Ainsworth’s Strange Situation study

Question 1

What was Mary Ainsworth’s study called?

Answer 1

The “Strange Situation” study

Question 2

What was the aim of the “Strange Situation” study?

Answer 2

The aim was to assess how securely attached a child was to their caregiver, if they were insecurely attached, to assess which type of insecure attachment they had

Question 3

What is an attachment?

Question 4

What are the different types of attachments? How many are there?

Answer 4

There are three types of attachment. Secure attachments, Insecure avoidant attachment and Insecure - resistant attachment

Question 5

What are the types of insecure attachments?

Answer 5

Insecure avoidant attachment and Insecure resistant attachment

Question 6

How many stages were there in the procedure? What happened in each stage of the procedure?

Answer 6

There were seven stages in the procedure, which were:

1. The mother and infant enter the observation room
2. Stranger enters room with mother and infant
3. Mother leaves stranger and infant together
4. Mother enters the room and stranger leaves, reunion behaviour recorded
5. Mother leaves the room too, separation behaviour recorded
6. Stranger comes back into room
7. Mother enters the room, stranger leaves and reunion behaviour observed

Question 7

What were the findings of the “Strange Situation” study?

Answer 7

Ainsworth found that 70% of infants had secure attachment types (Type B), 15% of infants had secure avoidant attachment (Type A) and the other 15% had secure resistant attachment (Type C)

The three types of attachments that were discovered were Insecure avoidant (Type A), Insecure Resistant (Type C) and Secure attachment (Type B)

Question 8

Insecure avoidant attachment is also known as?

Insecure resistant attachment is also known as?

Secure attachment is also known as?

Answer 8

Insecure avoidant attachment is also known as Type A

Insecure resistant attachment is also known as Type C

Secure attachment is also known as Type B

Question 9

Describe how securely attached infant would act with separation anxiety, stranger anxiety and reunion behaviour?

Answer 9

If an infant is securely attached, they will experience some stress when mother leaves from separation anxiety. However, upon return they will be easily comforted. When a stranger enters the room they will experience some stress too

Question 10

Describe how insecurely avoidant attached infant would act with separation anxiety, stranger anxiety and reunion behaviour?

Answer 10

If an infant has an insecure avoidant attachment when their mother leaves they will experience little to no stress, when a stranger enter the room little stress is experienced and upon mother’s arrival there is little contact made

Question 11

Describe how insecurely resistant attached infant would act with separation anxiety, stranger anxiety and reunion behaviour?

Answer 11

If an infant has an insecure resistant attachment type, they will have immense stress when separated from their mother, extreme fear of strangers and be difficult to comfort/resist contact with their mother

Question 12

What is a limitation of the Mary Ainsworth’s “Strange Situation” study? (population validity + cultural bias)

Answer 12

Ainsworth’s study lacks population validity. It is based on Western culture as the studies were done in America. Therefore it suffers from cultural bias, so makes it less generaliseable to other cultures. Particularly due to the individualist/collectivist divide between western and eastern countries. This suggests that the findings are culture bound and also lack ecological validity, because the results can only be generalised to the research settings they were found.

Question 13

What is a strength of the Mary Ainsworth’s “Strange Situation” study?

Answer 13

The ‘Strange Situation” has very good inter - rater reliability. There was more than one observer, observing the same children in the strange situation study and an agreement of more than 94% between their findings

Question 14

What is a limitation of the Mary Ainsworth’s “Strange Situation” study?

Answer 14

The study only measured the relationship type with one attachment figure. Ainsworth only used mothers and their children in the study. This can mean that the wrong attachment type can be identified. For example a child may not be strongly attached with their mother, but more securely attached to an extended family member or father. The study wrongly assumes the child will be closer to the mother than any other adult figure. Therefore the study lacks internal validity as it does not always correctly measure a child’s attachment type with their primary caregiver