Ainsworth's strange situation

• strange situation aim

  • to investigate how attachments may vary between children
  • assessed 100 American infants and their mothers to find out if there was a pattern in how they responded to proximity, separation, stranger and reunion
• strange situation procedure

  1. mother, baby and experimenter
  2. mother and baby alone
  3. stranger joins mother and baby
  4. mother leaves baby and stranger alone
  5. mother returns and stranger leaves
  6. mother leaves infant completely alone
  7. stranger returns
  8. mother returns and stranger leaves
• strange situation findings

  • children could be classified into 3 categories (patterns of attachments)
  • secure - 70% of sample
  • insecure avoidant - 20% of sample
  • insecure resistant - 10% of sample
  • Ainsworth suggested that attachment type was determined by the mothers behaviour
• what type of observation was Ainsworth's strange situation?

  controlled- children can be observed interacting in a set up environment where variables are controlled
• secure attachments - Ainsworth's findings

  • 60-75%
  • mother present: will use mother as safe base to explore environment
  • mother leaves: avoids stranger when alone but friendly with mother present (moderate stranger anxiety)
  • mother returns: positive and happy
• insecure avoidant attachments - Ainsworth's findings

  • 20-25%
  • mother present: explore freely without proximity
  • mother leaves: no signs of distress
  • stranger enters: plays normally with stranger present
  • mother returns: shows little interest in mother, mother and stranger are able to comfort infant equally well
• insecure resistant attachments - Ainsworth's findings

  • 3%
  • mother present: seeks strong proximity, explores less
  • mother leaves: intense signs of distress
  • stranger enter: avoids strangers, shows fear of danger
  • mother returns: approaches mother but resists contact, may push her away and cries more
• strange situation strengths

  • inter-rater reliability of observer
  • no experimenter bias
  • support for validity predictive of later development
• strange situation limitations

  • ethical issues- psychological harm,no informed consent
  • low ecological validity - lab experiment (artificial)
  • may not be appropriate to test other cultures this way (culture bound test)
  • only carried research in USA, but in Japan, over 20% had insecure resistant attachments compared to the UK with 3%
• cultural variations

  • INDIVIDUALIST CULTURES: value indépendance with each working to their individual goals (western countries)
  • COLLECTIVIST CULTURES: value cooperation with each working towards the family or group goals (eastern countries e.g. Japan)
• Van ljzendoorn and Kroonenberg meta analysis

  • examined 32 studies conducted in 8 countries
  • 15 were in the USA
  • approx 2000 total children
  • most common attachment type was still secure
  • insecure resistant was least common
  • insecure avoidant was more common in Germany and least common in Japan and Israel
• why were Kroonenberg and Van ljzendoorn's findings not surprising

  • Israeli children were used to being separated from their mother s don't show separation anxiety. explains high % of resistant behaviour
  • German parents seek non-clingy infants which explains high % of avoidant behaviour
  • Japanese children show similar patterns to Israeli children bit for different reasons they as rarely left by their mother so stress caused when they leave is due to shock rather than insecure attachment
• Kroonenberg and Van ljzendoorn meta analysis strengths

  • ethical
  • applies to multi-cultural child care
• Kroonenberg and Van ljzendoorn meta analysis weakness

  • ethnocentric procedure so it's use has an imposed etic, may not be representative as small samples in some countries
• Kroonenberg and Van ljzendoorn meta analysis design strength

  • allows us to view data with much more confidence as the results can be generalised much more than the original single research
• Kroonenberg and Van ljzendoorn meta analysis design weakness


  publication bias - file drawer problem as the researcher may only select the studies that are significant and Amy disregard those with non significant results