Strange Situation

• Ainsworth and Bell (1970) investigated individual differences in attachment styles of 100 middle class American infants between 1 year and 18 months
• What 5 different behaviours did they judge in ‘strange situation‘

  1. Proximity seeking
  2. Exploration and secure base behaviour
  3. Stranger anxiety
  4. Separation anxiety
  5. Reunion behaviour
• Proximity seeking - an infant with goof attachment will stay fairly close to the caregiver
• Exploration and secure base behaviour - good attachment enable a infant to explore using the mother as a safe base
• Stranger anxiety - sign of attachment is how distressed the infant becomes when a stranger approaches
• Separation anxiety - sign of attachment is how distressed the infant becomes when separated from their caregiver
• Reunion behaviour - how the mother is greeted by infant on return
• Procedure of strange situation;

  1. Mother and child introduced to room and left alone; mother sits down and children play
  2. Stranger enters the room and talks to mother
  3. Stranger tries to interact with child
  4. Mother leaves, infant is alone with stranger who comforts baby
  5. Mother returns and stranger leaves
  6. Mother leaves and infant is alone
  7. Stranger returns and tries to comfort infant
  8. Mother returns and stranger leaves
• Ainsworth identified three different types of attachment;

  1. Insecure-Avoidant (Type-A) - 15% of 100
  2. Securely Attached (Type-B) - 70% of 100
  3. Insecure-Resistent (Type-C) - 15% of 100
• Insecure-Avoidant;

  • Infant explored room and showed little distress when mother left
  • Presence and absence of mother did not effect
  • Reacted to mother and stranger in same way
• Securely-Attached;

  • Explored room using mother as safe base
  • Distressed when she left and greeted warmly on return
  • Showed stranger danger
• Insecure-Resistent;

  • Showed intense distress when mother left and showed anger to her when she returned
  • Showed stranger dangers
• Ainsworth as findings provided the first evidence for Bowlbys attachment theory;

  • Securely attached develop positive working model of themselves
  • Avoidant think themselves unworthy caused by rejecting caregiver
  • Resistant children has negative self-schema and exaggerate emotions
• Strange situation is not generalisable as her sample was 100 m/c American children so can not be generalised to different societies.
• Strange situation has low external validity as does not reflect real life behaviour as it is in a controlled environment and can not predict this is how we act in real life.
• Strange situation poses ethical concerns and has been said to stress infants however she argued it is no more distressing than what the children would experience in real life.