Types of Attachment

Question 1

Who created the Strange Situation and why?

Answer 1

• Ainsworth (1970) to observe key attachment behaviours in order to assess the quality of the baby’s attachment to the caregiver

Question 2

What was the procedure tested in the Strange Situation?

Answer 2

• takes place in a room with a two-way mirror and cameras to assess the behaviour
• testing proximity-seeking, exploration and secure-base behaviour, stranger anxiety, separation anxiety and response to reunion
• each stage lasts 3 minutes
  1. Baby encouraged to explore
  2. Stranger comes and talks to baby
  3. Caregiver leaves
  4. Caregiver returns and stranger leaves
  5. Caregiver leaves again
  6. Stranger returns
  7. Caregiver returns

Question 3

What were the findings of the Strange Situation?

Answer 3

• Ainsworth et al (1978) established 3 main attachment types
• secure attachment (type B) = happily explore but return to caregiver, moderate separation and stranger anxiety, accept comfort at reunion - 60-75% of British babies
• insecure-avoidant attachment (type A) = explore freely but don’t return to caregiver, little to no separation and stranger anxiety, avoid reunion comfort - 20-25% British babies
• insecure-resistant attachment (type C) = explore less and return to caregiver more, high levels of stranger and separation anxiety, resist comfort when reunion - 3% British babies

Question 4

What are 2 strengths of the strange situation?

Answer 4

• strength of good predictive validity as research shows the type B attachment babies tend to have better outcomes including less bullying and better achievements (McCormick et al 2016) - real and meaningful
• strength of good inter-rater reliability as Bick et al 2012 observed stranger situation and agreed on 94% of cases possibly due to controlled environment

Question 5

What is a limitations of the strange situation?

Answer 5

• limitation that the test could be culture bound as it was developed in USA/UK - babies have different experiences in culture and Takahashi (Japan) said that a lot of babies had very high separation anxiety but that it is mainly because mother-baby separation is very rare in Japan