Strange Situation and Types of Attachment Flashcards
What is Attachment?
Attachment: Attachment is an emotional bond between two people. It is a two-way process
that endures over time. The attachment that an infant form with the primary caregiver (usually
the mother) forms the basis of the emotional and social development.
What was the procedure of Strange Situation?
- A controlled observation with a standardized procedure that lasts about 20 minutes was used.
- The room is new to the infant, a 9 x 9-foot space often marked into 16 squares to help quantify the infant’s movements.
-The procedure consists of 8 episodes, where there are various
combinations where the care-giver) and stranger are with, or re-join the infant in order to provoke attachment behaviours.
-Data is collected by a group of observers using a video recorder or one-way mirror. They may record what the infant is doing every 15 seconds
What are they looking for the infants response to?
● Separation from the CG
● Reunion with the CG
● Response to stranger
● The novel environment
A03 - 4th Attachment Type
- Subsequent research has found that Ainsworth et al’s analysis overlooked a fourth type of attachment.
-Main and Solomon (1986) analysed over 200 Strange Situation videotapes and proposed the insecure-disorganised type D. - Such infants lack a coherent strategy for dealing with
the stress of separation. For example, they show very strong attachment behaviour which is suddenly followed by avoidance or looking fearful towards the CG. - In other words, some infants don’t have a consistent type of attachment. This suggests that the conclusions from Ainsworth’s
original study were incomplete, and may limit the reliability of her three-part categorisation, especially to being applicable and generalisable to all CG/infant relationships across all cultures and
all circumstances.
A03 - High interrater reliability
The measurements are confirmed as meaningful if there is agreement amongst observers, called inter-observer reliability, which is determined by comparing the ratings made by a panel of
experienced researchers.
- Ainsworth et al found almost perfect agreement when rating
exploratory behaviour - they found .94 agreement between ratters
-This means that the study can be accepted as being reliable, and suggests that the results are meaningful.
-However, the behaviours measured may have limited internal validity.
- The Strange Situation aims to measure the attachment type of a child.
- However, the strange situation may not measure the attachment style of a child.
- For instance, Main and Weston found that some children behaved differently, depending which parent they were with.
- One possibility is that attachment type may not be the quality of an infant, but rather the quality of a relationship between two people, and so questions the validity of the SS classification.
Significant Real World Application
- In situations where, disordered patterns of attachment develop between infant and caregiver, intervention strategies can be developed.
-For example, the Circle of Security Project 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, which is a strength. However, it was developed in
the United States, therefore it may be bias towards western cultures and not applicable to other parts of the world.
