Types of Attachment Flashcards
(13 cards)
Who conducted the Strange Situation and when?
Mary Ainsworth and Silvia Bell in 1970
Outline the procedure of the Strange Situation.
- A controlled observation procedure designed to measure the security of attachment a baby displays towards a caregiver. It takes place in a room with quite controlled conditions with a two-way mirror and/or cameras through which psychologists can observe the baby’s behaviour.
- The behaviours used to judge attachment included: proximity seeking, exploration and secure-base bahviour, stranger anxiety, seperation anxiety, response to reunion.
The procedure has 7 episodes:
1. baby is encouraged to explore with caregiver
2. a stranger comes in, talks to the caregiver and approaches the baby
3. the caregiver leaves the baby and stranger together
4. the caregiver returns and the stranger leaves
5. the caregiver leaves the baby alone
6. the stranger returns
7. the caregiver returns and is reunited with the baby
Outline the findings of the strange situation.
Ainsworth found that there were distinct patterns in the way that babies behaved. She identified 3 main types of attachment:
- Secure attachment (type B), these babies were happy but regularly go back to their caregiver. They usually show moderate seperation distress and stranger anxiety. Securely attached babies require and accept comfort from the caregiver in the reunion stage. About 60-75% British babies are secure.
- Insecure-avoidant (type A), these babies explore freely and do not seek proximity or show secure-base behaviour. They show little or no reaction when their caregiver leaves and little stranger anxiety. They make little effort to make contact when the caregiver returns and may even avoid such contact. Aboit 20-25% of British babies are avoidant.
- Insecure-resistant (type C), these babies seek greater proximity than others and explore less. They show high levels of stranger and seperation distress but they resist comfort when reunited with their caregiver. Around 3% British babies are resistant.
Outline the strengths of the strange situation.
- Its outcome predicts a number of aspects of the baby’s later development. A large body of research has shown that babies and toddlers assessed as Type B tend to have better outcomes than others, both in later childhood and in adulthood. Inchildhood this includes better achievement in school and less involvement in bullying. Securely attached babies also tend to go on to have better mental health in childhood. Those babies assessed as having insecure-resistant attachment and those note falling into any of the 3 categories tend to have the worst outcomes. This suggests that the Strange Situation measures something real and meaningful in a baby’s development.
- It has good inter-rater reliability. Bick (2012) tested inter-rater reliability for the Strange Situation for a team of trained observers and found agreement on attachment type in 94% of cases. This high level of reliablility may be because the procedure takes place under controlled conditions and because behaviours involve large movements and are therefore easy to observe. This means that we can be confident that attachment type as assessed by the Strange Situation does not depend on subjective judgements.
Outline the limitations of the Strange Situation.
It may not be a valid measure of attachment in different cultural contexts. The Strange Situation was developed in Britain and the US. It may be culture-bound. One reason for this is that babies have different experiences in different cultures and these experiences may affect their responses to theStrange Situation. This means that it is very difficult to know what the Strange Situation is measuring when used outside Europe and the US.
Define cultural variations.
Culture refers to the norms and values that exist within any group of people. Cultural variations then are the differences in norms and values that exist between people in different groups. In attachment research we are concerned with the differences in the proportion of children with different attachment types.
Who assessed cultural variations and when?
van IJzendoorn and Kroonenberg in 1988
Outline the procedure of IJzendoorn and Kroonenberg’s research.
The researchers located 32 studies of attachment where the Strange Situation had been used to assess attachment types. These were conducted in 8 different countries - 15 in the US. Overall the studies had results for 1990 children. This data was then meta-analysed. This means that the results of the studies were combined and analysed together, weighting each study for its sample size.
Outline the findings of IJzendoorn and Kroonenberg’s research.
There was wide variation between the proportions of attachment types in different studies. In all countries secure attachment was the most common classification. However the proportion varied from 75% in Britain to 50% in China. In individualist cultures rates of insecure-resistant chilkdren were similar to Ainsworth’s study but this wasn’t true for collectivist cultures where rates were above 25%. Variations between results within the same country were actually 150% greater than those between countries.
Outline Simonelli’s study into cultural variation.
Simonelli (2014) conducted a study in Italy to see whether the proportions of babies different attachment types still matches those found in previous studies. The researchers studied 76 babies aged 12 months using the Strange Situation. They found that 50% were secure with 36% insecure-avoidant. This is a lower rate of secure rate attachment and higher rate of insecure-avoidant attachment than has been found in many studies. The researchers suggest that this is because increasing numbers of mothers of very young children work long hours and use professional childcare. These findings suggest that patterns of attachment types are not static but vary in line with cultural change.
Outline Jin’s study into cultural variations.
Jin (2012) conducted a study to compare the proportions of attachment types in Korea to other studies. The Strange Situation was used to assess 87 babies. The overall proportions of insecure and secure babies were similar to those in most countries, with most babies being secure. However, more of those classified as insecurely attached and only one baby was avoidant. This distribution is similar to the distribution found in Japan. Since Japan and Korea have quite similar child-rearing styles this similarity might be explained in terms of child-rearing style.
Outline the strengths of research into cultural variations.
Most of the studies were conducted by indigenous people. Indigenous people are those from the same cultural background as the participants. This kind of research means that many of the potential problems in cross-cultural research can be avoided such as researchers misunderstandings of the language used by the participants or having difficulty communicating with participants. This means that there is an excellent chance that researchers and participants communicated successfully, enhancing the validity of the data.
Outline the limitations of the research into cultural variations.
- Confounding variables. Studies conducted in different countries are usually not matched for methodology when they are compared in reviews or meta-analyses. Sample charactersistics such as poverty and social class can confound results as can the age of participants studied in different countries. Environmental variables may also differ between studies and confound results. This means that looking at attachment behaviour in different non-matched studies conducted in different countries may not tell us anything about cross-cultural patterns of attachment.
- Trying to impose a test designed for one cultural context to another. Cross-cultural psychology includes the idea of emic and etic. Imposed etic is when we assume an idea or technique that works in one cultural context will work in another. This means that the behaviours measured by the Strange Situation may not have the same meaning in different cultural contexts and comparing them across cultures is meaningless
