other familiar adults.

Click here to subscribe to our YouTube Channel.

The Strange Situation (Ainsworth, 1969)

How Babies Form Attachments (Schaffer & Emerson, 1964)

Pavlov’s Dogs and How People Learn (Classical Conditioning)

Distinctions in Long Term Memory Tulving (1972)

Working Memory (Baddeley & Hitch, 1974)

Paltering: The Art of Lying Truthfully (Rogers et al., 2016)

Should teenagers work? (Steinberg et al., 1982)

On Being Sane In Insane Places (Rosenhan, 1973)

Atkinson & Shiffrin’s Multi Store Model of Memory

The Stanford Prison Experiment (Zimbardo, 1972)

Bettelheim and Communal Parenting

Why did Milgram’s participants commit murder?

False recall and what it tells us about our memory

Stanley Milgram’s Obedience Experiment (1961)