Sensitivity

Question 1

Ainsworth & Bell (1969)

Answer 1

• Rated maternal behaviour in the first 3 months of life according to 22 scales
• Reported on 6 of these
– Perception of the baby
– Delight in the baby
– Acceptance of the baby
– Appropriateness of interaction with the baby – Amount of physical contact
– Effectiveness of response to crying

Question 2

Ainsworth, Bell & Stayton (1971, 1974)

Answer 2

• Sought to identify common features of the 6 behaviours
• Devised a sensitivity scale to assess the behaviour they believed was the core underlying construct
• Defined sensitivity as the mother’s “ability to perceive and to interpret accurately the signals and communications implicit in her infant’s behaviour, and given this understanding, to respond to them appropriately” (Ainsworth et al., 1974, p. 127)

Question 3

The Sensitivity Scale

Answer 3

Scale of 1-9, with 1 being highly insensitive, and 9 being highly sensitive

Question 4

Mesman, van IJzendoorn et al., (2016)

Answer 4

• Investigated beliefs about the ideal mother in 26 cultural groups living in 15 countries across South and North America, Asia, Africa and Europe
• Mothers with children aged between 6m and 6 years completed the MBQS to indicate the ideal mother
• There was strong convergence across groups wrt what constitutes the ideal mother, but cultural differences also predicted ratings

Question 5

Mesman, Minter et al., (2016)

Answer 5

• In non-Western rural cultures, assessing the sensitivity of the mother does not give an accurate picture of the quality of caregiving received by the infant
• In Aka foragers, the number of people actively involved in caring for an infant ranged from 17 to 24 (Meehan & Hawks, 2015)
• Assessing received sensitivity may therefore be more appropriate – the infant is taken as the point of reference and his/her experiences of sensitive caregiving coded

Question 6

Mesman, Minter et al., (2016) - 2

Answer 6

• Reported on two case studies of infants from the coast-dwelling Dimasalansan Agta people in the Philippines
• Maya is cared for by her mother, aunt, several children aged 8 to 12 (mostly cousins), father (between fishing trips). She has 3 older sibs between 2 and 5
• Jade is an only child cared for predominantly by her mother, father and grandmother
• Maya’s mother rated as 5 for sensitivity
• Jade’s mother rated as 9 for sensitivity
• But both infants scored 7 for received sensitivity

Question 7

Ainsworth et al., (1971)

Answer 7

• First to report predictive link between sensitivity and attachment security
• In addition to sensitivity, this study also assessed maternal behaviour along three other dimensions
– Acceptance–rejectioon
– Co-operation–interference
– Accessibility–ignoring
• Cannot distinguish between resistant and avoidant
○ Over-simplification of findings to think of neat categories

Question 8

Distinguishing avoidance from resistance

Answer 8

• Many subsequent studies have shown that sensitivity does not distinguish between the avoidant and resistant groups (e.g., Egeland & Farber, 1984; Isabella, 1993; Stiber et al., 1993)
• Using the MBQS, secure and resistant groups could be distinguished from the avoidant group, but sensitivity couldn’t distinguish between the secure and resistant groups (Pederson et al., 1998)
• Some studies have found that sensitivity doesn’t predict attachment at all (Meins et al., 2012; Tomlinson et al., 2005)

Question 9

De Wolff and van Ijzendoorn (1997)

Answer 9

• Meta-analysis on relation between sensitivity and attachment security
• Modestly strong correlation between ‘sensitivity’ and secure/insecure attachment (r = .24)
• Ainsworth et al.’s original sample produced by far the strongest effect (r = .85)
• Concluded that without Ainsworth et al.’s original sample, “the solid scientific fact of a moderately strong causal association between sensitivity and attachment would not have been established” (p. 585).