Strange Situation

Question 1

What were they assessing in the strange situation?

Answer 1

• Exploration and secure base behaviour
• Stranger anxiety
• Separation anxiety
• Response to reunion

Question 2

Method of strange situation

Answer 2

1) Mother sits, and child is placed on floor and free to explore
2) A stranger enters the room and briefly talks to the mother, and attempts to engage with the infant (stranger anxiety)
3) The mother leaves the room and stranger tries to comfort and play with baby (separation anxiety)
4) The mother returns and the stranger leaves (reunion behaviour)

Question 3

What are the 3 types of attachment

Answer 3

• Type B: secure attachment
• Type A: Insecure avoidant
• Type C: Insecure resistant

Question 4

Findings from strange situation

Answer 4

Secure attachment:
- Will use mother as safe base to explore their environment
- Midly distressed when mother leaves
- Wary of stranger when alone but friendly when mother present
- Happy when mother returns/easily soothed

Resistant attachment:

• Infant does not explore
• Infant shows signs of intense distress
• Infant avoids the stranger
• Child approaches mother but resists contact, reject/push away

Avoidant attachment:
- Explore but does not come back and use mother as a safe base
- Infant shows no sign of distress when mother leaves- doesn’t notice her absence
- Infant is not distressed with the stranger and plays normally
- Infant shows no interest when mother returns

Question 5

Evaluation of strange situation

Answer 5

• Controlled observation, so extraneous variables were controlled
• Easy to replicate
• Location is different from infant’s normal environment, so may act differently
• Lack of generalisability (cultural bias) as it occurred in western culture
• Socially sensitive to blame the mother for how the infant turns out

Question 6

Cultural variations

Answer 6

• Members of different cultures may not necessarily share the same ‘norms and values’ as other cultures

Question 7

Individualistic culture

Answer 7

• This is one which emphasises personal independence and achievement at the expense of group goals, resulting in a strong sense of competition

Question 8

Collectivist culture

Answer 8

• This is one which emphasises family and work goals above individual needs and desires, resulting in a high degree of interdependence between people

Question 9

Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg (1988) meta analysis- method

Answer 9

• They completed a meta-analysis on 32 studies using Ainsworth’s Strange Situation, almost 2000 babies were studied
• Attachment types both between and within cultures was studied

Question 10

Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg (1988)- results

Answer 10

• Secure attachment was the most common in all cultures
• Britain had the highest number of secure children
• Germany had the highest number of avoidant children
• Japan had very few avoidant children, but had a high proportion of resistant children
• There was 1.5 times more variation within cultures than between cultures

Question 11

Evaluation of Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg (1988)

Answer 11

• Imposed Etic: It was designed by US researchers for US babies, so it may not be valid for use on children in other countries with different child rearing practices
• Sample sizes: Some of the samples were very small e.g only one study was used in UK, meaning it may not be valid to base a conclusion on a whole nation from one study

Question 12

Takahashi (1990)

Answer 12

• 60 one year olds from middle class Japanese families were observed in the strange situation
• No infants were classed as avoidant
• 32% were resistant and 68% secure
• They concluded that there are cross cultural differences in raising children producing different reactions to the strange situation