strange situation

• Ainsworths strange situation was to test the nature of attachment. She used a novel environment in a 9x9 foot space marked into 16 squares. The procedure consists of 8 episodes testing stranger anxiety, separation anxiety, reunion behaviour and a novel environment. The researchers were behind a 1-way mirror or a video recorder and used event sampling with: proximity and contact seeking behaviours, contact maintaining behaviours, proximity and interaction-avoiding behaviours, contact and interaction resisting behaviours and search behaviours scored for intensity on a scale of 1-7.
• 2. 106 middle class infants were involved and found 3 different types of behaviours which are, type B, secure attachment. This is the type for those who have cooperative and harmonious interactions with their caregiver, they aren’t likely to cry when their caregiver leaves the room and shows some distress when left with a stranger. They seek intimacy and use caregiver as secure base to explore. 66% are this type.
• 3. Type A is insecure avoidant which is the children who avoid intimacy and interaction. Little response to separation and don’t seek proximity on reunion. High levels of anxiousness and can explore without secure base. This was found to be 22% of the infants. Type C is insecure resistant. This type both seeks and resists intimacy and interactions. Separation leads to immediate and intense distress and on reunion they display conflicting behaviours for and against contact, they may be angry to be picked up but remain in proximity. This was 12% of the infants.
• A strength of the strange situation is the real-world application.

  Research into attachment types can reduce the more insecure attachment types and increase the secure ones. The circle of security project teaches caregivers to better understand their infants’ signals of distress and increase their understanding. The project showed a decrease of disorganised attachments (60-15%) and increase of secure (32-40%).

  This supports the research on attachment types as it can be used to improve children’s lives.
• This study also has high inter-rater reliability and is therefore a strength.

  To be a meaningful study, there must be a good inter-rater reliability which is determined by comparing the ratings made by a panel of experienced judges. Ainsworth found an almost perfect agreement when rating the behaviour, they found a .94 agreement between them (1.00 would be perfect).

  This means the findings can be seen as reliable due to this almost perfect agreement between researchers.

   
• One criticism of the strange situation is if it measures the attachment type or one relationship. Researchers found that children behave differently depending on which parent they are with. This suggests that they are just measuring the behaviour which is with one particular relationship rather than getting a valid classification of the attachment type of the child. But, Bowlby’s concept of monotropy says that the attachment type is related to that one relationship. This suggests that the strange situation does have internal validity and supports the role of monotropy found by Bowlby.
• An issue with this study is that a 4th type of attachment was found after being missed by Ainsworth. Over 200 strange situation videotapes were analysed and the insecure-disorganised (type D) was proposed as a 4th attachment type. This type is characterised by a lack of consistent patterns of social behaviour. This is due to many infants not having any consistency in their behaviour such as having very strong attachment behaviour, followed by avoidance. This suggests that Ainsworth’s original findings were oversimplified as they don’t account for all attachment behaviours.