Ainsworths strange situation and cultural variations

• what did ainsworth aim to find

  a method to assess the quality of an attachment between a mother and her child. she aimed to place the infant into a situation of mild stress to encourage them to seek comfort, and of mild novelty to encourage children to explore. both comfort seeking and exploratory behaviours are a sign of secure attachment
• what was the sample used by ainsworth

  100 middle class american infants and their mothers
• what method did ainsworth use

  controlled observation, where she would watch a mother and her infant carry out a a set of pre determined activities. each one taking around 3 minutes
• what procedure did ainsworth use?

  1. mother and child introduced to room
  2. left alone so the child can investigate and explore the room and the toys
  3. a stranger enters the room and talks to the mother. the stranger then gradually tries to approach the infant with a toy
  4. mother leaves stranger and child alone and stranger interacts with child
  5. mother returns and the stranger leaves
  6. child is left alone
  7. stranger returns and tries to engage with child
  8. mother returns and comforts child while stranger leaves inconpsicuously
• what behaviours was ainsworth looking for in the strange situation

  1. seperation anxiety [the distress shown when their caregiver leaves]
  2. the infants willingness to explore
  3. stranger anxiety [the childs response to the stranger with or without their caregiver]
  4. reunion behaviour [the way the caregiver was greeted when they returned]
• what did ainsworth find?


  she grouped them into three bands:

  1. securely attached group - 66 %
  2. avoidant - insecure group - 22 %
  3. resistant - insecure group - 12 %
• what did ainsworth conclude from her study

  • many individual differences between infants that can be represented using the three attachment types
  • majority of the north american children were securely attached
  • there appears to be a link between the mothers behaviour towards the infant and the infants attachment type. suggests that mother behaviour is an important factor determining attachment type
• evaluation of ainsworths strange situation

  + it had a standardised procedure, making it reliable and scientific

  _ low population validity because the sample was all north american, all middle class

  _ it was a small sample, not including fathers, meaning that the results cannot be generalised to all caregivers and their attachments with their children
• Main and Cassidy 


  found another group of children which they referred to as the disorganised group. these children showed inconsistent behaviour. confusion and indecisiveness. they also tended to freeze or show behavviours like rocking
• Takahashi


  he conducted the strange situation procedure using Japanese children. he used a sample of 60 middle class infants aged 1 year old, both boys and girls, alongside their mothers. all the children were raised at home. he found that 68 % were classified as securely attached, similarly to the american version. however, there were no infants classified as avoidant - insecure and 32 % were classified as resistant insecure. this shows that there are cultural differences. japanese children had much higher seperation anxiety.
• in Takahashis experiment the being left alone stage had to be stopped for 90% of the participants because the infants became too distressed
• the variations in japanese children compared to america was thought to be due to the fact that japanese children experience much less seperation. e.g. sleeping with their parents up until 2 years old, bathe with parents, and are carried by mothers. the findings also highlighted another cross cultural difference in the sense that nochildren were classed as insecure avoidant. it is thought that this could be because japanese children are socialised believing this is extremely impolite.
• from Takahashis experiment it was concluded that the strange situation is not a valid form as assessment cross culturally
• evaluation of takahashi

  it has ethical issues because it was not careful of the potential psychological harm caused to children.

  Takahashis study was only conducted on middle class japanese children so it cant be generalised to all other japanese children

  It was only conducted on mothers

  used male and female infants

  it lacked internal reliablity
• grossmann 


  he foound the majoritty of infants were insecurely attached because the gerrman culture requires distance between parents and their infants. this suggested cross cultural variations. he also saw that they didnt engage in proximity seeking behaviour. this showed that there are cross cultural differences, strange situation might not work in germany
• Dogon Tribe 


  this culture was highly different to westernised ones so they conducted the strange situation procedure to assess whether infant attachments were different here. they used 42 mother and infant pairs with infants ranging from 10 months to 12.5 months. they found 0 % had insecure avoidant attachment types, 67 % had secure attachments, 8 % had insecure resistant attachments and 25 % has disorganised attachments. many dogon childrens grandmothers cared for them through the day but it didnt impact attachmment. they doncluded that natural child rearing produced strong attachments
• Kyoung


  they used the strange situation procedure to compare 87 korean families with 113 american families. there were many significant differences: korean infants did not stay close to their mothers and when the korean mothers returned they were more likely to play with their infants. there were a similar proportion of securely attached children in both cultures, suggesting that different child rearing cultures can lead to secure attachment
• Malin


  they found that aboriginal infants in austrialia are discouraged from exploring by threats and sitractions of food so they tend not to use their mothers as a safe base to explore. they instead stay close to her at all times. this causes the infants to be incorrectly labelled as insecurely attached and often being put into care
• Ijzendoorn 


  he conducted a meta analysis into attachmeent to assess if there was a pattern between samples in the distribution of attachment types. 32 studies were used.

  21 % - insecure avoidant

  67 % - secure attachment

  12 % - insecure rresistant

  the highest amount of insecure avoidant was in germany

  intra-cultural differences weere often greater than inter -cultural differences. insecure avoidant attachments were more common in western cultures while insecure resistant attachments were more likely in israel, china and japan

  a cross cultural similarity is secure being most common
• evaluation os Ijzendoorn

  + research shows that the intra cultural differences found were not due to the method. making it reliable

  _ not all cultures were represented - lacking population validity.

  _ dufferences found may be due to socio economic differences rather than culture. for exmaple in israel cities raise there children in westernised ways while in rural areas they are raised by one person

  _ it may be culturally biased due to imposed etic, where researches analyse findings based on their beliefs
• evaluation of cross cultural research

  + standardised procedure -> reliable

  + meta analysis used a large sample -> high validity

  + range of cultures used -> representative
• evaluation of cross cultural research

  the strange situation was designed to be used in american / western societies, meaning it may not be suitable for other cultures [lacks internal validity

  using something designed for one culture is imposed etic as we assume all cultures are the same and that we can generalise across them
• evaluation of cross cultural research

  the samples used might not be representative of the whole country, as they usually only use one class group and there could be socioeconomic differences
• evaluation of cross cultural research

  it only studied mothers and ignores the role fathers may play in child rearing
• evaluation of the strange situation?

  + standardised procedure so its reliable

  + Wartner used is strange situation at children aged 1 year old and then again at 7 years old and found that the results stayed consistent over time --> high temporal validity
• evaluation of the strange situation

  • it only measures the attachment to the infants mother, excludes any other attachments [according to Lamb] - giving it low internal validity
• evaluation of the strange situation

  ignores the temperament hypothesis by blaming mothers. it was only designed for USA use. it doesn't work properly in other countries as child rearing practices are different