types of attachment

• who are the psychologists

  ainsworth and bell 1970
• what did ainsworth and bell use

  strange situation
• who and what did the psychologists use the ss for and on

  to see how infants between 9-18 months behave under conditions of mild stress.
• what was the sample

  100 us middle class mothers and infants in a controlled observation
• what are the attachment types

  secure, insecure resistant and insecure avoidant
• how do secure react under the behaviours measured

  moderate anxiety, avoids stranger, positive and happy with mother and sees her as a safe base
• what are the behaviours measured

  willingness to explore, separation and stranger anxiety and reunion behaviour
• how did insecure resistant react to the behaviours measured

  signs of intense stress, high level of stranger anxiety, resist contact with mother and crying more
• how did insecure avoidant react to the behaviours measured

  no sign of stress, avoids stranger but still plays happily around the stranger, little interest in mother when returned and doesnt use mother as a secure base
• what is a strength with this study

  effective means of looking at infants attachments to their mothers, as replication was easy as it was controlled making this scientific
• what is a weakness of this study

  ethical issues, most situations made the infant distressed shown through the seperating of the mother, crying, screaming etc. therefore causing psychological harm
• what is another weakness of this study

  biased sample, 100 middle class american women doesnt account for other classes or countries. therefore cant be generalised
• What is a final weakness of this study?

  Lack of internal validity, This is seen through children forming multiple attachments with different people. We can see this through the fact the children act differently depending on who they were with. Therefore, it measure relationships with different people not the actual attachment type.