The development of mother-infant and father-infant attachments in the second year of life.

Twenty infants were observed at home interacting with their mothers, fathers, and an unfamiliar investigator, when they were 15, 18, 21, and 24 months of age. The infants showed significant preferences for their fathers over their mothers in the display of attachment and affiliative behaviors. Both parents were preferred to the investigator on attachment behavior measures, though when the relative activity of the adults was taken into account, the infants directed more affiliative behaviors to the investigator than to their parents. Over the year, there were declines in the occurrence of most attachment and affiliative behaviors. Fathers were far more active in interaction with sons than with daughters. At 24 months, the infants were observed in a laboratory playroom with their parents. In this situation, the infants showed no preference for either parent in the display of attachment and affiliative behaviors. They interacted far more with each parent when alone with her/him than when both parents were present. A stranger's presence had a similar effect on affiliative interaction within each parent-infant dyad, though the stranger effect was differentiated by intensificati on of the attachment behavior system. While the emergence and development of attachment relations are regarded as the major features of social development in the first few years of life, researchers have devoted comparatively little attention to the explicitly developmental aspects of attachment, with a notable absence of research on the second year of life. The primary goal of the present investigation, accordingly, was