| What are the first 3 steps and what does it measure? | 1. The child (9-18months) and carer placed into an empty room
2. The cild is free to explore (encouraged when necessary) = Measures secure-base behaviour (willingness to explore) and reunion response (proximity seeking)
3. A stranger enters, greets the mother and attempts to play with the child - Measures stranger anxiety |
| What are the 2nd lot of 3 steps and what does it measure? | 4. The carer leaves the child with the stranger - Measures separation anxiety and stranger anxiety
5. The carer re-enters and the stranger leaves - Measures reunion reponse (proximity seeking)
6. The carer leaves the alone - Measures separation anxiety |
| What are the last 2 steps and what do they measure? | 7. The stranger re-enters - Measures stranger anxiety
8. The stranger leaves and carer re-enters - Measures reunion reponse (proximity seeking) |
| Who did Ainsworth test the strange situation on? | 106 middle-class American families |
| What are the 3 types of attachment? | Secure, type B
Insecure - Avoidant, type A
Insecure- Resistant, type C |
| What are the percentage of the 3 types of attachment that Ainsworth found? | 66% - Secure
22% - Insecure-Avoidant
12% Insecure-Resistant |
| What does separation anxiety look like with the types of attachment? | Secure - Moderate, easy to soothe on reunion
Avoidant - Low, indifferent, little to no reaction
Resistant - High, immediate and intense stress |
| What does stranger anxiety look like with the types of attachment? | Secure - Moderate
Avoidant - Low
Resistant - High |
| What does reunion behaviour look like with the types of attachment? | Secure - Enthusiastic
Avoidant - Ignores them, avoid contact
Resistant - Seek comfort and reject. Angrily resists being picked up |
| What does willingness to explore look like with the types of attachment? | Secure - High willingness to explore, uses the mother as a safe base and can function independently
Avoidant - High, does not seek proximtiy
Resistant - Low |
| What did reserachers find when re-analysing the tapes? | They re-analysed over 200 video tapes, suggested a fourth attachment type: disorganised characterised by a lack of consistent patterns of social behaviours |
| A strength of Ainsworth's strange situation? | -Procedure had high reliability in assessing attachment types
-Ainsworth found almost perfect agreemnet of 94% between observers rating the beahviouror the infants when engaged in exploratory behaviour
-High level of agreement might be due to the fact that the observations took place in strict and conrolled methods (video recordings), using predetermind behaviour categories, like proximity seeking, wich is easily notes behaviour (compared to small gesture)
-Means that the measurement of attachment were confirmed as meaningful by the observers and can be accepted as reliable |
| A strength of Ainsworth strange situation? | -Good predictive validity
-Large body of reserach shown that babies and toddelers assesed as Type B (secure) tend to have better outcomes than others, both in childhood and adulthood. In childhood this included better achievement in school and less involvment in bullying (McCormick and Kokkinos)
-Securely attached babies also tend to have better mental health in adulthood (Ward.). These babies are assesed as having insecure-resistant attachment and not falling into the types tend to have worse outcomes
-Suggests that the strange situation measures something real and meaningful that is associated with baby's development |
| A weakness of Ainsworth strange situation? | -Lack generalisability
-Ainsworth developed the technique in the UK and US and her original sample was 106 American's. The babies may have different experiences in different cultures and theses experiences may have affected their repsonse
-In a Japanese variation, by Takahashi et al, found that babies displayed very high levles of separation anxiety and so a disproportionate number were classified as insecure-resistant. Also suggests that this anxiety response was not due to high rates of attachment insecurity but the unusual nature in Japan where mother-baby separation is very rare.
-Means that it is very difficuly to know what the strange situaiton is actually measuring when used in individualistic societies given that the test could be culture-bound |
| A weakness of Ainsworth's strange situation? | -Classification system of attachment is incomplete
-Main and Solomon conducted subsequent reserach whereby they anaylsed severl hundred strange situation epidsodes via videotape and suggested that Ainsworth overlooked a 4th types. It was noted that some infnats showed inconsistent patterns of behaviour, which they termed Type D - Insecure-disorganised
-Futhur support for this claim comes from a meta-analysis of studies from the Us conducted by Van Ijzendoorn et al, found that 15% of infants were in fact, classified as type D
-On balance, it's clear that Ainsworth behaviour cateforeis used for classification require updating in the face of this evidence to ensure high internal validity. |
