Ainsworth Strange Situation Flashcards
(24 cards)
Secure attachment
Most desirable form of attachment, associated with psychologically healthy outcomes
Infant sees caregiver as a secure base, moderate stranger and separation anxiety, joy on reunion
Insecure avoidant
Attachment type characterised by low anxiety and weak attachment
Low stranger and seperation anxiety, little response on reunion
Results from caregivers lack of sensitive responsiveness to infants needs
Insecure resistant
Attachment characterised by high anxiety and strong attachment
High levels of stranger and separation anxiety and alternating between seeking closeness and warning distance at contact
This results from the caregivers ambivalence ( inconsistency) to infants needs
Procedure of Ainsworth’s study
- took place in a purpose built lab playroom, controlled observation
- consisted of 8 episodes each of which lasted 3 mins including mother and baby entering room, stranger entering the room, mother leaving and returning. Sample was American infants between 12 & 18 months
Findings of ainsworth study
Secure - 70%
Insecure avoidant - 20%
Insecure resistant- 10%
A strength of the strange situation
It strongly predicts later development. Infants assesses as secure typically go on to have better outcomes in many areas, ranging from success at school to romantic relationships and friendships in adulthood. Insecure resistant attachment is associated with the worst outcome including bullying in later childhood and adult mental health problems. This supports the predictive validity of the types of attachment identified by Ainsworth
Another strength is it shows very good inter-rated reliability
Different observers watching the same children in the strange situation generally agree on what attachment type to classify them with. This may be because the strange situation takes place under controlled conditions and because the behavioural categories are easy to observe
One weakness of the strange situation
It was created and tested in the USA which means it may be culturally biased (ethnocentric), as it will reflect the norms and values of American culture. Cultural differences in childhood
differently to the strange situation. Using the strange situation in cultures where the child rearing practices
are different may lead to the majority of children appearing to be insecure. For example in Germany
independence is encouraged and in Japan babies are rarely left alone. Takahashi (1990) noted that the
strange situation did not work in Japan
as Japanese mothers are so rarely separated from their babies that
there are very high levels of separation anxiety. At the reunion episode
Japanese mothers rushed to the
babies and scooped them up
meaning the child’s response was hard to observe. Therefore
the strange situation in assessing attachment across cultures may be limited.
A further weakness of the Strange Situation is that there may be more types of attachment. Main and
Solomon (1986) found that Ainsworth et al. overlooked a fourth type of attachment. They analysed over
200 strange situation videotapes and proposed insecure- disorganised attachment
type D
characterised by a lack of consistent patterns of social behaviour. Such infants lack a coherent strategy for
dealing with the stress of separation. For example
they show very strong attachment behaviour which is
suddenly followed by avoidance or looking fearful towards their caregiver. Van ljzendoorn et al (1999)
further supported this with a meta-analysis of nearly 80 studies in the US. They found 15% were classified
as insecure-disorganised. Therefore
the existence of a disorganised attachment type challenges Ainsworth’s
notion of attachment types.
