Ainsworth's strange situation, types of attachment.

Question 1

What was Ainsworth’s strange situation?

Answer 1

• Controlled observation consisting of 8x3 minute episodes of infants exploring a different environment with their caregivers, without their caregivers and with a stranger.
• Observed the reactions of the infant and categorised them into 3 types of attachments.

Question 2

What are the 3 types of attachments?

Answer 2

• SECURE attachment.
• insecure AVOIDANT attachment.
• RESISTANT attachment.

Question 3

What were Ainsworth’s results?

Answer 3

Secure= 70%
Avoidant= 20%
Resistant= 10%

Question 4

What was Ainsworth’s conclusion?

Answer 4

different behaviours indicate different attachment types.

Question 5

Give advantages of Ainsworth’s study.

Answer 5

+Reliable, used allowed control variables.
+Supported by Main (1999) who tested and reassessed a group of children and found that their attachment types were influenced by their mothers.

Question 6

Give disadvantages of Ainsworth’s study.

Answer 6

• lacks ecological validity due to the lab experiment.

- Mother may have not been child’s primary attachment figure.

Question 7

What are cultural variations within attachment?

Answer 7

Variety in social context causes attachments to vary.

Question 8

What was Van Izendoorn’s study?

Answer 8

• meta analysis of 32 studies.
• over 8 countries.
• differences in attachment were small, mainly secure.
• second was avoidant.
• Israel and Japan had a 1.5 greater variation than the rest of the countries.

Question 9

Give an example of cross cultural differences?

Answer 9

Grossman and Grossman found that German infants were given insecure attached labels. May be due to the culture and how children aren’t encouraged to proximity seek with their parents.

Question 10

Evaluate Cultural variation.

Answer 10

• Culture bias, attachment theory is rooted in western culture.
• Biological reasoning to difference or is it due to the media’s influence?