ainsworth's strange situation

Question 1

strange situation

Answer 1

ainsworth developed controlled observation called Strange Situation to assess types and quality of infant’s attachment to caregiver.

SS involves placing infant and mother in a novel environment of mild stress, where they’d be observed and videoed through a two‐way mirror during series of seven different episodes each lasting three minutes

involves caregiver leaving child on its own and stranger entering and trying to interact with child. child’s response to being left alone with stranger and reunion with mother is observed

Question 2

strange situation findings

Answer 2

discovered 3 types of attachment:

securely attached - 60%-75% - explore happily but go back to caregiver, show moderate separation distress and moderate stranger anxiety, accept and require comfort from caregiver in reunion stage

insecure- avoidant - 20%-25% - explore freely and don’t show secure base behaviour or seek proximity, show little separation and stranger anxiety, show little reunion behaviour

insecure-resistant - 5% - little exploration behaviour, extreme levels of stranger and separation anxiety, resist comfort from parent during reunion stage
argued differences are caused by the sensitivity of the mother to the infants need

Question 3

evaluation - high inter rater reliability

Answer 3

different observers watching same children generally agree on infants’ attachment type.

bick et al - found 94% agreement in one team - suggests that almost perfect agreement points out that observations of the SS can be accepted as reliable.

Question 4

evaluation - attachment type is strongly predictive of later development

Answer 4

babies assessed as secure typically go on to have better outcomes in many areas.
insecure-resistant attachment is associated with worst outcomes including bullying in later childhood and adult mental health problems - evidence for the validity of the concept because it can explain subsequent outcomes

Question 5

evaluation - culture bound

Answer 5

SS was designed to measure attachment type in infants in USA.

cultural differences in children-rearing practices - infants from different countries may respond differently in SS:
Takahashi - Japanese mothers rarely separated from infants - may explain why many Japanese infants show high levels of separation anxiety in SS resulting in them being classified as having an insecure-resistant attachment type, which may not be true - shows that SS is culturally biased - questions validity when used to measure attachment type in countries where child-rearing practices are different to the USA