Ainsworth’s ‘Strange Situation’. Types of attachment: secure, insecure-avoidant and insecure-resistant.

Method of Mary ainsworth

• 12-18month old child and primary caregiver

• group of 100 middle class American children

• placed in an unfamiliar room with some toys in it.

• stranger will enter, talk to the mother and try to interact with the child.

• mother leaves and stranger will continue to try to interact with the child. The mother will then return to comfort the child.

• Multiple observers recorded the infant behaviour every 15 seconds behind a one way mirror.

• Measured:infants’ willingness to explore, the separation anxiety,stranger anxiety and willingness to interact with strangers and reunion behaviour

What are the 3 attachment classifications found from research

→ Securely attached : most common, children are distressed at the mother’s departure and comforted by her return, interacting minimally with the stranger. Mothers= sensitive.

→ Insecure avoidant: not concerned by separation and are uninterested in reunion. Mothers= sometimes ignored their infant.

→insecure resistant: overly distressed on separation + go to the mother on reunion but push her away and unable to be comforted. Mothers= put their own needs above their child's.

What did Ainsworth conclude?

• Ainsworth concluded that the primary caregiver’s behaviour shapes the attachment behaviour of the child. This is known as the caregiver sensitivity hypothesis and is based on upbringing (nurture) determining our relationship

Results of study

• Secure = 70%

• Insecure- Avoidant = 15%

• Insecure-Resistant= 15%

AO3: link between parental sensitivity and attachment type is weak

• Wolff and Van Ijzendoorn (1997)

• meta-analysis of research into attachment types and found that there is a weak correlation of 0.24 between parental sensitivity and attachment type – generally more sensitive parents had securely attached children.

• too much emphasis on the mother.

AO3: The research has high inter rater reliability

• The strange situation uses multiple observers.

• They found a correlation coefficient of +0.94 agreement between raters

• Used a highly standardised procedure with behavioural categories that were clearly operationalised.

• They also videoed each interaction. This means observers could be extremely clear on the behaviours they were looking for and watch the interactions multiple times.

• This suggests that the research has high inter rater reliability and suggests there was little bias involved in the observers judgements.

Oversimplification of categories

• Over-simplification and a lack of validity in her belief that children can be categorised into only three groups.

• Other studies have suggested that there big individual differences between children within in attachment group.

• May be a fourth type of attachment. The insecure-disorganised child lacks a coherent strategy for dealing with the stress of separation and will quickly change from strong attachment behaviour to avoidance and fear. = normally found in children who have been the victim of child abuse.

Real life application

• Where disordered patterns of attachment develop between infant and caregiver, intervention strategies can be developed to teach caregivers to better understand their infants’ signals of distress and to increase their understanding of what it feels like to feel anxious.

• These interventions work to increase the number of secure attachments.