Attachment: Ainsworth's strange situation

Question 1

What are the 3 types of attachment?

Answer 1

• Insecure - avoidant
• Insecure - resistant
• Secure attachment

Question 2

What is Insecure - avoidant attachment?

Answer 2

A type of attachment which describes those children who tend to avoid social interaction and intimacy with others.

Question 3

What is insecure - resistent attachment?

Answer 3

A type of attachment which describes those infants who seek and reject intimacy and social interaction.

Question 4

What is secure attachment?

Answer 4

This is a strong and contented attachment of an infant to his or her caregiver, which develops as a result of sensitive responding by the caregiver to the infant’s needs. Securely attached infants are comfortable with social interaction and intimacy. This type of attachment is related to healthy subsequent cognitive and emotional development.

Question 5

Who conducted the strange situation experiment?

Answer 5

Ainsworth et al. (1978)

Question 6

What was the aim of the key study?

Answer 6

To investigate how infants aged between (9 and 18 months) behave under conditions of mild stress and also novelty.

Question 7

What was the procedure of the key study?

Answer 7

• Ainsworth and Bell (1971) conducted a controlled observation recording the reactions of a child and mother (caregiver), who were introduced to a strange room with toys. In the strange situation about 100 middle-class American infants and their mothers took part. The infant’s behavior was observed during a set of pre-determined activities.
• The Strange Situation procedure involved the child experiencing eight ‘episodes’ of approximately 3 minutes each.
• The child is observed playing for 20 minutes while caregivers and strangers enter and leave the room, recreating the flow of the familiar and unfamiliar presence in most children’s lives. Observers noted the child’s willingness to explore, separation anxiety, stranger anxiety and reunion behavior.
• Ainsworth & Bell observed from the other side of a one-way mirror so that the children did not know that they were being observed.

Question 8

What were the 8 conditions within the strange situation study?

Answer 8

Stage 1 – Mother and child enter the playroom

Stage 2 – The child is encouraged to explore

Stage 3 – Stranger enters and attempts to interact

Stage 4 – Mothers leaves while the stranger is present

Stage 5 – Mother enters and the stranger leaves

Stage 6 – Mothers leaves

Stage 7 – Stranger returns

Stage 8 – Mother returns and interacts with child

Question 9

What were the findings of the key study?

Answer 9

From the observation, the 3 types of attachment was established. These types were called A,B,C.

Secure attachment: 66%
Insecure avoidant: 22%
Insecure resistant: 12%

Therefore most US children appeared to be securely attached. The results highlight the role of the mother’s behaviour in determining the quality of attachment.

This led to the conceptualization of the Caregiver Sensitivity Hypothesis, which suggests that a mother’s behaviour towards their infant predicts their attachment type.

Question 10

What were the secure attached infants like?

Answer 10

• Infants are upset when left alone by the mother.
• Infants are happy when mother returns and seek contact with the mother.
• Infants avoid the stranger when alone, but friendly when the mother is present.
• The infants uses the mother as a safe base to explore their environment.

Question 11

What were the insecure avoidant infants like?

Answer 11

Infants are unconcerned by mother’s absence when she leaves the room.

• Infants shows little interest when they are reunited with the mother (i.e. she returns to the room).
• Infants are strongly avoidant of mother and stranger, showing no motivation to interact with either adult. The stranger is treated similar to the mother (does not seek contact).

Question 12

What were the insecure resistant infants like?

Answer 12

• Infants are clingy to their mother in a new situation and are not willing to explore – suggesting that they do not have trust in her.
• They are extremely distressed when left alone by their mother.
• They cannot be comforted by a stranger and will not interact with them – they treat the stranger and the mother very differently.
• When the mother returns they are pleased to see her and go to her for comfort, but then cannot be comforted and may show signs of anger towards her.

Question 13

A03: Ainsworth’s strange situation

Answer 13

+ Observations have high reliability
+ Real-world application
- Other types of attachment
- Procedure is culturally biased

Question 14

A03: Observations have high reliability

Answer 14

In observational studies like Ainsworth the reliability of observations is important. The measurements are confirmed as meaningful if there is a great agreement amongst observers – called inter-observer reliability, which is determined by comparing the ratings made by a panel of experienced judges. Ainsworth et al (1978) found almost perfect agreement and waiting for exploratory behaviour – they found 0.94 agreement among the raters. This points to a strength of the strange situation, namely that the observations can be accepted as reliable.

Question 15

A03: Real-world application

Answer 15

In situations where disordered patterns of attachment develop between infant and caregiver, intervention strategies can be developed. E.g. the Circle of Security Project (Cooper et al, 2005) teaches caregivers to better understand their infants’ signals of distress and to increase their understanding of what it feels like to feel anxious. The project showed a decrease in the number of caregivers classified as disordered (from 60% to 15%) and an increase in infants classed as securely attached (from 32% to 40%). This supports the research on attachment types because such research can be used to improve children’s lives.

Question 16

A03: Other types of attachment

Answer 16

Finally, there is the possibility that Ainsworth’s classification system of attachment types is incomplete. Main & Solomon (1986) conducted subsequent research whereby they analysed several hundred Strange Situation episodes via videotape and suggested that Ainsworth overlooked a fourth type. It was noted that some infants showed inconsistent patterns of behaviour which they named Type D; insecure– disorganised. Further support for this claim comes from a meta‐analysis of studies from the US conducted by van Ijzendoorn et al. (1999) which found that 15% of infants were, in fact, classified as Type D, suggesting that Ainsworth’s original assessment of attachment is unable to fully explain all of the different types of attachments in children.

Question 17

A03: Procedure is culturally biased

Answer 17

The SS was designed by an American according to observations of US children. Consequently, the criteria used to classify infants are based on US values, relating to child-parent behaviour. It could be argued that this is Ethnocentric, so observations of non-Americans will be judged according to American standards. E.g. Japanese infants were judged as being resistant due to high levels of distress that were observed but this reflects their lack of experience during the “infant alone” part of the research, rather than a resistant attachment type.