Ainsworth's Strange Situation - Types of Attachment Flashcards
Outline the aim, method and procedure of Ainsowrth’s Strange Situation
Aim: To investigate infant behaviour under conditions of mild stress and novelty (new or unfamiliar) and whether there are distinct attachment behaviours in infants.
Method: Controlled observation designed to measure the security of attachment towards their caregiver, in children aged between 9-18 months old, time sampling used to record behaviour every 15 seconds
Procedure: 8 stages
1: Child & caregiver enter an unfamiliar room and play together
2: Child is encouraged to play and explore independently (tests exploration from secure base
3: A stranger comes in and tries to interact with the child (tests stranger anxiety)
4: Caregiver leaves child & stranger together; stranger offers comfort if required (tests separation anxiety)
5: Caregiver returns & stranger leaves; caregiver offers comfort if required (tests response to reunion)
6: Caregiver leaves the child alone (tests separation anxiety)
7: Stranger return & offers comfort if required (tests stranger anxiety)
8: Caregiver returns & offers comfort if required (tests response to reunion)
Outline the types of attachment Ainsworth identified from the Strange Situation (results)
Secure attachment (Type B)
- Explore happily
- Regularly go back to their caregiver (secure base behaviour)
- Moderate separation and stranger anxiety
- Accept comfort from caregiver at reunion stage
Insecure avoidant attachment (Type A)
- Explore freely
- Show little or no reaction when their caregiver leaves (no separation anxiety)
- Make little effort to make contact when caregiver returns
- Show little stranger anxiety and separation anxiety
- Do not require comfort at reunion stage
Insecure resistant attachment (Type C)
- Explore less
- Show huge stranger and separation anxiety/distress
- Resist comfort when reunited with caregiver
What did Ainsworth conclude from the Strange Situation?
Caregiver-infant attachments differ and all infants will show one of three attachment types
Outline two strengths of Ainsworth’s Strange Situation
Predictive Validity
P: Attachment types identified using the Strange Situation are predictive of later development
Ev: Ward found securely attached babies had better outcomes in future (doing well in school, more positive romantic relationships and friendships). Insecure resistant babies were associated with the worst outcomes including bullying and mental health problems.
Ex: This suggests the idenification of attachment type using the strange situation is useful in the real world to predict future behaviours
L: This increases the validity of the concepts as it explains later outcomes
Good Reliability
P: The strange situation has very good inter-rater reliability. (correlation of 0.8 or above)
Ev: This means that different observers watching the same children in the Strange Situation generally agree on what attachment type to classify them as.
This is because the study was a controlled observation whereby Ainsworth’s kept everything standardised, so the conditions were the same for all 9-18 month old children in the study and the materials (toys) were also kept the same for all infants, so the behavioural categories were easier to observe (exploration from secure base, separation anxiety, stranger anxiety, and response to reunion).
These results demonstrate the consistency of the Strange Situation as a tool for measuring attachment.
This means that the study was high in internal validity.
Outline two limitations of Ainsworth’s Strange Situation
Other types of attachment
P: More recent research suggests there may be a fourth attachment type.
Main and Solomon (1986) analysed over 200 strange situation videotapes and pointed out that a minority of children do not display attachments falling into the types A, B or C. They proposed the insecure-disorganised attachment (type D), whereby children display an odd mix of resistant and avoidant behaviours.
These findings suggest that some infants do not have a consistent type of attachment, but Ainsworth’s original attachment types failed to acknowledge these children.
Therefore, this decreases the validity of the concepts.
The test may be culture-bound
P: There is some doubt about whether the Strange Situation is a culture-bound test.
Takahashi (1990) found that the test does not really work in Japan because Japanese mothers are so rarely separated from their babies that there are very high levels of separation anxiety (as one would expect). Moreover in the reunion stage Japanese mothers rushed to the baby and scooped them up, meaning the child’s response was difficult to observe.
These findings suggest that the Strange Situation does not have the same meaning in countries outside Western Europe and USA. Cultural differences in childhood experiences are likely to mean that children respond differently to the Strange Situation. Furthermore, caregivers from different cultures behave differently in the Strange Situation.
Therefore, the findings from the strange situation cannot be applied to all attachments in different countries and/or cultures.
