ainsworth's strange situation

• To be able to observe key attachment behaviours as a means of assessing the quality of a child’s attachment to a caregiver.

  Procedure:

  The strange situation is a controlled observation procedure designed to measure the security of attachment that a child displays towards a caregiver. It takes place in a room with controlled conditions and a 2-way mirror through which psychologists can observe the infants behaviour.

  The procedure has seven episodes, each of 3 minutes. It starts with the child and their caregiver entering an unfamiliar playroom.
• the episodes:

  1. the child is encouraged to look around - tests exploration.
  2. a stranger comes in and tries to interact with the child - tests stranger anxiety.
  3. the caregiver leaves the child and stranger in the room - tests separation and stranger anxiety.
  4. the caregiver returns and the stranger leaves - tests reunion behaviour and secure base.
  5. the caregiver leaves the child alone - tests separation anxiety.
  6. the stranger returns - tests stranger anxiety.
  7. the caregiver returns- tests reunion behaviour.
• Proximity seeking- an infant with a good attachment will stay fairly close to their caregiver.
• Exploration and secure-base behaviour- a good attachment enables a child to feel confident to explore, using their caregiver as a safe base.
• Stranger anxiety- one of the signs of being closely attached is a display of anxiety when a stranger approaches.
• Separation anxiety- another sign of becoming attached is to protest a separation from the caregiver.
• Response to reunion- having a response to getting reunited after being separated from their caregiver for a short period of time.
• Ainsworth found that there were 3 distinct patterns in the way that infants behaved. She identified 3 main types of attachment within the children:

  • type a - insecure avoidant attachment
  • type b - secure attachment
  • type c - insecure resistant attachment
• Type A- Insecure avoidant attachment- these children explore freely but don’t seek proximity or show secure base behaviour. They show little or no reaction when their caregiver leaves and make little effort to make contact when they return. They also show little stranger anxiety.
• Type B- Secure attachment- these children explore happily but regularly go back to their caregiver. They usually show moderate separation and stranger anxiety. SA children require and accept comfort from the caregiver in the reunion stage.
• Type C- Insecure resistant attachment- these children seek greater proximity than others so explore less. They show huge stranger and separation distress but can resist comfort when reunited with their carer.
• Good validity

  Attachment types have been found to be strongly predictive of later development. Babies assessed as secure typically go on to have better outcomes in areas such as success at school, relationships and friendships in adulthood whilst insecure resistant attachment was found to have worser outcomes even including bullying in later childhood and adult mental health problems. This is evidence for the validity of the concept because it can explain subsequent outcomes.
• Good reliability

  The SS shows good inter-rater reliability as different observers watching the same children generally came to the same conclusion on what type of attachment each child had. This may be because the SS takes place under controlled conditions and therefore the behavioural categories are easy to observe. This means we can be confident that the attachment type of an infant identified in the SS doesn’t just depend on who is observing and is an accurate representation.
• The test may be culture-bound

  There is some doubt as to whether the SS is a culture bound test (it doesn’t have the same meaning in countries outside western Europe and the USA) this is for 2 reasons. Firstly, cultural differences in childhood experiences are likely to mean that some children are likely to respond differently to the strange situation. Secondly, the caregivers themselves depending on their culture will be have differently in the SS which will have an influence on how their infants react to them. In conclusion the SS may not be applicable to all places and cultures.