Psychology: Attachment 1 & 2 Flashcards
(48 cards)
What is the Strange Situation designed to Measure?
A way of measuring types of attachment
Name the 3 behavioural Categories used in the Strange situation
- Secure attachment - ‘I trust you’
- Insecure avoidant - ‘I don’t care’
- Insecure resistant - ‘I don’t trust you’
How long does each episode last?
3 minutes - mother and baby, stranger enters, mother leaves, mother returns ect
What scale is used to rate the behaviours?
Recording of child’s response to 5 behavioural categories:
1. Proximity-seeking to caregiver
2. Using parent as secure base
3. Accepting comfort from stranger
4. Separation anxiety
5. Response to being re-united
Each category rated on 0-7 scale
How does a securely attached child behave in the Study?
Explore happily, but go back to their mothers regularly, moderate stranger and separation anxiety but accept comfort from caregiver
How does an insecure avoidant child behave in the Study?
Explore freely but don’t seek secure base, no reaction when the mother leaves and doesn’t make effort to make contact when mother returns
How does an insecure resistant child behave in the Study?
Seek breather proximity than other babies and explore less, high levels of stranger and separation anxiety and refuse comfort from the mother
What were the % of each attachment type in Ainsworth’s original study?
- Type B: Secure attachment ( (66 %)– some separation
anxiety, high willingness to explore (use parent as
secure base), high stranger anxiety, enthusiastic reunion - Types A: Insecure-avoidant (22%) – low separation
anxiety, high willingness to explore (but don’t used
parent as a secure base), low stranger anxiety,
indifferent reunion - Type C: Insecure-resistant (12%)– very high separation
anxiety, low willingness to explore (don’t use parent as a secure base), high
stranger anxiety, seeks and rejects on reunion (they want comfort but reject it at the same time)
Why does the study have good reliability? (hint: consistency)
*Good Reliability – shows good inter-observer
reliability (observers agree on which attachment type a child is). This is because the
SS is done under controlled conditions and has clear behavioural categories which are easy to observe. It is also carried out in a controlled environment which mean extraneous variables are reduced and the study can be replicated
under the same conditions.
Why does the study have high validity? (hint: accuracy)
*High Validity – the Strange situation is good at
predicting outcomes for children which suggests
it is an accurate measure of attachment. For example, securely attached children are more likely to have secure romantic relationships and
do better at school.
Why is the Study culture bound? Give an example
*The test may be Culture-Bound. The SS may
not have the same meaning when used to measure attachment in other cultures outside of the USA. Cultural differences in
child-rearing mean children respond differently to the strange situation and so
may appear insecure when they are actually secure.
How might a child’s temperament affect their behaviour in the study. How does this affect the validity?
*Is the study actually measuring attachment type or Temperament? e.g Some children are shy and may
appear resistant but actually have secure
attachment. Others may be confident and appear
avoidant but are actually securely attached – so the
SS may not accurately measure attachment type.
What is the 4th attachment type? Why is this a limitation of Ainsworth’s research?
*Is there a 4th
attachment type? – Disorganised attachment. This is a mixture of insecure resistant and insecure avoidant attachment. This challenges Ainsworth’s original categories as she only included 3 categories.
Explain why Van izjendoorn’s study is described as a meta-analysis
- Meta-analysis of 32 studies in 8 countries– all used strange
situation to measure attachment type.
How many studies, countries and babies did he study?
8 countries
What was the most common attachment found worldwide?
Secure Attachment
Which country has the highest levels of insecure avoidant children?
Germany had highest amounts of insecure avoidant (33%)
Which country has the highest levels of insecure resistant children?
Israel (30%) and Japan (26%) had highest amounts of insecure resistant
Which country has the highest levels of secure attachment?
Britain had highest secure (75%)
How many times higher are variations within a country than between countries?
More variation within each country than between countries
What did Tronick find about Attachment in the Efe Tribe?
Explain the reasons for the cultural variations:
Why is secure most common worldwide?
Why does Germany have higher numbers of avoidant children compared to other countries?
Why does Japan have higher numbers of resistant children compared to other countries?
Why does Israel have higher numbers of resistant children compared to other countries?
Why do German children have higher levels of Insecureavoidant than other countries? German children are generally raised to be independent and so may appear to be
avoidant but may actually be securely attached.
Why does Japan have higher numbers of insecure-resistant
than other Countries? Children in Japan are rarely separated form their mothers in the 1st year and so may appear very
clingy and resistant in the SS but may actually be securely attached
Why does the UK have higher numbers of Secure
attachment? Children in the UK are raised in a similar way to the USA where they are used to being regularly separated from their caregiver and so the Strange situation is not too
distressing for them
Why is having a large sample size a strength of the research?
Large Samples – 32 studies, 8 countries, 2000 babies. G
So a representative sample
Why is the research criticised for being culture bound?
- Samples may not represent the whole culture – (In Japan, mainly rural communities were used)
