Developmental: Ainsworths Strange Situation Flashcards
What was the key features to Ainsworths study?
Method - controlled observations
Design - repeated measures
Sample - infants (8-12 months)
IV - the 8 different episodes of the strange situation. E.g. mother leaves, mother returns, etc.
DV - the babies responses - including separation anxiety, stranger anxiety, reunion behaviour and seeking proximity
What is a secure attachment in a baby?
Babies explore happily, but regularly go back to their caregivers (proximity seeking). They usually show moderate separation distress and moderate stranger anxiety.
About 60-75% of British babies are classified as secure
What is an insecure - avoidant attachment?
These babies explore freely but do not seek proximity or show secure-base behaviour. They show little to no reaction when their caregiver leaves and little stranger anxiety. Make little effort to make contact with caregiver when they return and may even avoid such contact.
About 20-25% of British babies are classified as insecure - avoidant
What is insecure - resistant attachment?
These babies seek greater proximity than others and explore less. Show high levels of stranger anxiety and separation distress, but they resist comfort when reunified with their caregivers.
Around 3% of British babies are classified as this.
What was Ainsworth’s conclusions?
Mothers cause different types of attachments
- sensitive, responsive and caring —> secure
- inconsistent mothers —> anxious resistant
- ambivalent mothers who dismiss their infants —> anxious avoidant
What does Main and Cassidy identify to prove an issue with categories and internal validity?
They identified a further group of children, referred to as disorganised. These children show inconsistent behaviours, confusion and indecision. They also tend to freeze or show stereotyped behaviour such as rocking.
How is population validity a weakness of the SS?
- unreasonable to make generalisations about all infants behaviours on the basis of this sample. The study and its findings are restricted to middle-class American infants - so currently culture bias.
How might validity be a problem for the SS?
- Internal Validity - is the SS a true measure of attachment, or simply how the child reacts to a strange situation? Would the researcher find same responses if in the child’s home? However, due to inconsistent findings, it can be argued that it is internally valid, as it is replicable
- External Validity - it took place in a lab setting as a controlled observation, meaning mothers may have behaved differently due to social desirability bias or demand characteristics (being watched with her child).
What does Hazan and Shaver find that supports the SS has predictive validity?
- show that infant attachment type can be seen later in romantic relationships. Shown that children who are secure make more friends then those insecure infants, therefore offering some predictive validity.
What does Van Ljzendoorn and Kroonenberg find about reliability of the SS?
Found in their meta-analysis, that despite some differences in insecure attachment rates, secure attachment was the most common type of attachment in all cultures, showing results were consistent across the world - therefore reliable.
What does the temperament hypothesis say?
That infant responses could be due to their individual innate temperament, rather than their mothers behaviour.
