Testing attachment quality

• The Strange Situation

  • Testing scenario devised by Mary Ainsworth
  • Based on her concept of the secure base: a caregiver that the child uses as a base for exploration or safe haven when distressed
  • Assesses nature and quality of infant-mother relationship

  
• ‘Secure base’ attachment cycle

  
• The Strange Situation

  • Stage 1 = Mother and child enter the playroom
  • Stage 2 = The child is encouraged to explore
  • Stage 3 = Stranger enters and attempts to interact
  • Stage 4 = Mother leaves while stranger is present
  • Stage 5 = Mother enters and the stranger leaves
  • Stage 6 = Mother leaves
  • Stage 7 = Stranger returns
  • Stage 8 = Mother returns and interacts with child

  
• Attachment styles: Secure Attachment

  Secure attachment (70%)

  • Explore when with mother, distressed when she leaves, happy to see mother return
• Attachment styles: Insecure-avoidant attachment

  Insecure-avoidant attachment (20%)

  • Explore when with mother, is not upset when she leaves, avoid mother when she returns
• Attachment styles: Insecure-resistant attachment

  Insecure-resistant attachment (10%)

  • Less likely to explore overall, is the most distressed when mother leaves, stays close to mother when she returns, but may act angry
• Attachment styles: Insecure-disorganised attachment

  Insecure-disorganised attachment

  • Displays approach/avoidance behaviour, disoriented when reunited
• Outcomes of early attachment: Cognitivedevelopment

  • High-quality parent-child relationships → Better cognitive development at age 7
  • Greater class participation and better grade
• Outcomes of early attachment: Social development

  • More positive emotions, empathy, social competence
  • Better-quality friendships, and more positive peer impressions
  • Linked to quality of adult romantic relationships
• Outcomes of early attachment: Stability does not preclude change

  • Insecurely-attached infants can develop better relationships with parents by school age (and vice versa)
  • Improvement is possible, including through intervention
• What’s missing?

  • Child effects
  • Bidirectional effects between child and caregiver
  • Cross-cultural differences

  Is the ‘Strange Situation’ the best way to measure attachment globally?
• Child effects on attachment

  • There is no consensus on whether child temperament influences attachment
  • A baby’s behavior will influence the caregiver’s behavior (for example colicky, irritable, happy)
  • Internal working models that can be transferred by parents inter-generationally
• Bidirectional effects in attachment

  
• Bidirectional effects in attachment

  
• Cross-cultural differences in attachment


  Large differences across cultures in response to the Strange Situation

  • Strange Situation may be less (or more) ‘strange’ in different cultures
  • Strange Situation may have limitations in detecting attachment patterns

  
• Effects of social deprivation

  1. The babies reduced their exploration, locomotion, and motor action.
  2. The babies reacted with terror, anger, and fear to any person. If the person remained, the baby would sometimes cling frantically to them.
  3. Rocking back and forth, biting self, banging their head, and other rocking patterns were evidenced.
  4. Babies developed vacant stares and seemed unaware of their environment.
  5. 37% of these babies died by age 2 (compared with 0% in the other environment).
• Effects of social deprivation: Cognitive development

  
• Social deprivation in primates

  The effects on Harlow’s monkeys were often so devastating that today it would be exceedingly difficult to justify further research that would inflict such suffering on individuals of any species

  
• Undoing the effects of social deprivation

  • In some cases, it is possible to undo the harmful effects of early social deprivation
  • Rehabilitation doesn’t happen in many cases, and the neural correlates of social deprivation are still poorly understood
  • However, change is possible, even in the most extreme circumstances