Strange situation Flashcards
What was Ainsworth interested in?
The different types of attachments that infants formed with caregivers
How is the type of attachment tested?
The strange situation
Ainsworth and Bell (1970)
Devised strange situation to systematically test the nature of attachments and see how infants (9-18 months) behave under conditions of mild stress and novelty
How was stress created in the strange situation?
Created by the presence of a stranger and separation from a caregiver
What does the strange situation measure?
Type of attachment through Stranger and separation anxiety
What is the procedure of Ainsworth and Bellâs (1970) Strange situation?
9x9 foot square room and 7 episodes each designed to highlight certain behaviours. This was a controlled observation in a lab setting.
what are the 7 episodes in Ainsworths strange situation?
- Parent sits while infant plays
- stranger enters and talks to parent
- caregiver leaves, infant plays and stranger offers comfort
- caregiver returns, offers comfort + stranger leaves
- caregiver leaves infant alone
- stranger returns offers comfort
- caregiver returns, greets and offers comfort
What was the first episode in the strange situation?
Parent sits while infant plays
What was the second episode in the strange situation?
Stranger enters and talks to parent
What was the third episode in the strange situation?
caregiver leaves, infant plays and stranger offers comfort
What was the fourth episode in the strange situation?
caregiver returns, offers comfort + stranger leaves
What was the fifth episode in the strange situation?
caregiver leaves infant alone
What was the sixth episode in the strange situation?
stranger returns offers comfort
What was the seventh episode in the strange situation?
caregiver returns, greets and offers comfort
What behaviour is assessed in the first episode of the Strange situation?
(Parent sits while infant plays) -> Use of parent as secure base
What behaviour is assessed in the second episode of the Strange situation?
(Stranger enters and talks to parent) -> Stranger anxiety
What behaviour is assessed in the third episode of the Strange situation?
(Parent leaves, stranger offers comfort) -> Separation anxiety
What behaviour is assessed in the fourth episode of the Strange situation?
(Parent returns and offers comfort, stranger leaves) -> Reunion behaviour
What behaviour is assessed in the fifth episode of the Strange situation?
(Parent leaves, infant is alone) -> separation anxiety
What behaviour is assessed in the sixth episode of the Strange situation?
(Stranger enters and offers comfort) -> Stranger anxiety
What behaviour is assessed in the seventh episode of the Strange situation?
(Parent returns, greets and offers comfort) -> reunion behaviour
How is data collected in the strange situation?
Observers record what the infant is doing every 15 seconds and scores the behaviour for intensity on a scale of 1-7
What do they score the behaviours (on intensity) for in the Strange situation?
- Proximity and contact-seeking
- Contact maintaining
- Proximity and interaction-avoiding
- Contact and interaction-resisting
- Search behaviours
How did Ainsworth et al (1978) categorise findings?
Placed 106 middle class infants and mothers into categories of Secure (type b), Insecure-avoidant (type A) and insecure resistant (type c)
Secure (type B) findings in strange situation
- Willingness to explore: High
- Stranger anxiety: High
- Separation anxiety: Easy to soothe
- Behaviour at reunion: Enthusiastic
- Percentage of infants: 66%
What was the willingness to explore of Secure, type B?
High
What was the stranger anxiety like of Secure, type B?
High
What was the separation anxiety like in the Secure-Type A?
Easy to soothe
What was behaviour at reunion like in secure type B?
Enthusiastic
What was the percentage of Secure, type B attachments?
0.66
Insecure-Avoidant (type a) findings in strange situation
- Willingness to explore: High
- Stranger anxiety: Low
- Separation anxiety: Indifferent
- Behaviour at reunion: Avoids contact
- Percentage of infants: 22%
What was the willingness to explore of Insecure-Avoidant, type a?
High
What was the stranger anxiety like of Insecure-Avoidant, type a?
Low
What was separation anxiety like of Insecure-Avoidant, type a?
Indifferent
What was the reunion behaviour like of Insecure-Avoidant, type a?
Avoids contact
What was the percentage of Insecure-Avoidant, type a?
0.22
Insecure-Resistant (type c) findings in strange situation
- Willingness to explore: Low
- Stranger anxiety: High
- Separation anxiety: Distressed
- Behaviour at reunion: Seeks and rejects
- Percentage of infants: 12%
What was the willingness to explore of Insecure-Resistant, type c?
Low
What was the stranger anxiety of Insecure-Resistant, type c?
High
What was the separation anxiety of Insecure-Resistant, type c?
Distressed
What was the reunion behaviour of Insecure-Resistant, type c?
seeks and rejects
What was the percentage of Insecure-Resistant, type c?
0.12
What were the similarities found in exploratory behaviour in the strange situation?
Exploratory behaviour declined in all infants from episode 2 onwards and crying increased
What were the similarities found in proximity seeking and contact maintaining behaviour in the strange situation?
intensified during separation and when stranger appeared
What were the similarities found in contact-resisting and proximity-avoiding behaviour in the strange situation?
occurred rarely towards caregiver prior to separation
What were the differences found in the ways infants behaved in the strange situation?
Three main types of children they called A B and C
Secure (Type B)
Harmonious interactions with caregiver, they seek social interaction and intimacy.
How do Secure type B infants react when the caregiver leaves the room?
less likely to cry inconsolably if the caregiver leaves the room
How do secure type B infants behave when anxious?
When anxious, seek close contact with caregiver and are easily soothed, but they may be reluctant to leave caregiverâs side.
How do secure type B infants use their care giver in an unfamiliar environment?
Infant uses the caregiver as a secure base to explore so can function independently.
Insecure avoidant (Type A)
babies who avoid social interaction and intimacy. Characterised by anxiousness and avoidant behaviour, and may become quite angry because their attachments needs are not met. This style is also known as anxious-avoidant.
What do Insecure Avoidant type A babies show little of in the strange situation?
In âstrange situationâ, they show little response to separation and donât seek proximity of their caregiver on reunion
How do Insecure Avoidant type A babies act in an unfamiliar environment
They are happy to explore with or without their caregiver.
How do insecure avoidant type A babies act when picked up?
If picked up they donât resist being put down.
Insecure resistant (Type C)
Infants seek and reject intimacy and social interaction. They respond to separation from their caregiver with immediate and intense distress. On reunion, these children display conflicting desires for and against contact, they may angrily resist being picked up while also trying to maintain proximity.
What are the weaknesses of the Strange situation in measuring types of attachments?
- Fails to measure other types of attachments
- Has ethical issues
- Concerns with validity
How does the strange situation fail to measure other types of attachment?
Main and Solomon (1986) analysed over 200 Strange Situation videotapes and proposed the insecure-disorganised (Type D) attachment type. Shows that some infants donât have a consistent type of attachment. Van Ijzendoorn et al. (1999) further supported this.
Van Ijzendoorn et al. (1999)
meta analysis of nearly 80 studies in the US and found 62% secure; 15% Type A; 9% Type C and 14% Type D
Insecure-disorganised attachment (Type D)
This attachment type is characterised by a lack of consistent patterns of social behaviour. Such infants lack a coherent strategy for dealing with stress of separation. They show very strong attachment behaviour which is suddenly followed by avoidance or looking fearful towards their caregiver.
What are the ethical issues in the strange situation?
Caused possible psychological harm to the infants as they were briefly separated from the caregiver in some of the episodes. In episode 6, 20% cried âdesperatelyâ. When the study was repeated in some other countries, it had to be stopped.
In what country did the strange situation have to be stopped and why?
Japan, because at episode 6 many of the infants were crying uncontrollably.
What are the concerns with validity in the strange situation?
- Main and Weston (1981)
- Low ecological validity
- Lacks population validity
Main and Weston (1981)
found that children behaved differently in the âstrange situationâ depending on which parent they were with. This suggests that the classification of an attachment type may not be valid because what we are measuring is one relationship rather than a childâs general âattachment typeâ.
Low ecological validity in the strange situation
It was carried out in a controlled environment so:
- the child may not be behaving naturally
- the caregiver may not be behaving naturally as she knows she is being observed. This may in turn affect the childâs behaviour.
How does the strange situation lack ecological validity?
Carried out on American, white middle-class mothers and infants so it lacks population validity and may not be generalisable to other cultures and people.
How could the strange situation be culturally biased?
because it is created by Ainsworth who herself was American and living in a very Westernised society - it may therefore not apply to non-Western Cultures or Collectivist cultures where child-rearing may be very different
What are the strengths of the strange situation in measuring types of attachments?
- High reliability
- Real world applications
How does the strange situation have high reliability?
Inter-rater reliability used, Ainsworth found 0.94 agreement between raters. (1.00 being perfect!). This shows the strange situation is a reliable method to test types of attachment because when independent observers were measuring the infantâs behaviour they were in agreement in what they saw. + Bick et al (2012)
Bick et al (2012)
Looked at the inter-rater reliability in a team of trained Strange Situation observers and found agreement on attachment type for 94% of tested babies. This study again supports the idea that the strange situation to measure attachment types is still reliable.
What is the real world applications of the strange situation?
In situations where disordered patterns of attachment develop between infant and caregiver, intervention strategies can be developed. For example, the âCircle of Securityâ project (Cooper et al., 2005).
Who made the âCircle of Securityâ project?
Cooper et al (2005)
âCircle of Securityâ project (Cooper et al., 2005).
Teaches caregivers to understand their infantsâ signals of distress and increase understanding being anxious. The project showed a decrease in the numbers of caregivers classified as disordered (from 60% to 15%) and an increase in infants classed as securely attached (from 32% to 40%)
Maternal reflective functioning
Ainsworth suggestion that secure attachment was linked to maternal sensitivity has been criticised by later researchers. Some studies suggest that maternal reflective thinking rather than sensitivity may be the central mechanism in establishing attachment type.
Raval et al (2001)
found rather low correlations between measures of maternal sensitivity and the strength of attachment
Slade et al. (2005)
found a greater role for maternal reflective functioning - the ability to understand what someone else is thinking and feeling
