Types of attachment

• Types of attachment:

  • Secure
  • Insecure avoidant
  • Insecure resistant
• Ainsworth's strange situation (method)


  • 106 M/C American infants, 9-18 months, controlled observation.
  • Observed how infants behave during 8 different scenarios, lasting 3 minutes each.
  • Observed following behaviours:
  • Separation anxiety
  • Reunion behaviour
  • Exploration behaviour
  • Stranger anxiety
  • Sensitive responsiveness determines quality of attachments.

  -Sensitive mothers have secure attached babies

  -Insensitive mothers have insecure attached babies
• Ainsworth's strange situation (results) part 1

  • Found that infant displayed one of 3 attachment types:
  • Secure (60-75%)
  • insecure avoidant (20-25%)
  • insecure resistant (3%)
• Ainsworth's strange situation (results) part 2


  Results:

  
• Ainsworth's strange situation (EVAL 1)

  • Strength, Good predictive validity
  • Secure babies have best quality friendships, and describe their adulthood love experiences as happy, friendly and trusting.
  • This suggests Ainsworth's findings can predict behaviours in later life.
  • Increases our confidence that these attachment types are measuring something real as they persist over lifespan
• Ainsworth's strange situation (EVAL 2)

  • Strength, high reliability
  • strict and controlled methods, using predetermined behavioural categories
  • Multiple observers watching an coding the same infant behaviours, agreement on attachment classifications were ensured.
  • High reliability -> high validity
  • Increases validity of strange situations findings
  • Increases confidence that these attachment types are valid observations
• Ainsworth's strange situation (EVAL 3)

  • Weakness, may be culture-bound
  • developed in Britain & US
  • Only valid in certain cultures
  • One reason for this, babies have different experiences in different cultures
  • e.g. Japanese study, babies displayed high separation anxiety
  • But in japan, mother-infant seperation is rare
  • Weakness because strange situation is limited in where it can be used, cannot be generalised to other cultures
  • It does not account for cultural differences in child-rearing practices