Father Interaction and Separation Protest

Thirty-six 1-year-old middle-class children with fathers who spent differential time with them at home were observed in two experimental contexts separated by 2 weeks. In the first, each infant was shown six to eight repetitions of three different nonsocial events followed by a change in the repeated standard. In the second, each infant experienced the unannounced entrances and departures of his mother, father, and a female stranger. The infants who were most upset when alone with the stranger came from low-father-interaction families and became bored most rapidly with the nonsocial stimuli. The infants who were least fearful with the stranger came from high-father-interaction families and displayed the greatest interest in and smiling to the inanimate stimuli. It was argued that crying or protest to separation is a complex phenomenon influenced by discrepancy, temperament, and level of cognitive development and is not a sensitive index of the intensity of the child's emotional bond to his parent.