the strange situation

• A strength of Ainsworth's research is that the attachment types identified can predict later development. For example, securely attached babies typically have greater success at school and more lasting romantic relationships while insecure resistant attachment is associated with bullying (Kokkinos, 2007) and adult mental health problems (Ward et al, 2006).

  This supports the external validity of the concept as it could explain future outcomes.
• An issue with the Strange Situation is that the research procedure was developed in the United States and is based on their views of what is seen as important in caregiver infant attachments. Therefore, participants from other cultures in this study are judged according to US standards.
• For example, Takahashi (1990) found that due to Japanese mothers being so rarely separated from their babies, there are very high levels of separation anxiety and during the reunion stage, the mothers would rush to their babies and so the child's response was hard to observe.

  This suggests that the Strange Situation is a culture bound test as cultural differences in childhood experiences affect the child's response, as well as the caregiver's, in the study. This undermines the findings since the attachment types can only be applied to Western culture.
• A strength of the Strange Situation is that it shows good inter-rater reliability due to the highly controlled conditions and behavioural categories which are easy to observe. Bick et al. (2012) looked at inter-rater reliability in a team of trained Strange Situation observers and found agreement on attachment type for 94% of tested babies.

  This suggests that due to the standardised procedure, we can be more confident that the data collected is a correct representation of the behaviours measured.