Types of attachment strange situation

• Ainsworth created the strange situation to observe key attachment behaviours or assess the quality of a babies attachment to care giver

  Procedure- controlled observation designed to measure the security of attachment, took place in a room with controlled conditions with a two way mirror and cameras
• 7 episodes

  1. Baby is encouraged to explore- tests exploration and secure base
  2. A stranger enters, talks to caregiver and approaches baby- tests stranger anxiety
  3. Caregiver leaves baby and stranger together- tests separation and stranger anxiety 
  4. Caregiver returns and stranger leaves- tests reunion behaviour and exploration/secure base
  5. Caregiver leaves, baby is alone- test separation anxiety
  6. Stranger returns- tests stranger anxiety 
  7. Caregiver returns and is reunited with baby- tests reunion behaviour
• Secure attachment- explore happily but regularly go back to caregiver (secure base and proximity seeking), show moderate separation and stranger anxiety, require and account comfort from caregiver at reunion

  -60-75% of British babies
• Insecure avoidant attachment- explore freely but do not seek proximity or show secure-base behaviour, show littl reaction when care giver leaves or stranger enters. Little effort to seek comfort at reunion

  -20–25% of British babies 
• Insecure resistant attachment- seek greater proximity so explore less, high levels of stranger and separation anxiety but resist comfort at reunion

  -3% of British babies
• One strength is its good predictive validity, predicts aspects of the babies later development. Research shows that babies and toddlers assessed as type b (secure), have better outcomes both in later childhood and in adulthood, like better achievement in school and less involvement in bullying. They also tend to have better mental health in adulthood. Suggests that it measure something meaningful in a babies development.

  It clearly measures something important, however, Kagan suggested that genetically influenced anxiety levels could cause variations in attachment behaviour.
• another strength is it’s good inter-rater reliability, a team of trained observers found agreement on attachment type in 94% of cases. This high-level reliability may be because the procedure takes place under controlled conditions and because behaviour involves large movements and therefore are easy to observe. This means that we can be confident attachment types assessed by the strange situation does not depend on subjective judgements.
• One limitation of the strange situation is that it may not be generalisable to different cultures. It was developed in Britain and US so it may be culture bound. babies have different experiences in different cultures and these experiences may affect their responses to the strange situation, for example, Japanese babies displayed very high levels of separation anxiety so a high number were classified as insecure resistant but this anxiety response was not due to high rates of attachment insecurity but the unusual nature of the experience in Japan where mother baby separation is very rare.